Dr Nihad Alhashimi

Working as a university lecturer for undergraduate and postgraduate modules enhanced my teaching experience in Higher Education and research long-term experience and skills. These include effective time management, working under pressure, organisation, communication, supervision, professionalism, and leadership. I contribute to the teaching and assessment, in the School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry. 

Modules covered:

• Drug Design and Medicine Development
• Analytical Chemistry
• Sterile Product – Making medicines
• Microbiology and biosciences 

As an academic member with an ethnic minority background, my teaching experience with MPharm and master students in chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences improved by providing excellent support for ethnic minorities and working in an inclusive and diverse environment. I attained a lively atmosphere by making one-to-one online sessions, preparing interactive workshops, and advantaging the students from online resources. Supervising masters and undergrad students enabled me to experience designing projects, managing, and organising teamwork. I worked effectively as part of a collaborative research group to arrange a collaboration with other universities. This also has enabled me to be a peer-reviewer in Pharmaceutical Formulation and Drug Delivery journal to assess the validity, quality, and originality of articles.

I attained excellent skills by participating in a Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) mentoring scheme that enabled me to provide additional targeted support for students. This also enriched my experience to provide support to postgraduate students during the pandemic. 

Qualifications and expertise

• Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy (AFHEA), 2018

Undergraduate courses taught

• Pharmaceutical Science BSc (Hons)
• Pharmaceutical Science MPharmSci (Hons)
• Pharmacy MPharm (Hons)

Postgraduate courses taught

• Analytical Chemistry MSc
• Pharmaceutical Analysis MSc
• Pharmaceutical Science MSc

My research and lab experience focused on preparing new oral formulations from pharmaceutical polymers to prepare modified-release formulations (tablets, pellets, microparticles). I used various physicochemical characterisation techniques such as HPLC, GC, Karl Fischer, titration, UV-vis, FT-IR, HNMR, DSC, XRPD, hot plate microscopy, SEM, solubility, freeze & spray drying, extrusion spheronisation, pellets coating and dissolution studies according to GMP. I have a complete understanding of British and European pharmacopoeia. To ensure high accuracy and quality for my research findings, I developed and validated new HPLC methods for different APIs.  

My research focuses on oral dosage forms with modified release properties. The presence of different routes of drug administration and despite the advantages offered by each one, the oral route is still the most preferred delivery system. However, Dysphagia and swallowing problems that could be associated with many diseases such as mouth ulcers, and oesophageal and mouth cancer make it difficult for the patient to swallow oral solid dosage forms. Orodispersible tablets (ODTs) were introduced to overcome swallowing difficulties. These tablets disintegrate in the mouth allowing the fast drug release into the biological system. Orodispersible tablets are also known as fast-dissolving tablets. Many approaches have been explored and developed in order to improve ODTs properties. Sustained-release ODTs that are based on micro/nanoparticles have arisen from these studies, to decrease dose frequency and enhance patient compliance.

Oral/Poster presentations 

• The correlation between particle size and elastic properties of pharmaceutical polymers. Nihad AL-hashimi, Abyan Hodon, Raid Alany, Mohammed Khoder, Amr Elshaer. Poster presentation at UKICRS conference, University of Strathclyde, 2017
• Orodispersible tablets of modified propranolol hydrochloride release across the particulate system. Nihad Al-Hashimi, Rona Faizy, Raid Alany, Mohammed Khoder, Amr Elshaer. Oral presentations at Chemistry & Pharmacy Research Group, Kingston University London, 2019
• Modification of indomethacin release across Orodispersible tablets using pH-dependent polymers. Nihad Al-hashimi1, Raid Alany1, Mohammed Khoder1, Amr Elshaer1. Poster presentation at Sheffield university workshop, Switzerland, 2019
• Orodispersible tablets of modified indomethacin release across the particulate system. Nihad Al-hashimi, Raid Alany, Mohammed Khoder, Amr Elshaer. Poster presentation at the APS International PharmSci Conference, University of Greenwich, 2019
• Modification of indomethacin release using Orodispersible tablets through Eudragit L100 pellets. Nihad Al-hashimi1, Raid Alany1, Mohammed Khoder1, Amr Elshaer1. Poster presentation at Royal Society of Chemistry event, Kingston University London, 2019

Publications/Manuscripts

• Al-Hashimi, N., Babenko, M., Saaed, M., Kargar, N. and ElShaer, A., 2021. The Impact of Natural and Synthetic Polymers in Formulating Micro and Nanoparticles for Anti-Diabetic Drugs. Current Drug Delivery, [online] 18(3), pp.271-288
• Al-Hashimi, N., Begg, N., Alany, R., Hassanin, H. and Elshaer, A., 2018. Oral Modified Release Multiple-Unit Particulate Systems: Compressed Pellets, Microparticles and Nanoparticles. Pharmaceutics, [online] 10(4), p.176.

Publications

My research is related to the pharmaceutical industry developing oral pharmaceutical formulations, I build collaborations with academic staff and companies.