The Molecular Pharmaceutics & Drug Delivery Seminar Series Presents:
Ben Southard, Doctoral Candidate – Cui and Williams Labs
Thin-Film Freeze-Drying: From First Principles to New Applications
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
PHR 4.114 and Zoom
Ben attended the University of Oklahoma, earning a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering working with Dr. Roger Harrison on developing conjugates of membrane-binding proteins and chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of leukemia and breast cancer. He spent a year and a half working as a research technologist in the biotechnology and food safety industries to optimize production-scale live probiotic fermentation and lyophilization processes. Ben began his studies at UT Austin in the Fall of 2021, co-supervised by Dr. Bill Williams and Dr. Zhengrong Cui. His work has revolved around characterization of the fundamental heat and mass transfer phenomena and potential scale-up of thin-film freeze-drying and applying that knowledge to prepare various biologics as inhalable dry powders, particularly bacteriophage for treatment of antibiotic-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis.