New Cambridge-India lecture scheme set up

The scheme, named Cambridge-Hamied Lecture Scheme, is named after its founder Yusuf Hamied, who is an alumnus of the university's Department of Chemistry and Christ's College.

Professor Ashwinin Nangia of the University of Hyderabad recently visited Cambridge under the scheme, a university release said.

Professor Nangia spent five weeks in the laboratory of Professor Bill Jones, Head of the Department of Chemistry, to interact on research topics related to solid state forms of drugs, solubility improvement in pharmaceuticals, analysis of drug forms and tablets, and related issues.

He was based in the department for the entire duration, giving a chance to have close interactions with members of Professor Jones' group and also of Dr Graeme Day. Both experimental and computational problems were addressed in the several weekly group meetings.

Topics such as the difficulty of crystallisation of drug molecules, their characterisation, solubility measurements, amorphous phases and their preparation and stabilisation, were discussed during these meetings and in informal sessions, the release said.

The advantage of dovetailing computational searches with solid form screen in the laboratory was highlighted, and this joint approach can lead to the identification of novel polymorphs and cocrystals that may have been missed otherwise.

A few themes were identified for joint collaboration and will be developed into a workable joint research problem in the coming months.

Professor Nangia gave a lecture entitled "Polymorphs and Cocrystals" during his stay at Cambridge.