That’s largely due to the methods used to screen drug leads, which prioritize potency over solubility.“It’s a challenge to formulate these candidates,” Yu says. That allows the researchers to “tune” the properties of the material by using different processing conditions. 2014;118:8203-8209. “The coated particles are essentially pure drug, making it a high-loading, stable amorphous formulation,” he says.The approach, developed using acid-base chemistry, uses very simple steps that can easily be scaled up and incorporated into current drug manufacturing processes at low cost, he says. in Material Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, China, 2018. Jae-Hyuk Yu Professor of Bacteriology and Genetics 3155 Microbial Sciences Building Office: (608) 262-4696 Lab: (608) 263-6830 jyu1@wisc.edu Cited by. B.E. My research interest is about the mechanism of glass crystal (GC) growth. That alignment controls properties such as light transmission. He aims to tweak the structure of the material to make a sort of hybrid that falls between crystals and glasses, one in which researchers can control the molecular alignment.Individual molecules can rotate freely within a liquid crystal but become frozen into place as it forms a glass. Year; Kirkendall effect and lattice contraction in nanocatalysts: a new strategy to enhance sustainable activity. Crystal growth is controlled by diffusion in highly supercooled liquid. Ph.D. student in Pharmaceutical Sciences, UW-Madison.
A Multilevel Investigation of the Moderating Roles of Subsidiary Support and Cultural Distance. Electrochemistry Catalysis Nanotechnology. Such formulations would have broad use in global health applications. Drug manufacturers have contended with this problem by adding polymers and other materials to the mix to help stabilize the formulation and prevent crystallization. Junguang Yu | jyu288@wisc.edu. Amorphous materials are becoming a general strategy for solving this problem.”He is taking the approach a step further, using insights into the structure and motion of molecules within these amorphous solids to design better pharmaceuticals and more.The structure of solid materials can be characterized as crystalline or amorphous, depending on the internal arrangement of its molecules. And once formed, not all remain amorphous for long.“One problem with amorphous materials is that they tend to crystallize,” he says.That crystallization reduces the solubility of the drug, lowering its effective concentration. Yu’s work focuses on materials with glassy structure, called amorphous solids.There’s an overall trend that newer drug candidates are less soluble than those developed in past decades, Yu says. Articles Cited by Co-authors. This greatly improved stability against crystallization.”The nano-coating is so thin that it adds very little non-drug material to the overall formulation, while targeting the area of greatest instability.

Crystals are highly stable and resist breakdown—useful when a drug is sitting in a warehouse, but not once a pill has been ingested. This requires striking a balance between stability and solubility, properties that are determined by the material’s molecular structure. For example, there’s huge interest in producing multi-drug combinations to simplify treatment regimens for HIV, cancer, and other complex diseases.

Professor Lian Yu studies how molecules pack in materials to design better drug formulations, cell phone displays and more.By Jill SakaiPhotos by Sally Griffith-OhGlass has many practical uses: windows, optical fibers, computer screens—and increasingly, pharmaceuticals.Lian Yu, a professor in the Ph “When the two crystalline particles dissolve, they dissolve at their own rate, determined by their solubility. Sort by citations Sort by year Sort by title. DuPont. Powell CT, Paeng K, Chen Z, Richert R, Yu L, Ediger MD. Many formulations also incorporate polymers or other non-drug compounds into the material to improve stability, solubility, or other characteristics.Mixing different molecules together is much easier in a liquid than a solid such as a crystal, Yu says, and from a chemical standpoint, glass is just a frozen state of liquid. Foster School of Business University of Washington Box: 353226 Seattle, WA 98195-3226

But in a glass, the two are dissolved in each other and are released at the same time.”For these reasons, amorphous formulation has become an important approach to improving the delivery of poorly soluble drugs. They are experimenting with different rates of cooling and solvent evaporation and applying an external electric field, which can help align molecules with an electrostatic potential.Yu hopes that the knowledge his research group produces can be applied in manufacturing to tailor the properties of liquid crystal glasses for many applications.

The “Because they have different rates of rotation, you can freeze the slow rotation and therefore freeze the development of the liquid crystal order,” he says. Journal of Physical Chemistry B. Yu’s approach builds on a recent discovery about what causes the instability of an amorphous drug particle.“It grows crystals on the outer surface because the molecules move very rapidly on the outside, but not inside,” Yu explains.

Yu (Crystal) Zhang. The molecules remain suspended in the glass like a mosquito trapped in a chunk of amber.“When you have crystals, you could have drug A and drug B crystals next to each other. Explore {{searchView.params.phrase}} by color family

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has filed a patent based on Yu’s research to help move the technology toward commercialization. You can process the material as a liquid and then freeze it into a solid glass,” he says. “The magic happens in the liquid state. Title. Not all materials will readily form a glass.

Amorphous materials have many uses beyond pharmaceuticals. “We’re optimistic that these improved materials will be useful for organic light emitting diodes and for amorphous pharmaceuticals.” World-class leader in pharmacy education, research, and service in the pharmaceutical, social, and clinical sciences.