Danish Malik

Loughborough University is offering fully funded PhD opportunities for October 2027 entry in Professor Danish Malik’s industrial biotechnology group. The research addresses bacteriophage manufacturing, formulation and delivery, with the goal of transforming phages from a promising antimicrobial approach into medicines that can be licensed and administered to patients. Applicants can develop a project around one of four research themes: Scalable phage production: development of instrumented bioreactor processes, including real-time digital twins. Downstream processing: investigation of tangential flow filtration (TFF), monolith chromatography and impurity profiling. Storage stability: use of spray drying and freeze drying to improve the stability and storage of phage products. Inhaled delivery: development and evaluation of delivery through nebulisers and dry powder inhalers. The work combines bacteriophage biology with bioprocessing, pharmaceutical formulation and therapeutic delivery. It is suited to research interested in antimicrobial resistance, scalable manufacturing and the development of phage-based medicines. Students will work within Malik’s group at Loughborough University and can shape a proposal around the theme most closely aligned with their interests. The opportunity is supported through the China Scholarship Council–Loughborough scheme.