Abstract and short bio - Ben Boyd

Prof. Ben Boyd
Department of Pharmacy, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, ben.boyd@sund.ku.dk

Abstract
Lyotropic liquid crystals are an amazing material. Consisting of primarily lipid and water, they have a wide range of attributes not found together in a single material. They offer biocompatibility, a range of rheological properties from dispersions with the viscosity of water up to cubic phase almost solid gels, compartmentalisation of hydrophilic cargo and the possibility to trigger reversible changes in drug release. With these highly attractive properties for drug delivery, it is surprising that very few products are actually on the market based on this technology. In this presentation I will aim to provide an appreciation of the potential applications of lyotropic liquid crystal systems, and a view to the limitations but also opportunities they present for the future.

Short bio
Prof. Ben Boyd is a colloid and physical chemist with PhD from the University of Melbourne. After industry experience in the explosives and pharmaceutical industries, he commenced an academic position at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) at Monash University in Australia and concurrently holds a Novo Nordisk Laureate Research Fellowship, based primarily at the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on colloidal and structural aspects of lipids and lipid self-assembly during digestion, and his group is active in developing new synchrotron and spectroscopy-based characterization approaches for lipid and solid-state systems. He is an elected Fellow of the Controlled Release Society, and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He has held leadership positions across a range of scientific societies, most recently as President of the Controlled Release Society and President of the Australasian Colloid and Interface Society. He has also served as co-editor of the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, and was Editor for Asia for Drug Delivery and Translational Research.