Research program
Efficient control of delivery and release will greatly enhance the effectiveness of functional ingredients in a diverse range of products. Additionally, controlled delivery can reduce unwanted side effects caused by overdosing or release at the wrong time or wrong site.
Thus, the delivery of active ingredients or additives to a target site with subsequent control of dosage and release kinetics is an underlying goal of almost all types of formulations. Although most familiar in the context of therapeutic agents in human health, control of delivery and release is also germane to the use of active agents in environmental, consumer and industrial applications - representing a coherent and challenging scientific theme drawing on a unified understanding of interactions in the colloidal domain and at interfaces.
Harnessing the recently developed tools mentioned above, and developing new technologies for controlling delivery and release, are therefore centrally placed within the areas of YKI's competency.
The overall program
The overall program further develops the science of the current platform technologies as well as supportive technologies such as characterisation and analysis methods. This development is carried out in a base research sub-program. The overall program also applies the platforms and science in application-oriented projects, typically in a later phase, successfully combining the basic understanding and knowledge from different fields for optimal innovation.
CODIRECT’s Research Program has, from the start, been based on four mutually supporting focus areas to effectively respond to the industrial interests.
The focus areas of CODIRECT in phase 2 are:
- Carrier Materials
- Responsive Systems
- Loading and Release Strategies
- Perception Delivery
Common to all of them is the combination of basic-oriented and application-oriented projects that build on the acquired fundamental knowledge. The application projects will thus act as an efficient transfer of knowledge mechanism, where new findings are directly used to successfully meet the industrial need for specific product sectors. Active involvement of the industrial partners is essential in all parts of the program, and will escalate in the application projects with greater use of industrial in-kind contributions.