College of Pharmacy
Twin Cities
Pharmaceutical crystals often exhibit properties that are not suitable for manufacturing the tablet dosage form. For example, some crystals are difficult to compress and others are sensitive to pressure and the presence of moisture. The goal of this research is to engineer pharmaceutical crystals to overcome such deficiencies. Successful engineering relies on the understanding of the structure-property relationship of organic crystals. The understanding of this relationship may in turn be facilitated by the ability to model the packing of molecules in a crystal and to calculate energetic and mechanical properties of crystals. With such knowledge, crystals of superior pharmaceutical properties can be designed and researchers can develop strategies to produce them in large quantity. This enables the expedited development of robust formulations and a process for manufacturing tablet products of the highest quality.