The MiQuest team is a small yet dedicated group of industry experts who bring remarkable backgrounds together with their passion for dermatology. This innovative, forward-thinking team comprises leading pharmacists, GPs, scientists, and AI experts whose goal is to revolutionise the world of personalised skincare.
Meet the Team
Dr. Daniel Kirby - Pharmaceutics Lecturer and Formulation Research Fellow
Daniel has been a lecturer in pharmaceutics at Aston Pharmacy School since 2010. His main area of research is the formulation of age-appropriate medicines for paediatric and geriatric populations. He has a PhD on the formulation and characterisation of particulate delivery systems for TB vaccines, and his previous work includes acting as Formulation Research Fellow for the UK Medicines for Children Research Network.
Dr. Julian Smith - Registered Pharmacist and Quality Assurance Expert
Julian brings a dynamic and interesting career to his role at MiQuest. He has worked as a hospital pharmacist, and was involved in the manufacture of pharmaceutical ‘specials’ in licensed production units. Alongside this, he has worked across academia and in community pharmacy. He is a director at Viridian Pharma which sees him develop and apply for licensed pharmaceutical products. Julian is an EU Qualified Person in the Pharmaceutical industry and has mentored a number of people to Qualified Person status. Julian also has a PhD in transdermal drug delivery.
Professor Afzal Mohammed - Head of Pharmaceutics and Particle Engineering Expert
Afzal is the Head of Pharmaceutics at Aston University, and an internationally-leading scientist in particle engineering and paediatric formulation development. In addition, Afzal is the lead inventor of a patented novel dry particle coating technology. He established Aston Particle Technologies Ltd in July 2016 in order to unlock the commercial potential for this technology. Afzal has published papers widely and presented his findings at numerous national and international conferences. Afzal is also an associate editor for the Journal of Pharmaceutics and the BMC Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Dr. Hiep Huatan - Research Scientist and Pharmaceutical Portfolio Developer
Hiep boasts a great deal of expertise in polymeric drug delivery and has a PhD in the subject from the University of Manchester. He has worked as a research scientist at Pfizer, where he later went on to become one of their youngest ever section managers. He then progressed to become a departmental manager responsible for the development of their portfolio of new drugs.
Rod - Expert Drug Delivery Formulation Scientist
Rod is a PhD research scientist who has industry experience as a senior analytical/formulation chemist. This, combined with his academic background, puts him in a unique position to be hands-on with product development from API candidate to final product formulation, assay development and testing.
Dr. John Gumm - Pharmaceutical Chemist with a Passion for Teaching
John brings a diverse background in pharmaceutical analysis together with 13 years of creative teaching experience. He has Post-Doctoral lab experience in materials synthesis and analysis, and his aim is to inspire the next generation of scientists using exciting and innovative teaching methods.
Dr. Sumyra Begum - GP with a Keen Interest in Dermatology
Sumyra’s medical background lies in the work she does as a busy GP in Birmingham. She is a key member of MiQuest’s multidisciplinary team and brings her keen interest in dermatology to this role.
The AI Scientists
Professor Ashiq Anjum - Expert in Distributed Systems and Machine Learning
Ashiq is a professor of distributed systems at the University of Leicester. His areas of research include data intensive distributed systems, distributed machine learning models, and high performance analytics platforms for continuous processing of streaming data. Ashiq has collaborated with international projects including CERN Geneva, and also works closely with aerospace, rail, and automobile companies to optimise infrastructures and services.
Dr. Craig - AI Researcher and Self-Learning Digital Twins Specialist
Dr. Craig undertook a PhD in collaboration with the LHC Detector Control team at CERN, and whilst there his work was nominated for the CERN Best Student Research Award. Dr. Craig has also worked as a Senior Data Designer and a teaching fellow in AI & ML at the University of Leicester. His current position is Research Lecturer. He is focused on Self-Learning Digital Twins, and integrating Physics-Informed Neural Networks as part of the AI for NetZero project.
Saad - Researcher and Data Scientist in AI
Saad brings over five years’ experience in AI research, production lifecycle, technical leadership, and consulting roles across UK and Europe to his role at MiQuest. Saad is currently pursuing a PhD whilst also consulting for several tech-affiliated organisations.
Ali Zahir - Distributed Computing Expert and Industry Professional
Ali is an accomplished researcher, with over 15 years of experience in both industry and academia. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Leicester. His research is particularly focused on elevating data processing workflows in cloud and edge computing environments, with the aim to optimise the handling of data-intensive scientific analyses.
As you can see, the team behind MiQuest is a bunch of highly-skilled individuals each with their own niche area of interest that they bring to their roles. If you’re keen to find out more about our expert team and their various credentials please take a look here.
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