Medway school of pharmacy

Ali obtained his pharmacy degree (PharmD) in 1989 from Tabriz School of Pharmacy, Iran. He completed his PhD on Pharmaceutical Technology at John Moores University, Liverpool in 1996 and has been a qualified pharmacist since 1989.

He held a lectureship (1997 - 2001), and senior lectureship (2001 - 2003) at the School of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. During this period he was head of postgraduate studies and also vice-dean for research for a period of 4 years in Tabriz School of Pharmacy.

In 2003 he was appointed as lecturer of pharmaceutics at King’s College London, Department of Pharmacy. He worked as professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at Tabriz School of Pharmacy prior to this appointment as senior lecturer of Pharmaceutics at Medway School of Pharmacy. He has supervised over 70 MPharm project students and 8 PhD postgraduate students at several institutions in various fields of pharmaceutical technology. At the present he has 4 PhD students in his lab working on particle engineering, dissolution enhancement techniques and controlled release formulations. He is a regular reviewer for many international pharmacy journals and editorial board of several journals in pharmaceutical sciences.

Ali teaches on the MPharm Programme and is course coordinator of Medicines Design and Manufacture 2 (MP2) within the undergraduate programme. He has published a significant number of papers (over 75 research articles) on various fields of pharmaceutics, mainly, tableting, particle engineering, skin delivery and controlled-release formulations.

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Particle engineering for drug delivery (oral and pulmonary delivery)

Tablets are still by far the most widely used, simple and convenient dosage forms. Unfortunately, most drug powders are poorly water-soluble or poorly compactible. Particle engineering techniques can be used in order to improve the physico-chemical and physico-mechanical properties of drugs and excipients. This is one of the main research interests of this laboratory. We use crystal modification techniques in order to produce micro- and nano-particles with improved dissolution, solubility, compressibility, compactibility and deep lung penetration.

Controlled release formulation

Achieving zero order release formulations is one of the main challenges in dosage form design. The current research in this field involves design of new devices (e.g. osmotic devices, liquisolid compacts), exploring naturally occurring polymers for preparation of tablet matrices and new approaches to achieve sustained and zero order release pattern.

Transdermal delivery

Transdermal drug delivery through the skin has a number of advantages over oral delivery. Transdermal delivery leads to better absorption, greater flexibility in how the drugs are administered, and more choices for patients in how they receive these important drugs. However, the skin, in particular the stratum corneum, poses a formidable barrier to drug penetration thereby limiting topical and transdermal bioavailability. A special focus of this laboratory is to explore the chemical or physical means of enhancing the skin delivery of drugs.

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Selected Recent Publications

• J. Emami, H. Hamishekar, A.R. najafabadi, K. Gilani, M. Minaiyan, H. Mahdavi, A. Nokhodchi (2009) A Novel Approach to Prepare Insulin-Loaded Poly(Lactic-Co-Glycolic Acid) Microcapsules and the Protein Stability Study. J. Pharm. Sci. (in press).
• Y. Javadzadeh, H. Shariati, E. Movahhed-Danesh, A. Nokhodchi (2009) Effect of some commercial grades of cellulose microcrystalline on flowablity, compressibility and dissolution profile of piroxicam liquisolid compacts. Drug Dev. Ind. Pharm. (in press)
• H. Hamishekar, J. Emami, A.R. Najafabadi, K. Gilani, M. Minaiyan, H. Mahdavai, A. Nokhodchi (2009) Particle size design of PLGA microspheres for pulmonary drug delivery: Mathematical modeling and statistical optimization using response surface methodology. J. Microencapsulation 26, 1-8.
• Y. Javadzadeh, L. Musaalrezaei, A. Nokhodchi (2008) Liquisolid technique as a new approach to sustain propranolol hydrochloride release from tablet matrices. Int. J. Pharm. 362, 102-108.
• M. Barzegar-Jalali, K. Adibkia, H.Valizadeh, M.R. Siahi Shadbad, A. Nokhodchi, Y. Omidi, G. Mohammadi, S. Hallaj-Nezhadi, M. Hasan. (2008) Kinetic analysis of drug release from nanoparticles, J. Pharm. Pharmaceut. Sci. 11,167-77
• J. Varshosaz, R. Talari, A. Nokhodchi (2008) Dissolution enhancement of gliclazide using in situ micrcronization by solvent change method. Powder Technology (accepted).
• M. Maghsoodi, Ali Nokhodchi (2008) Preparation of spherical crystal agglomerates of naproxen containing disintegrant for direct tablet making by spherical crystallization technique. AAPS Pharm. Sci. Tech. 9, 54-59.
• A. Nokhodchi; H. Nazemiyeh; A. Khodaparast; T. Sorkh-Shahan; H. Valizadeh; J.L. Ford (2008) An In Vitro Evaluation of Fenugreek Mucilage as a Potential Excipient for Oral Controlled-Release Matrix Tablet. Drug Dev. Ind. Pharm. 34, 323-329.
• Javad Shokri, Mahbobeh Shahsavari , Parinaz Ahmadi, Parisa Rashidi, A. Rajabi-Siahboomi, Ali Nokhodchi (2008) Swellable elementary osmotic pump (SEOP): An effective device for delivery of poorly water- soluble drug. Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm. 68, 289-297.
• Maryam Maghsoodi, Omid Taghizadeh, Gary P. Martin and Ali Nokhodchi (2008) Particle design of naproxen-disintegrant agglomerates for direct compression by a crystallo-co-agglomeration technique. Int. J. Pharm., 351, 45-54.
• T. Ghafourian, Kh. Adibkia, A. Safari, F. Parviz, A. Nokhodchi (2007) A Drug release study from hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) matrices using QSPR modeling. J. Pharm. Sci., 96, 3334-3351.
• Kh. Adibkia, Y. Omidi, A.R. Javadzadeh, M. Barzegar-Jalali, J. Barar, N. Maleki, G. Mohammadi, Ali Nokhodchi (2007), Inhibition of Endotoxin-Induced Uveitis by Methylprednisolone Acetate Nanosuspension in rabbits. J. Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 23, 421-432.
• Yousef Javadzadeh, Baharak Jafari-Navimipour, Ali Nokhodchi (2007) Liquisolid technique for dissolution rate enhancement of a high dose water-insoluble drug (carbamazepine) Int. J. Pharm. 341, 26-34.
• Kh. Adibkia, J. Barar, A. Nokhodchi, Y. Omidi (2007) Piroxicam Nanoparticles for Ocular Delivery: Physicochemical Characterization and Implementation in Endotoxin-induced Uveitis. J. Drug Targeting 15, 407-416.
• Ali Nokhodchi, Mitra Jelvehgari, M. Reza Siahi and M. Reza Mozafari (2007) Factors affecting the morphology of benzoyl peroxide microsponges, Micron, 8, 834-840
• H. Valizadeh, P. Zakeri Milani,, M. Barzegar-Jalali, G. Mohammadi, M.A. Danesh, A. Nokhodchi (2007) Preparation and Chracterization of solid dispersion of pirixicam with hydrophilic carriers. Drug Dev. Ind. Pharm. 33, 45-56
• A. Nokhodchi, M.R. Rashidi, Kh. Sharabiani, T. Ghafourian (2007), The effect of terpen concentrations on the skin penetration of diclofenac sodium, Int. J. Pharm. 335,97-105.
• M. Jelvehgari, M.R. Siahi-Shadbad, S. Azarmi, Gary P. Martin, Ali Nokhodchi (2006) The microsponge delivery system of benzoyl peroxide: Preparation, characterization and release studies. Int. J. Pharm. 308, 124-132.

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