Dr Driton Vllasaliu

Biography

Driton is a registered pharmacist (Master of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham; Pre-registration training, Papworth Hospital). Driton gained his PhD at the University of Nottingham. Prior to joining King’s, Driton contributed towards the establishment of a new School of Pharmacy (University of Lincoln). Driton’s research interests centre around understanding and overcoming the biological barriers to improve drug delivery, with a key focus on enabling injection-free administration of biotherapeutic drugs (peptides, proteins, nucleic acids). As part of this, he has specific interests in drug delivery systems, including nanomedicines and extracellular vesicles (exosomes), that potentially enable injection-free delivery. He is also interested in drug delivery for diseases of, or linked to, the gut. Finally, aspects of Driton’s research relate to the creation of improved (more predictive) in vitro models for use in medicines development, including organoids. Driton routinely collaborates with the pharmaceutical industry and his research has been funded by different UKRI councils (BBSRC, EPSRC, Innovate UK, Research England), charities and the pharmaceutical industry. The overarching aim of Driton’s activity is to improve patient outcomes and access to medicines through translational drug delivery research.