DPhil student wins best poster prize at MOF 2018

The MOF conference - an important one in the field - was held in Auckland, New Zealand, from 9 to 13 December 2018 and was attended by over 600 delegates.

Bárbara Souza (Balliol College) is reading for a DPhil in Engineering Science in the Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering Group, under the supervision of Professor Jin-Chong Tan (Fellow and Tutor in Engineering Science). Her research is in the field of next-generation multifunctional materials: in particular, the application of MOFs in the slow and controlled release of therapeutic agents directed to their application as efficient drug delivery systems.

At the conference, Bárbara presented the use of a facile mechanochemical method (free from the use of toxic solvents) employed in the synthesis of the framework and encapsulation of the guest drug molecules; and she demonstrated the promising application of neutron spectroscopy to understand the drug-framework interactions from a vibrational point of view.  

Bárbara won another prize in November 2018 at the Molecular Spectroscopy Science Meeting organised by the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source at University College London. She presented her research and won the prize for best work for her contribution to the field of molecular spectroscopy study of MOFs.

Bárbara was awarded a Brazilian graduate scholarship to pursue her studies in Oxford. She is grateful to FAPEMIG, the Minas Gerais State Agency for Research and Development, for funding her graduate studies.  

Reproduced with kind permission from Balliol College Oxford