Dr Sheikh is an early career researcher (PhD, 2021) within the Respiratory Technology Group, based at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. Dr Sheikh graduated with a PhD from the Discipline of Pharmacology (2017-2021-Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Australia) where she was awarded the highly competitive international scholarship for her project entitled ‘Unlocking the mechanisms of interactions between anti-inflammatories and antibiotics for optimal cystic fibrosis treatment’. She was also awarded the Australian Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust Post-graduate Student Grant in 2018-2021 to support her project. Dr Sheikh completed her Masters in Drug Delivery in 2010 with a distinction from UCL School of Pharmacy, UK, with a prestigious Commonwealth Shared Scholarship, and then worked at Sanofi-Aventis in Bangladesh and as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacy, Brac University in Bangladesh from 2011-2017.
Dr Sheikh’s research focuses on optimising cystic fibrosis treatment and drug delivery to the lungs. Dr Sheikh’s emphasis is on the development of novel cell models to investigate the mechanisms of interactions between drugs for the optimal treatment of respiratory diseases. Dr Sheikh’s skills extend from the development of inhaled formulations to physical-chemical evaluation and bio-characterisation, using cell culture to ensure suitability for inhalation delivery. Dr Sheikh has published 14 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (5 from her PhD, with more than 63 citations and H-index of 6). Dr Sheikh has been invited to present her results at national and international Conferences (5), has established academic collaborations and has experience in working with industry.
