School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
Through our teaching and research, the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences strives to find new ways to help those with debilitating illnesses and diseases. Our first accredited pharmacy course in Portsmouth began in 1919/20 so we are celebrating 100 years of education in the pharmacy field.
We recognise that research is a core academic activity, which is why we contribute so much to multidisciplinary research across the University. It's this positive research environment that recently placed the university in the top 3 for funding in England in the subject Allied Health Professions & Studies.
Our connections with the NHS allows us to offer regular sandwich placements in a variety of hospitals, such as Southampton Hospital, Royal Bournemouth, Salisbury, St Richards, Winchester and Basingstoke.
Teaching
Our school has a very successful ERASMUS Plus placements provision, which offers work experience placements in many European countries. We also offer exchange programmes with students and researchers in Caen, France, Nihon, Japan and the Nencki Institute Warsaw, Poland.
Some of our programmes also allow for sandwich year opportunities, and this life experience in the field helps our graduates stand out to employers.
Students who are doing their Master of Pharmacy degree can attend a working pharmacy to meet real patients in our Healthy Living Pharmacy Live project – this brings our students into contact with the public, and helps them gain a greater understanding of why their research is so important.
Facilities
The School offered the first Biomedical Science course in the UK some 40 years ago and today, our facilities are truly exceptional.
In our school's Centre for Simulation in Health Care – a resource facility recently updated to reflect current industry standards – students develop their skills in a safe and contextual environment.
As part of the students’ skill development, they practice in a fully functional operating theatre under the guidance of our practising staff. They also have access to an ultrasound suite, a flexible simulation space, as well as 15 human patient simulators.
Students and staff at the School of Pharmacy and Biomedicine talk about the outstanding facilities they have to use during their research and studies.
The facilities here at the University of Portsmouth are really cutting edge. We have a lot of technology and lots of hands on equipment that get you ready for when you go out into the working world. We do some collaborative learning that’s involving things like collaborative microscopy, putting microscopic images on big screens and getting them to talk about them and understand what they mean.
We have the mannequins so we can treat them and we have heads so you can look in otoscopes. We offer inhaler techniques so they can explain to patients how to use their asthma inhalers. We give them the option to practice blood pressure monitoring, we have simulated arms and the students practice the use of blood pressure monitors on those arms.
When they’re safe and competent they can do it on each other. In every unit we have a practical or an experiment that we do. All of the lecturers make sure that the experiments that we do will give us some kind of skill, that they know we can use later on in a different area of our career.
We give students the opportunity to have a practical engagement in addition to undertaking the theory behind it.
Our teaching areas
Research
In order to nurture a progressive research environment, many of our staff are actively engaged in internationally-recognised work – such as molecular medicine (including oncology, the neurosciences and inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy) and medicines research. We're also researching diseases that currently have no cure, such as Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and cancer.
Our research was submitted to Unit of Assessment (UoA) 3 in the Research Excellence Framework 2021. 90% of our overall research quality was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Our impact case studies were all rated as very considerable in terms of their reach and significance. This included research improving the detection of oesophageal cancer, research improving the health of patients with chronic respiratory conditions and research transforming health research governance and ethics in the UK National Health Service and Ministry of Defence.Our areas of expertise
Explore our 5 areas of expertise within Pharmacy, Pharmacology & Biomedical Sciences research.
Our research centres
Much of our exceptional research takes place within the following cross-disciplinary research centres – find out more below.
Recent research projects
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Dr Marta Roldo has received funding to put oral biolfilms under the spotlight. Marta examines how well oral health products protect teeth and gums.
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Dr Andrea Rivera, former wine maker turned University of Portsmouth neuroscientist, works on white matter, the layer beneath our brain’s grey matter, which is thought to hold answers to why some people develop dementia as they age.
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Professor Alex Ford, expert in the effects of human waste on marine life and Dr Helena Herrera, expert in ethical pharmacology, are calling for prescribers to be taught what happens when drugs in human waste enter the environment.
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Scientists have found evidence suggesting emotional stress in infancy has significantly more far-reaching effects on the body than previously thought and could even result in disease later in life.
Our staff
Dr Karen E. Ball
- Job Title Head of School
- Email Address karen.ball@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Dr Marisa Van Der Merwe
- Job Title Associate Head (Education)
- Email Address marisa.vdmerwe@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Dr Roger Draheim
- Job Title Associate Head (Research and Innovation)
- Email Address roger.draheim@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Dr Sarah Fouch
- Job Title Associate Head (Students)
- Email Address sarah.fouch@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Dr James Brown
- Job Title Associate Head (Global Engagement and Education Partnerships)
- Email Address james.brown@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Mr Gavin Knight
- Job Title Programme Lead (Biomedical Sciences)
- Email Address gavin.knight@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
- PhD Supervisor PhD Supervisor
Dr Helen Hull
- Job Title Programme Lead (Pharmacy and Pharmacology)
- Email Address helen.hull@port.ac.uk
- Department School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
- Faculty Faculty of Science and Health
Explore our faculty
Explore the other Schools and Departments that make up our Faculty of Science and Health.
News, blogs and podcasts
Find our more about our latest research successes, read blogs by our academics and listen to the latest ideas and discoveries that look set to change our lives in our Life Solved podcast.
Contact us
To get in touch, please contact our Faculty office.