Course overview

Understand the role of nanomedicine within healthcare innovation, particularly focusing on interactions with biological systems, the delivery of therapeutics (including COVID-19 vaccine and cancer therapies), biomarker discovery, bioimaging and for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Develop your research skills through a 25-week lab-based research project.

Prepare for a PhD, specialist clinical training or careers in nanotoxicology, nanomedicine, pharmaceuticals or biotechnology.

Course description

Combining interdisciplinary teaching with cutting-edge laboratory-based research, our MSc in Nanomedicine provides a robust scientific understanding of this highly competitive and fast-growing research area. This course is aligned with two of the main research beacons at Manchester: Advanced Materials and Cancer.

Nanomedicine uses nanotechnology to bring innovation to healthcare, for example encapsulating drugs and enabling more precise targeting with controlled release. It also has the potential to enable early detection and improve diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of many diseases including, but not limited to, cancer.

Currently, nanomedicine has hundreds of products under clinical trials, covering all major disease areas including cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, musculoskeletal and inflammatory disorders. Enabling technologies in all healthcare areas, it is already accounting for approximately 80 marketed products, ranging from nano-delivery systems (including mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV2) and pharmaceuticals to medical imaging, diagnostics and biomaterials. This course has both taught and research components and is suitable for those with little or no previous research experience. You will learn practical skills through both taught units and a 25-week laboratory-based research project.

Career opportunities

After the course, most students continue their studies and register for a PhD in a related field of research. However, the course is also of value to students wishing to progress in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology sectors or go into specialist clinical training.

This course will provide training in both transferable and subject-specific skills. Your experience of group-based activities, literature research, applied science communication, data management and hands-on experimental training will provide you with invaluable skills that prepare you for successful PhD applications and subsequent career in academic research within almost any area in the biological sciences for industry-based jobs or even non-scientific careers.