��ɫ��Ƶ

Professor Michael Vynnycky’s journey into research wasn’t driven by a childhood dream or a single defining moment. Instead, it was a gradual unfolding of opportunities that led him from undergraduate studies to a PhD at Oxford.

“I couldn’t maybe see myself working for a company or an industry or anything like this. After my undergraduate degree, an opportunity came up to do a PhD and then I think it just went on from there.”

That PhD was supervised by Andrew Fowler, a name that would later reappear in Michael’s professional life. After time spent in Japan and Sweden, he eventually found his way to the ��ɫ��Ƶ (UL), initially in 2008, drawn by a research opportunity linked to Stephen O’Brien—another Oxford connection. Michael spent six years ��ɫ��Ƶ before moving back to Sweden, and later to Brazil, where he continued his academic work and collaborations. Eventually, the pull of promising research brought him back to UL in 2019, where he now serves as a full professor of applied mathematics in the Department of Mathematic and Statistics.

Michael is also part of MACSI—the Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry. MACSI is a hub for industrial and applied mathematics, where researchers use mathematical modelling to solve real-world problems across sectors. It’s a perfect fit for someone like Michael, whose work thrives at the intersection of disciplines.

His current project, in collaboration with the Research Ireland funded SSPC, explores how pharmaceuticals might be manufactured in space. It’s a bold idea, but one grounded in a very specific scientific challenge: how gravity affects the formation of drug crystals.

“We had a meeting with Varda Space Industries, a US company who was interested in what SSPC were doing and they had this particular application in mind, which was to try to manufacture pharmaceuticals in space.”

At the heart of this research is polymorphism—the ability of a compound to crystallise into different structural forms. These forms, or polymorphs, can have dramatically different properties, even though they’re chemically identical. One form might dissolve faster, another might be more stable, and a third might be more effective as a drug. The conditions under which crystallisation occurs—temperature, pressure, and crucially, gravity—can determine which form emerges.

“The way you manufacture can determine which kind of crystal structure your product has. That structure is important because you might get a slightly different product.”

On Earth, gravity causes motion in the liquid solutions used to grow crystals, which can influence the final structure. But in space, where microgravity conditions exist, different polymorphs may emerge—ones that are difficult or impossible to produce on Earth.

“On Earth, when you crystallise, it’s the stable one that you would normally end up getting. But then there’s a chance that if you try to do this in space, it’s the metastable one.”

Michael and his team use mathematical modelling to predict how these structures form under different gravitational conditions. One of the compounds they study is L-histidine, which can form two types of crystals: one stable and one metastable. The goal is to understand how to control the process to produce the desired form—especially the metastable one, which may have better pharmaceutical properties.

“We’re trying to use that basic theory, which involves thermodynamics, and couple it to the fluid mechanics—how the solvent can move—to try to be able to predict what form we’d expect to see in an experiment.”

The experiments themselves are tiny, conducted in vials no bigger than a centimetre. While some have been sent into space aboard SpaceX missions, others are simulated on Earth using hypergravity equipment.

“On Earth, you can simulate hypergravity, but you can’t simulate microgravity. So the only way you can do microgravity is to put satellites up into space or use zero gravity plane flights.”

The modelling helps guide these experiments, offering predictions that can save time, money, and resources.

“The mathematics or the modelling is supposed to help guide what’s going on. But of course, ultimately, the best of all worlds would be to have experimental validation.”

It’s the kind of work that captures attention—not just because of its futuristic setting, but because of its potential to reshape how we think about drug development. Even if large-scale space manufacturing is still a way off, the research could have more immediate applications. For instance, understanding how gravity affects crystallisation might help improve processes here on Earth, using hypergravity environments to produce new or better drug forms.

“It could go in several directions—or possibly stand still. But that’s maybe what’s so exciting about it. It’s tantalising to think there could be something here.”

Michael’s work is deeply interdisciplinary, drawing on chemistry, physics, fluid dynamics, and numerical simulation. It’s a kind of intellectual crossroads - something he finds both challenging and rewarding.

“Maths is just like a train station—things come in from one direction, go out in another.”

That sense of connection extends beyond research. During his time in Brazil, Michael co-authored a mathematical textbook in Portuguese, , helping to fill a gap in the Lusophone world’s academic resources.

“Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world, and for Brazilian universities, that’s a useful text to leave behind.”

Whether he’s modelling crystallisation in microgravity or writing textbooks in a second language, Michael’s work reflects a quiet but powerful commitment to making knowledge accessible—and to exploring the unknown, one equation at a time.