Development of a Drug Dissolution Test and Automated Analysis Method Using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance Abstract by Joshua Arucan A dissolution testing methodology was developed in our laboratory using a commercial quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) system to measure dissolution rates of drugs. This technique has advantages over current pharmaceutical testing methods which are resource, sample, and time intensive. This undergraduate research project focused initially on reproducing the dissolution testing methodology developed by a former Master’s student. Reproducibility tests were performed using the same drug film system of benzoic acid in isopropanol at identical mass and volume applications as previous testing. Additionally, the films were dissolved using water as a dissolution fluid at the same flow rate conditions. During testing, it was found that the testing system is highly sensitive to the quality of the quartz crystal. Significant reuse of the crystal was identified as a potential source of error and we recommended that the crystals be replaced after 50 uses to ensure measurement accuracy. Once the method was successfully reproduced and validated against previous results, addition flow rate conditions were tested. The results confirm with the increase in initial drug dissolution rates expected with increased hydrodynamic forces. Additionally, a program script was developed to automate data analysis and graphing while dynamically assessing regions of interest.