SPIRITUS: (06-15) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR
This is our June 2015 update of news from the RespiTech group at the WIMR.
In June, the group have continued their operations overseas. Dr Wing Hin-Lee and Dr Judy Loo travelled to the University of Ferrara (Italy) to give invited seminars and strengthen our long-standing collaborations with Prof Santo Scalia in the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Later in the month, after returning to Australia, Wing and Judy travelled overseas to attend the International Symposium on Phytochemicals in Medicine in Shanghai. Wing gave an invited presentation on work he has been conducting in the area of lung cancer. Also with respect to travel, Giulia Ballerin was selected to undertake a summer course in Singapore in the area of biofilms. She was awarded flight, accommodation and food expenses. Well done Giulia!
Also of note this month, Daniela Traini was appointed onto the board of the International society for Aerosols in Medicine. ISAM is an international organisation dedicated to all aspects of aerosol research in medicine. More details about ISAM can be found here. Lala Sarkissian presented at the Woolcock Friday seminars this June. Lala is a first year PhD student working in the area of aerosol lung deposition and dissolution kinetics. Sharon Davis, a final year PhD student also submitted her thesis this month for review. Congratulations Sharon!
As always, we like to give an update of the groups research output. In addition to conference proceedings and invited talks, the group published three new papers this month. The first paper in Molecular Pharmaceutics was a joint work between the Woolcock’s RespiTech & Cell Biology teams and Prof Claus-Michael Lehr’s group at Saarland University in Germany. The paper is entitled ‘Mono- and co-cultures of bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells respond differently to pro-inflammatory stimuli and their modulation by salbutamol and budesonide’ Dr Mehra Haghi (a Lecturer at The University of Technology Sydney and a Woolcock Affiliate) is the first author and the work is linked to her Humboldt Fellowship. The second paper this month was accepted in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics. The paper entitled ‘In vitro biological activity of resveratrol using a novel inhalable resveratrol spray-dried formulation’ by Valentina Trotta is part of the continuing joint research programs between the University of Ferrara and the Woolcock. Lastly, Sharon Davis had a publication accepted in the Journal of Asthma. The article entitled ‘The ability of people with intellectual disability to use inhalers – an exploratory mixed methods study.’ focuses on quality use of medications in patients with disabilities.
You can find details of each of these and other peer reviewed papers (abstract and link to main text where available) on our RespiTech publication page.