SPIRITUS: (12-15) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR
This is the final news letter for 2015 from the RespiTech Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.
2015 RespiTech Christmas Cook-up
In December members of the group celebrated the festive season with their annual Christmas party. Members and friends of RespiTech attended and even Santa made a appearance. You can learn more about the party and other social events via our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Shortly after the celebrations, Yang, Jess and Sumit attended Drug Delivery to the Lungs Conference in Edinburgh. Sumit Arora was selected for the New Investigator Presentation and, later during the conference, was awarded the Pat Burnell Young Investigator Award for his presentation and research. Well done Sumit!
Meanwhile, Paul and Daniela visited collaborators in Europe. Daniela gave a series of lectures at the University of Perugia (Italy) and Paul gave a series of seminars on innovation at the Woolcock and the future of respiratory drug delivery.
As always, we give an update of publications and grants. In December the group published one paper with Mariateresa Stigliani as the first author. The paper entitled ‘Antibiotic Transport Across Bronchial Epithelial Cells: effects of Molecular Weight, LogP and Apparent Permeability’ was accepted in European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Also in December, Daniela was awarded a $61,000 NHMRC USyd Equipment grant for a Real-time bio impedance measurement system. This state-of-the-art system will be used to monitor cellular permeability in realtime when epithelia are treated with drugs or affected by local pathogens. You can learn more about all our journal publications here and grants here.
This month we also say farewell to Fin Canney, who has spent the last few months with the group undertaking a project looking at tight junction modification in lung epithelia. Fin is a Pharmacy Student from Bath (UK) and will return to complete his Degree in January. All the best Fin!
Lastly, the RespiTech group would like to congratulate Daniela Traini who was appointed to Full Professor in December. Daniela’s new title will be ‘Professor of Respiratory Science’ at the University of Sydney. Fantastic news!
2015 has been an exciting and productive year and as we look forward to exciting opportunities in 2016. We wish all our collaborators and followers a happy and productive 2016.