SPIRITUS: (02-16) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR.
This is the February 2016 newsletter from the RespiTech Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. During this month, Dr Regina Scherließ from the University of Kiel visited us on sabbatical. Regina was awarded a University of Sydney international collaboration award to establish a number of joint projects in the area of controlled drug delivery to the respiratory tract. She is co-supervising Marie Hellfritzsch. Welcome Regina!
Daniela Traini, left for a visit to the University of Ferrara in February. Dany and the RespiTech team have a long-running collaboration and exchange of students with both Prof Santo Scalia and A/Prof Gaia Colombo from Ferrara. Dany will spend 4 weeks discussing new projects, giving lectures and sitting on a PhD commission panel. We also say farewell David Lewis and Allan Tweedie who visited us briefly. David and Alan co-supervise Mic and Stewart. The visit was focussed on catching up regarding current and future projects for the next year..
February also saw the arrival of two new honours students, Anthony Nedanoski and Jesse Zhe Yi Xu. Over the next year Anthony will undertake a research project in the area of CFD with a focus on simulation of the nasal geometry for drug delivery. Jesse is undertaking a research project on transmembrane proteins in the respiratory tract and developing a number of models to study them.
Lastly, the group had 2 journal articles accepted this month. the first by Valentina entitled ‘Co-spray dried resveratrol and budesonide inhalation formulation for reducing inflammation and oxidative stress in rat alveolar macrophages’ was accepted in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The second by Michele, entitled ‘Dry Powder Nasal Drug Delivery: Challenges, Opportunities and a study of the commercial Teijin Puvlizer Rhinocort® device and formulation’ was accepted in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy. Well done all! You can learn more about our publications here.
group photo feb 2016 (with DAVE and ALAn)