SPIRITUS: (07-16) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR.
This is the July 2016 newsletter from the RespiTech Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. July has been a busy month for the group. During July Paul Young, Dany Traini, Yang Chen and Hui Xin Ong (YY) traveled overseas to the Chiesi 7th anniversary and innovation conference in the UK. YY gave a podium on “Teaching Old Drugs New Tricks” while Paul and Dany gave a double act presentation on ‘Industry vs. Academia’ Yang stayed behind after the conference to spend some time on secondment at Chiesi’s Innovation Centre in Chippenham. Meanwhile, Larissa Gomes Dos Reis, spent the month at Evonik, in Darmstadt Germany developing inhalable particles for vaccine delivery as part of her PhD. As always, the RespiTech lego scientists travelled with the group and had quite a fun time. You can learn more about the social aspects of the Lego scientists and that of the RespiTech group via our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Back at home, Paul and Daniela attended the Airways 2016 Conference in Sydney sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim. Paul gave a “Inhalation 101” lecture on pressurised metered dose inhalers while Dany gave a presentation on eCigs. As always, we welcome new members to the group. This month, the group welcomed two new team members. Xu Yiwang, a medical student from the University of Cambridge and Amanda Chancellor a Biomedical Engineering Student from the University of Sydney. Yiwang will undertake a project on alveolar macrophage function and response to stimulants while Amanda is undertaking work experience and working in the area of nasal drug delivery. Welcome!
Lastly, the group published 4 articles this month. The first, published by Maliheh Ghadiri looked at the impact of fatty acids on tight junction permeability. The article was accepted in Pulmonary Pharmacology and Therapeutics and is titled “Effect of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on airway epithelial cells' tight junction”. The second paper was accepted in Drug Delivery Letters and is part of a collaborative program with Dr Bosnic-Anticevich. The paper is titled “Substitute and add-on devices used in inhalation therapy: is it safe to recommend replacing the Ventolin™ actuator with the Sports-Haler™”. The third paper was Larisa’s review article on
“Inhaled gene delivery: a formulation and delivery approach” accepted in Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery. Lastly, the fourth paper accepted this month was Michele Pozzoli’s paper titled “Application of RPMI 2650 Nasal Cell Model to a 3D Printed Apparatus for the Testing of Drug Deposition and Permeation of Nasal Products” accepted in European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics. You can learn more about publications of the RespiTech group on our website here.