SPIRITUS: (04-17) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR.

This is the April 2017 newsletter from the RespiTech Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.

RespiTech Members in Nice, France. RDD Europe 2017

This month has seen members of the RespiTech group travel Antibes, France for RDD Europe. Mali, Larisa, Khanh, Paul and Daniela travelled to Nice to attend the conference. Mali and Larisa both presented posters on their work while Khanh was invited to give a *Posters on The Podium* talk on he in vitro respiratory model. Paul Chaired a session and fun was had by all at the social events (even the Lego Scientists enjoyed themselves!)

Meanwhile, back at base, The RespiTech group would like to welcome two new members to the team, Arianna Fallacara and Laura Busato, Ariana and Laura are PhD students from the University of Ferrara, will spend the next few months with the team working on innovative particulate therapies for upper and lower respiratory tract disorders. We also welcome back Amanda Chancellor this month who will continue undertaking a research internship with the group. Lastly, we would like to congratulate YY (Hui Xin Ong) this month for being appointed as an associate lecturer in Pharmacology. YY, will continue to work with Pharmacology developing the new Master of Medicine (PharmDev) Degree, while coordinating and managing her own research projects within the RespiTech group. Well done YY!

As always we give an update of publications by the group. This month Micelle Pozzoli had a paper accepted in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy. This paper focusses on nasal drug delivery and is part of a continued collaboration between UTS (Maria Sukkar) and the University of Parma (Fabio Sonvico). The paper is entitled " Development of a Soluplus/Budesonide Freeze-Dried Powder for Nasal Drug Delivery. Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy" You can find a full list of RespiTech publications here

Lastly, we would like to say farewell to old members. This month Yang Chen, Alaa Tulbah and Valentina leave us. Valentina, returns to Ferrara to continue her Postdoc and Alaa returns to Saudi to take up her academic role their. Yang, one of the longest running members of the team, leaves us to take up an exciting new Postdoctoral position in at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. You will be missed and are always welcome back. Of course we had quite a leaving party....:)

RespiTech Leaving party for Yang, Valentina and Alaa