SPIRITUS: (04-18) A Monthly update from the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR.

This is the April 2018 newsletter from the RespiTech Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research

April has been a busy month for members of the Respiratory Technology team. Firstly, the Woolcock opened it's new Centre for Lung Cancer Research. The Centre was officially opened on Wednesday, 18 April by the Hon. Brad Hazzard MP, New South Wales Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research. The Centre will support large-scale research projects run from its high- tech purpose-built Glebe facilities, and act as a hub for the Lung Cancer Research Network, a consortia of researchers, clinicians, respiratory physicians, oncologists, radiologists, thoracic surgeons and advocates for lung cancer. Paul Young was MC for the event and invited speakers Prof Carol Armour (Exec Director of the Woolcock), Lillian Leigh (Patient Advocate) and the Vice Chancellor and Principle Michael Spence (The University of Sydney) spoke prior to the minister officially opening the Centre. You can learn more about the Centre and its affiliated network here.

Also this month, the RespiTech team travelled to Arizona to attend Respiratory Drug Delivery 2018. Sandra Grau Bartual gave a "poster on the podium talk" on how airway pressure influences cell structure and permeability. Sandra spent time in the RespiTech labs and is a PhD student and collaborator from Auckland University of Technology. Sandra is supervised by Professor Ahmed Al-Jumaily, Director of Institute of Biomedical Technologies at AUT. The program of work was supervised locally by Maliheh Ghadiri. Paul Young also gave a keynote at the conference on "the challenges of inhaling bricks" and Jesse Xu helped out as AV extraordinaire. As always, the event also involved catching up with old colleagues and a number of social events. The RespiTech lego Scientist even made an appearance.

This month we also see Dr Rania Salama join the RespiTech team. Rania has been appointed as a Lecturer in Pharmacology and will work on Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Masters Degree. Within the RespiTech group Rania will lead the Orbital Cystic Fibrosis program. Welcome Rania!

Lastly, we give an update on Respitech publications, This month the team published a review in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. The article was titled "Repurposing of statins via inhalation to treat lung inflammatory conditions." and had lead authors YY (Hui Xin Ong - RespiTech) and Peta Bradbury (Cell Biology) and was a publication in the Woolcock Emphysema Centre.