January has been a busy month for the Respiratory Technology team at the WIMR.

Of note, our new laboratories and installation of core facilities have been completed. All postgraduate students, postdocs and staff have now moved in to the WIMR and research programs are ramping up. Importantly, we have successfully launched our new Website www.Respitech.org along with social media hubs, via Facebook and Twitter.

The group would like to congratulate individuals for their personal achievements over the past month.

YY's (Hui Xin Ong) talk at DDL in Scotland was a success and she was nominated a finalist for the Pat Burnell New Investigator award; Jess (Jesslynn Ooi) received the award for best scientific poster. Jess was also awarded a prestigious Endeavour Research Fellowship to spend six months at UCL studying thermal events in pMDI systems with Prof Simon Gaisford.

Paul was appointed onto the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Research while Daniela saw the launch of a new textbook focussed on educating undergraduate and postgraduate students in the basic principles of inhalation science.

Additionally, the team has published two papers this month suggesting that commonly used oral medications, such as statins and NSAIDS, may provide new therapeutic approaches to treating respiratory disease.

Importantly, the group would like to welcome new members. Alesssandro Varnousfaderani from the University of Ferrara (Italy), co-supervised with Dr Gaia Colombo, has joined the group to undertake a project on particle engineering of novel macrolide drug delivery systems.

Finally, the group enjoyed celebrating the Australia Day long-weekend with an indoor BBQ (circumventing the backlash of Ex-Cyclone Oswald).