Boston: City of Champions

The 44th CRS annual meeting was held in Boston, Massachusetts, the “City of Champions.” Like the five-time Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, Boston has always been a champion of pharmaceutical innovation. In fact, Bloomberg Business ranked Massachusetts the #1 state for innovation with a total score of 93.33 on the Bloomberg State Innovation Index in 2016. It is home to two of the world’s most prestigious universities—Harvard and MIT—and the CRS annual meeting lived up to these high standards with its focus on new developments in drug delivery science and innovation. CRS Boston had a total of 1,180 attendees from 42 countries.

I arrived a day early in Boston to participate in the wonderful MIT and Harvard field trip arranged by CRS. I enjoyed the day out in the sun, learning about the history of these prominent universities, the MIT Museum, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Hearing about the achievements of the universities, seeing the excellence in innovation in the MIT Museum, and learning about the tenure of President John F. Kennedy were motivating. It was a day very well spent.

My motivation elevated after listening to the much-anticipated opening plenary session by none other than the “Edison of medicine,” Bob Langer of MIT. It was an excellent presentation packed with exciting stories of his research journey from a naïve researcher to an Institute Professor. Later, in a networking session for women in science, the inspiring speech by Paula Hammond (MIT) increased my passion for science. Paula’s experiences resonated with many of the audience members, and they felt encouraged to do more.

The plenaries, pre-meeting workshops, and scientific sessions were a par excellence display of science. I am sure all those who attended the annual meeting personally would agree that the program had something for everyone. The program was a good mixture of researchers from universities, the pharmaceutical industry, clinical practice, and regulatory agencies.

In this fantastic issue of the CRS Newsletter you will find three Scientifically Speaking articles along with brief recaps of two chapter event. The interview with Arto Urtti is very energizing to all scientists in the drug delivery field. We also have the People/Companies in the News sections and a DDTR Update.