A Whirlwind, Worldwide Tour of Recent CRS International Symposia

The past four months have seen four CRS international symposia across the Asia-Pacific region: in New Zealand, November 21-22; in Australia, November 24-25; in Korea, December 1-2; and in India, February 24-25. These events represent the culmination of years of planning around a global pandemic and a strong resurgence of interest in travel and in-person collaboration within our community. 

Leaders of each event described the symposia as “successful,” “long-awaited,” and “outstanding,” marking a strong lead-up before this summer’s Annual Meeting.

 

New Zealand Controlled Release Society (NZCRS) Symposium 2022

This event was organized by the NZCRS local chapter and held at the University of Auckland School of Pharmacy. It boasted 60 participants from local and international universities and industry, most prominently Associate Professor Darren Svirskis (President of NZCRS), Dr. Kara Perrow (President of the Australian local chapter), Associate Professor Shiow-Fern Ng (outgoing president of the Malaysian local chapter), Professor Maria Asplund (Chalmer University of Technology, Sweden), and Professor Cornelia M. Keck (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany). Talks focused on the symposium’s theme, “Controlled Release for Localized Delivery”, covering chemoimmunotherapy, wound healing, dermal drug delivery, drug targeting to bacteria, and more. Additionally, the event included an industry roundtable featuring sponsors DEC Pharmaceuticals and Douglas Pharmaceuticals, emphasizing career opportunities for local scientists; and a professional development workshop on optimizing collaborations for all scientists.

For more details and pictures, please read this article by Svenja Meissner, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Auckland.

 

Drug Delivery Australia 2022

      The 2022 Drug Delivery Australia conference was held in Adelaide at the University of South Australia campus. Its theme was “Pharmaceutical Delivery: Enabling Clinical Translation of New Medicines”. 

Conference highlights included plenary talks from internationally recognized experts including Professor Kathryn Whitehead (Carnegie Mellon University), Professor Maria Kavallaris (University of New South Wales), Professor Frank Caruso (The University of Melbourne) and Professor Hélder Santos (University of Groningen), along with many invited and contributed speakers and posters. Young scientists were invited to give scientific pitches to academic and industry leaders during a special session. The conference concluded with a cocktail reception at the Sky City Sol Rooftop, leaving attendees with a spectacular view of the city. 

 

Annual Meeting and International Conference of the Korean Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology (KSPST)
 

This event was organized jointly by the KSPST and CRS Korea Chapter and held at The-K Hotel in Seoul, Korea. 

 

 

The plenary lecture was given by Professor Alexander Kabanov (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), and 35 other speakers were invited from 12 countries: USA, Belgium, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom, Israel, Portugal, Australia, Singapore and Korea. Some additional event details can be found here.
 

CRS-Indian Chapter (CRSIC) 21st International Symposium

This event was organized by the CRSIC and held at the NMIMS, Mumbai campus. It centered on “Advances in Technology and Business Potential of New Drug Delivery Systems” and was attended by 350 delegates across the country. Approximately 80% of attendees were from academia while the remainder represented pharmaceutics and allied industries.

 

Following an inaugural function led by Dr. Parizad Elchidana (President of CRSIC) and Vandana Patravale (Vice President of CRSIC), two days of technical sessions proceeded. These sessions featured 12 invited speakers: Mr. John Dibella (President, Lancaster division, Simulations Plus), Dr. Kamal Dua (Lecturer at University of Technology, Sydney), Dr. Swati Biswas (Associate Professor, BITS-Pilani), Dr. Mo Maniruzzaman (Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin), Dr. Mahavir Chougule (Associate Professor, Mercer University), Dr. Avi Schroeder (Associate Professor, Israel Institute of Technology), Dr. Hélder Santos (Professor, University of Groningen), Dr. Aliasgar Shahiwala (Professor, Dubai Pharmacy College), Mr. Samir Hiddouchi (Managing Director, SOTAX Pharma Services), Dr. Abhijit Date, (Assistant Professor, University of Arizona), and finally Dr. Prajakta Dandekar (Assistant Professor, Institute of Chemical Technology). Additionally, 143 posters were presented over the 2 days of the conference. 

 

For more pictures and information, please see the brief proceedings here.