6th Annual Meeting - PARMA - 2012

The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Italian University Network student chapter (AItUN) successfully organized its Sixth Annual Meeting, Take a Breath and Inhale the Medicine, at the University of Parma on March 8–9, 2012. Established in 2006, AItUN is the first AAPS European student chapter. The event had 110 attendees that included undergraduate and doctoral students, postdoctoral and other researchers, professors, and company experts.
 
The meeting was generously funded by AAPS, the University of Parma, the Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale di Tecnologie Farmaceutiche Innovative (TEFARCO Innova), the Associazione Docenti e Ricercatori Italiani di Tecnologie e Legislazione Farmaceutiche (ADRITELF), and by Coster Pharma and Chiese Farmaceutici.
 
AItUN President Anna Giulia Balducci, Ph.D., opened the meeting, and Faculty Advisor Ruggero Bettini, Ph.D., and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and AAPS fellow Paolo Colombo, professor, addressed the attendees. 
The scientific program consisted of five invited lectures, two contributed lectures from companies, six oral student presentations, and a rich poster session. Elias Fattal, professor, University of Paris–Sud, France, held the first plenary session on Nanomedicine for Drug Delivery to Bronchial Cells. Fattal reviewed the role and effects of nanoparticulate medicines on pulmonary ephitelial cells.
Andrea Chiesi, M.B.A., of Chiesi Farmaceutici followed with an interesting talk, Pulmonary Drug Is a Combination Therapy: Formulation and Device, in which he shared the industrial point of view in research and development of inhaled drug products. Given that one of the goals of this two-day event was to offer a chance for graduate students and young researchers to meet and exchange ideas in a friendly and informal environment, following every two invited speakers from academia or industry, two students gave a 20-minute oral exposition of their research projects. All of them aroused a lot of interest from the audience, based on the animated discussion and the number of questions raised following the presentations. The student presentations were:

• Preparation, Characterization and In Vivo Biocompatibility of PLGA Scaffolds, by Emanuele Cassetti (University of Perugia, chair-elect of the chapter)

• Chitosan Oleate Micells with Silver Sulfadiazine Biocompatibily and Optimization of Loading, by Eleonora Dellera (University of Pavia)

• Adhesive Microparticles for Buccal Delivery of Quinic Acid as Anticaries Model Molecule, by Barbara Colzani (University of Pavia, vice-chair of the chapter)

• Development of New Physical Gels Based on Chitosan for Wound Healing, by Virginia Campani (University of Napoli)

• Two Pulse Site-Specific Oral Delivery System of Esomeprazole and Sucralfate, by Camillo Benetti (University of Parma)

• An Alternative to Human Skin In Vitro Permeability Studies: Regenerated Keratin Based-Films, by Silvia Franzè (University of Milano).

 
The Thursday afternoon session closed with two contributions from industrial guests, Gerallt Williams, Ph.D., of Aptar Pharma, on Quality by Design Approach for Dry Powder Inhaler Devices and Rita De Santis, Ph.D., of Sigma-Tau, on Aerosol Delivery of AvidinOX®. 
At night it was time for the social event, a dinner in which the typical fantastic Parmesan food was offered at I Corrieri restaurant to encourage more informal conversations among attendees from the various universities and companies. 
The scientific program resumed on Friday morning with a plenary lecture by Hartwig Steckel, Ph.D., of Christian Albrecht University, Kiel, Germany on Amorphous Matter in DPI products—Does it matter? focused on the relevance of amorphous and crystalline dry powders for pulmonary delivery. 
Afterwards, Mauro Citterio of Plastiape presented a study on pulmonary devices, Performance of Dry Powder Inhaler for Capsules: An Interaction between Mechanics and Aerodynamics. 
The poster session was open throughout the duration of the program, and students were available at lunch time to discuss their research with the attendees and with committee members (Elias Fattal, Mauro Citterio, and Simone Giordano), who evaluated the posters for the AItUN awards for the best three. 


The last speaker, Dario Olivieri, professor at University Hospital of Parma, gave a presentation on the clinical aspects of respiratory problems, Small Airways in Asthma and COPD. 
At the end, after awarding the three best posters, we announced the availability of two travel grants for two chapter members to fly to Chicago for the 2012 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exhibition. Finally, five one-year memberships to AAPS were offered to new students attending the meeting to introduce them to the chapter’s “mother association” with all the opportunities that it offers. As the April 2013 AAPS Newsmagazine went to press, AItUN held its Seventh Annual Meeting, New Frontiers in Living Cell Encapsulation, on March 8–9, 2013, at the University of Perugia.