Firstly, we would like welcome Judy Loo, who will commence a research post within the group. Judy's research will be focussed on inhaled antibiotic and anti-biofilm therapies. During her PhD, Judy developed a series of antibacterial and biofilm resistant plastics that can be incorporated into intubation tubes for intensive care purposes. Judy undertook her PhD in the Faculty of Pharmacy, supervised by Ramin Rohanizadeh, Cynthia Whitchurch (UTS) and Paul Young. We would also like to congratulate her for a fantastic final thesis presentation at the Faculty earlier in the month. Both Judy and Wing-Hin submitted their thesis this month... Congratulations!

The group would also like to welcome Rebbeca Xu. Rebecca is a Masters student who will be undertaking a research program to develop advanced excipients for use in non-aqueous propellant and nebuliser based inhalation devices. Additionally we would like to invite four elective Pharmacology students who will be working with us, for the next few months, to gain experience in drug delivery. Welcome to Jacob Emilio, 'Jack' Ba Duy, Merrel Anna and Emelie Linnea.

Members of the RespiTech team have been busy preparing for DDA 2013. We have now confirmed international and domestic invited podium presenters and have two fantastic Keynote speakers, Igor Gonda and Ian Tucker. Igor is the CEO of Aradigm in San Francisco. He was also former CEO of Acrux and an academic at the University of Sydney. Ian is the incoming president of the CRS and Professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand. We have had a great response regarding abstract submissions and are looking forward to the social events, including a harbour cruise.

This month, the group have also been successful in securing funding for the establishment of a collaborative research program between Trinity College Dublin and Sydney. Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt will spend time at the Woolcock Institute working with our team to study the expression and function of transport proteins in the lung. Finally, members of the group have published an original article focussed on the preparation of macrolide nano-particles for drug delivery.

With two weeks to the close of early bird registrations, the DDA-2013 team are excited to announce preliminary details of this year program. Keynote speakers Igor Gonda and Ian Tucker will be giving opening presentations across the two-day conference.  Igor is the CEO of Aradigm, a drug delivery company specialising in inhaled therapeutics and Ian Tucker is the incoming president of the CRS, specialising in bioactives drug delivery for human and veterinary applications.

Download the most recent flyer and program here

In addition, we have confirmed a number of International and Domestic invited speakers from a wide range of drug delivery backgrounds. These talks will appeal to the diverse audience of DDA and be complimented with contributed poster and podium talks by registrants. Students are encouraged to participate in DDA and we have two prizes for the rapid-fire student talks; supporting travel to the CRS meeting in Chicago 2014. Lastly, you can let your hair down at the conference dinner, which will be an evening cruise on Sydney Harbour (included in your registration). We look forward to seeing you at DDA 2013!

Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt (Trinity College Dublin) and members of the Respiratory Technology Team at the WIMR have been successful in securing funding for the establishment of a project to study the implications of drug transporters in the lung on pulmonary drug disposition.

As part of a multi-institutional collaboration, Carsten will spend a sabbatical period at the Woolcock studying transporter expression in different lung cell types and their affect on drug absorption after inhalation of current lung therapeutics. This primer grant will support an initial study of healthy and diseased lung tissue from clinical patients and will result in a greater understanding of the mechanisms that underpin disease and the effectiveness of current inhalation medicines. The grant is worth 12,000 dollars under the International Research Collaboration Award scheme at the University of Sydney.

In our July newsletter we say goodbye to a few members of our team and welcome new members, as well as update you on our travels and research successes.

This month has seen members of the group travelling up to Brisbane for the 6th Australian & New Zealand Controlled Release Society Chapter Workshop. These workshops give postgraduate students and industry participants the opportunity to learn about nano and micro-particulate drug delivery systems that they can then apply to their own research and development programs. The official research conference of the Aus-Chapter of the CRS, DDA2013, will occur in October at the WIMR in Sydney. Registration and contributed paper submissions are being accepted at the following link: www.crsaustralia.org

The group has published two papers this month. Firstly, an article is to be published in the Colloids and Surfaces B, with collaborator Santo Scalia from Ferrara University, Italy. The article is focused on controlled release drug delivery systems for the lower airways and their affect on alveolar cells. Secondly, a ground-breaking paper has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Aerosol Medicine. This paper introduces a new dry powder inhalation device 'the Orbital'. This passive device is capable of delivering high doses (ca. 400 mg) of mucolytic and/or antibiotic therapies over multiple breaths, circumventing lengthy treatment times or the requirement for multiple capsule and device handling. This later work was supported via an industry-academia ARC linkage program with Pharmaxis Ltd. More information will follow as soon as the article is published online.

Lastly, we say farewell to old members and welcome new. Firstly, Giulia and Alessandro left us to return to Italy. Both have been immensely productive during their stay with us and we wish them well; we also hope to see them back in the near future to undertake PhD programs. Secondly, our postdoctorate research assistant, Ketan Sharma, has also left us. Ketan is returning to his home country and will continue to pursue a career in aerosol research. We thank Ketan for his support to the RespiTech group, particularly in the early stages of setting up the new facility at WIMR. Finally, we would like to welcome Wilco van den Oetelaar and Wing-Hin Lee. Wilco is a visiting student from the Netherlands and will spend the next 9-months working on developing novel systemic inhalation drug delivery technology, while Wing-Hin will commence a postdoctorate position within the group and will be involved in a multitude of cell and non-cell based respiratory drug delivery projects.

June marks 6 months since the establishment of the RespiTech Group at the WIMR. The new laboratories are fully up and running and the group has integrated seamlessly into the culture and mission of the Institute. Since our arrival, the group has started a number of collaborations with basic molecular biologists, pharmacologists, medical practitioners, and clinical management teams to form a holistic approach to researching and treating respiratory disorders.

We established a series of new initiatives: The RespiTech.org web-portals and social media pages, The OzNose project (a multidisciplinary team working on projects with the upper respiratory tract space) and launched Pulmatix Ltd, a consultancy and testing services company. Internationally, the group have attended a series of international conferences and members have presented papers and posters to the scientific community. Members of the group have been successful in securing a number of grants to fund continued and new research projects and have published over 16 peer reviewed journal articles. Paul, Dany and Brian received funding from the TSANZ to study the influence of diet on the effectiveness of asthma medicines; Jess received an Endeavour Fellowship to undertake work at UCL with Simon Gaisford's group and YY will spend 2014 in Southampton with Joy Conway's group after receiving a prestigious European Respiratory Society Postdoctoral Fellowship. We attended the graduation of Mehra, welcomed many new members and held BBQs, Institute Cook-ups and other social events.

RespiTech.org - Respiratory Technology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research

As June draws to a close, the RespiTech Team continue to move forward. This month, members of the group (Young, Traini) along with Cell Biology (Oliver) have been successful at securing two competitive grants. Firstly, the teams were awarded a $200,000 Equipment Grant for the purchase of a new CRAM microscope (confocal, Raman, atomic force microscope). Secondly, the team were successful in securing a $370,000 Australia Research Council Linkage Grant to develop a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis. Additionally, two new articles were published. YY was first author on both publications. The first, in the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics (IF 3.83), presented an inhaled liposomal formulation and the applicability of different in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo methods for predicting release in the lung. The second, in Molecular Pharmaceutics (IF 4.57), showed the influence of inhaled hypotonic mannitol on the uptake of common antibiotics across lung epithelia.

We made significant achievements in this short 6 month period and are looking forward to the exciting opportunities that await us in the next half of 2013.

Novel particulate systems to target pulmonary fibrosis

Members of the RespiTech team and Cell Biology group at the WIMR have been successful in securing an Australia Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant. Chief investigators: Paul Young, Daniela Traini and Brian Oliver have been awarded $370,000 to research and develop a novel anti-fibrotic aerosol.

The research proposal is entitled 'A tight squeeze: engineering anti-fibrotic depot aerosols that circumvent the epithelia'. A new molecule for the treatment of pulmonary lung fibrosis has been developed but there is no inhalation medicine capable of targeting the responsible cells. This project will develop an advanced inhalation technology capable of bypassing the lung surface so that we can target the fibrotic cells beneath. The Project will commence later in 2013  with Australian research partner Pharmaxis Ltd.

​Capabilities of the CRAM

Members from the Respiratory Technology and Cellular Biology Groups at the WIMR (Traini, Young & Oliver) have been successful in securing $200,000 towards a Coupled Confocal-Raman-Atomic Force Microscope (CRAM). This advanced microscope will be capable of simultaneously collecting 3-dimensional - structural, mechanical and chemical images of biological and material samples. The microscope will be housed in the newly constructed Advanced Imaging Hub at the Woolcock Institute.

The CRAM will provide researchers with the following key advantages: (1) No sample preparation or labelling techniques (especially useful in cell biology); (2) Nondestructive imaging of chemical properties throughout a sample at very high acquisition rates; (3) full Raman maps within minutes at a resolution of 200 nm; (4) The inclusion of confocal imaging allowing simultaneous 3-Dimensional structural and chemical information; (5) nanometer resolution atomic force microscopy for probing surface topography and physical sample properties (for example material hardness or drug receptor binding).

The Chief Investigators are: Daniela Traini, Paul Young, Michael Murray, Fariba Dehghani, Kim Chan, Brian Oliver and Jeff Holst. This Major equipment infrastructure will support a range of high impact ARC and NHMRC grants across the University and WMIR.

May has been a busy month for the RespiTech team at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.

The OzNose Project was launched, a series of open-source research programs and consortia focussed on the upper-respiratory tract. The founding team consists of academics from a wide range of disciplines including engineering, physiology, clinical practice, molecular pharmacology and drug delivery. With the announcement, a new website 'www.oz-nose.org' was set up to provide a platform for the consortia to report findings to the public and scientific community and serve as a research hub for its members.

Away from the Institute, members of the RespiTech group (Mehra, Yang, John, Dany and Paul) attended RDD Europe in Berlin. The premier drug delivery conference had over 450 attendees and a series of papers by the group were well received. Mehra gave a podium presentation on epithelial uptake of combination products and continued-on to give invited presentations in the areas of drug delivery and cell biology to Paolo Colombo's group at the University of Parma and Claus Muir's group at the University of Saarbrücken. Mehra will work with the team to establish new collaborations and strengthen existing projects between these centres. Also overseas, Jess left for the UK to visit Simon Gaisford's group at UCL. Jess received an Endeavour award to spend 6 months studying particle stability in pressurised metered dose inhalers.

At home, YY received a prestigious fellowship from the European Respiratory Society to undertake a research program with Joy Conway's group at the University of Southampton (UK). She will spend 2014 in the UK working alongside Joys' group to study mucociliary clearance using lung imaging and develop new approaches to treating CF and COPD.

The group have published three articles this month in the areas of respiratory cell biology and clinical management. Firstly, YY published a review in 'Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery', focusing on the application of the Calu-3 cell model for drug delivery studies, while Mehra authored an article in 'Respirology' using the Calu-3 model to study mediated cellular uptake of fluticasone when delivered in combination with Salmeterol. At the patient interface, Sharon authored an article in the 'Australian Journal of Primary Health' reporting asthma management practices in developmental disability clinics; giving advice to healthcare professions with respect to inhaler use and training.

As always we welcome new members to our team. Michele Pozzoli starts with us as PhD student. Michele is supervised by Fabio Sonvico, Mary Bebawy (both UTS), Paul and Dany and will focus on drug delivery to the upper respiratory tract (one of the first projects as part of the OzNose initiative). Welcome Michele!

Respiratory Technology members at the WIMR are proud to be a part of the 'Oz Nose Project' initiative.  A series of conceptual research projects in the area of nasal physiology, function and drug delivery, between a range of scientists with differing backgrounds, resulted in the establishment of the Oz Nose Project. The Open Source (Oz Nose) Project aims to enhance understanding in the area of upper respiratory tract disorders and develop methodological approaches that can be utilised via the wider scientific community. These advancements will ultimately benefit the general public through dissemination of new knowledge and advanced medicines for the treatment of a range of disorders and diseases.

The www.oz-nose.org page provides a platform for the consortia to report findings to the public and scientific community and serve as a research hub for its members.

YY award an ECR Fellowship

​YY (Hui Xin Ong) has received a prestigious Fellowship from the European Respiratory Society. The Long-Term Research Fellowship awarded is designed to "enable investigators and clinicians in the early stages of their career to carry out basic, translational or clinical research projects and to acquire and apply advanced research procedures and techniques" The award will allow YY to gain new skills in the area of medical imaging that can then be translated and 'value-added' to her home Institution at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.

The award, valued at ​€ 30,700 will support YY during 2014, while she undertakes research at Southampton University. YY will work with Prof. Joy Conway's team at Southampton General Hospital to study mucociliary clearance in patients with Cystic Fibrosis and Bronchiectasis. This will enable the team to gain a greater understanding of the disease and develop new approaches to enhancing lung function in patients with these critical illnesses. During this time she will gain experience in advanced medical imaging and be able to apply her skills in Respiratory Technology to develop new drug delivery systems that overcome hyper-mucosal secretion and enhance clearance mechanisms within this population.

The RespiTech Team congratulate YY on such a great achievement!​