An Update on the Activities of European COST Action Siminhale
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As appeared in APRIL 2018 Inhalation Copyright CSC Publishing www.inhalationmag.com CROSS-INDUSTRY ORGANIZATIONS An update on the activities of European COST Action SimInhale Ben Forbes, PhD;a Andrea Danani, PhD;b Gerrit Borchard, PharmD, PhDc and Stavros C. Kassinos, PhDd aInstitute of Pharmaceutical Science, King’s College London bDalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), Università della Svizzera Italiana cSchool of Pharmaceutical Sciences Geneva-Lausanne, (EPGL) University of Geneva, University of Lausanne, dComputational Sciences Laboratory, University of Cyprus The SimInhale COST Action emerging functional imaging tech- trainees who had primarily compu- The European COST Action nologies. The workshop featured a tational backgrounds the opportu- MP1404—SimInhale is a global stimulating mix of talks by external nity to become familiar with stan- network of inhalation experts es- speakers and SimInhale members dard equipment used in in vitro tablished and funded through the including lecturers from academic studies. Industry played an import- European Cooperation in Science and research communities, indus- ant role with trainers from Copley and Technology (COST) system. try and medical professions. Key- Scientific, Ltd. and Emmace Con- Launched in May 2015, SimInhale note lectures were delivered by sulting AB. is now in its third year. In a previ- Prof. Ching-Long Lin (The Uni- In April 2017, at the 5th Interna- ous Inhalation article (June 2016), versity of Iowa) and Prof. Yu Feng tional Conference on Computa- we introduced SimInhale and ex- (Oklahoma State University) and a tional and Mathematical Biomed- plained its mission and objectives. roundtable discussion was held at ical Engineering, in Pittsburgh, This article provides an update on the end of the second day. PA, US, SimInhale’s chairperson its status, a summary of the most A three-day school on “Emerging presented outcomes of research notable activities and events over Device and Particle Engineering activities launched though the the last two years, and a look at Technologies for Optimal Pulmo- Action’s Working Group WG3. events planned for 2018 and 2019. nary Drug Delivery,” taught by ex- In December 2017, SimInhale or- When launched, SimInhale had 90 perts from academia and industry, ganized the pre-conference sympo- members from 25 countries. Since took place in Valetta, Malta in Feb- sium “Designing Inhalers for Chil- then, SimInhale has grown to in- ruary 2017. Participants were ex- dren and Infants” as part of clude 130 members from 27 coun- posed to an overview of inhalation DDL2017 in Edinburgh, UK. This tries. Its reach goes beyond Europe devices (pMDIs, DPIs, soft mist special session focused on integrat- and includes two companies based inhalers and nebulizers), as well as ed formulation inhaler design for in the United States and two uni- formulation methods for DPIs, young children and population versities, one in Singapore and one toxicity, lung targeting, pharmaco- groups, which is coming into focus in Australia. kinetics, regulatory requirements as an under-researched topic. and aspects of usability and adher- During the DDL conference, Previous SimInhale ence. Podium discussions were very SimInhale’s chair presented an in- activities effective in engaging trainees and vited lecture titled, “In Silico Clini- giving them opportunities to inter- The two-day workshop “Pulmo- cal Trials of Regional Lung Deposi- act with lecturers. nary Drug Delivery: Computa- tion: How They Could Impact tional Fluid Particle Dynamics and A second training school, partially Real Life Product Development Emerging Functional Imaging sponsored by Elpen Pharmaceutics and Patient Care.” Technologies” took place in Octo- Co. Inc., took place in Athens, ber 2016 in Prague, Czech Repub- Greece over two days in October Notable outcomes lic. The event was dedicated to the 2017, with a focus on cross-disci- The overarching, ongoing objective current state-of-the-art on pulmo- plinary training. It included hands- of the Action is overcoming know- nary drug delivery from the per- on demonstrations with cascade ledge compartmentalization and spective of computational fluid impactors and other in vitro aerosol fragmentation. An important step particle dynamics (CFPD) and characterization apparatus to give towards this goal has been the com- Copyright CSC Publishing pletion of a multi-thematic special dates will be soon announced on issue of the European Journal of the Action’s website. SimInhale will Pharmaceutical Sciences (EJPS). be soon announcing a major inter- Published in February 2018, the national conference that will take special issue features a collection of place in Cyprus in 2019 and will 14 scientific articles that showcase feature notable speakers from both the range of activities taking place industry and academia. under the auspices of SimInhale. Its For further information, see: intention is to provide a global view of the current state-of-the-art and, • http://siminhale-cost.eu/ where possible, to highlight the in- • COST Association website: terconnectedness and the links be- www.cost.eu tween various topics. Approximate- • LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/ ly one-third of the papers are critical groups/8421105 reviews while the others are original • Facebook: www.facebook.com/ research papers. A notable outcome siminhale/ showcased in the special issue is the SimInhale benchmark case, which Acknowledgements we hope will aid the inhalation sci- ence community by providing a This article is based upon work reference point for the validation of done in the framework of COST computer codes used in regional Action MP1404—SimInhale, sup- lung deposition studies in silico. ported by COST (European Co- operation in Science and Technolo- An important SimInhale mission is gy). COST is a pan-European to promote the integration of intergovernmental framework. Its young researchers in the field of in- mission is to enable breakthrough haled medicines and to expose scientific and technological devel- them to inter-sectoral training, opments leading to new concepts thus preparing them for this highly and products and thereby contrib- multidisciplinary field. Towards ute to strengthening Europe’s re- this goal, over the last two years, search and innovation capacities. SimInhale has sponsored 13 Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) with a budget of nearly €25,000. Ben Forbes, PhD is Professor of Pharmaceutics at the Institute of Upcoming events and Pharmaceutical Science, King’s Col- activities lege London, London, UK. Andrea Danani, PhD is a Professor at the In collaboration with the Faculty Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial of Pharmacy of the University of Intelligence (IDSIA), Università del- Belgrade, SimInhale will organize la Svizzera Italiana (USI), CH— a workshop titled, “Particle Engi- 6928 Manno. Gerrit Borchard, neering and Device Development PharmD, PhD is a Professor at the for Pulmonary Drug Delivery: School of Pharmaceutical Sciences What is New?” Scheduled for pre- Geneva-Lausanne, (EPGL) Univer- sentation in February 2018, it will sity of Geneva, University of Laus- focus on new activities in device anne, Geneva, CH. Stavros C. and formulation development. Kassinos, PhD is a Professor at the Presenters will be pioneering Computational Sciences Laboratory, researchers and experts from in- School of Engineering, University of dustry and academia. Cyprus, Nicosia, CY. Corresponding In the first week of September author: Stavros C. Kassinos, PhD, 1 2018, SimInhale will present a University Avenue, 2109 Nicosia, Summer School that will offer Cyprus, +35722893528. multidisciplinary short courses. The five-day workshop will take place in Dublin, Ireland and the .