News
New date 1st Satellite Meeting: 6th of April 2021
In response to the rapid expansion of COVID-19, Executive Council and Organising Committee of the CRS BeNeLux & France Local Chapter, has decided to postpone the upcoming 1st Satellite Meeting which was planned on 7th of April 2020 until the next year, along with the European Symposium on Controlled Drug Delivery (ESCDD) which will be held on 7-9th of April 2021. The new save the date for the meeting is 6th of April 2021.
We all stand together in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Stay home, stay healthy and take care of people around you!
Winter's Board Meeting in Lyon 2020
On December 13th during Winter’s Board Meeting in Lyon, France 🇫🇷 academic, industrial and early career scientists met to share scientific insights into their projects and challenges in drug development.
Giovanna Lollo thank you for hosting the meeting at ISPB-Faculté de Pharmacie, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Board Members: Natalia Vtyurina, Jai Prakash, Koen Raemdonck, Rene Van Nostrum, Tina Vermonden, Ana Beloqui, Anne des Rieux, Giovanna Lollo thank you for presenting your progress in scientific research!
Industrial representatives: Ajay Johni, Richard Broadhead, Dunja Sobot, Sharanya Sakar, Jacques Volckmann, Vincent Jannin thank you for providing insights into industrial challenges!
Early Career Scientists: Annalisa Rosso, Mohamad TARHINI, Valentina Andretto, Alvja Mali, Camille Dumont thank you for helping to organise the meeting behind the scenes!
Guest attendees: Klaas Poelstra, Eyad ALMOUAZEN, david KRYZA, Thomas Briot thank you for your contribution to the meeting!
Precision NanoSystems Inc. acknowledgments for sponsoring the meeting!
Call for mentors and mentees
One of the Local Chapter’s main goals is to provide a network and support for early career scientists. Currently, the Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC) of the Chapter is setting up a Mentorship Program.
The Mentorship Program’s aim is to match early career scientists with more senior researchers who can provide career guidance. While these mentors can be established scientists from academia or industry, they can also be postdoctoral researchers who can share their experience in taking the next step following the completion of their PhD.
The Chapter opens the first call for our members who would like to join the program as a mentors or mentees. To apply please contact us via mentorship.bnlf.crs@gmail.com. Deadline for mentees applications is December 31st 2019. There is no deadline for mentors applications.
To apply as a mentor, please upload a brief CV in the following dropbox link https://www.dropbox.com/request/DbVT2q9y9gH5LlBFxJwo and fill out the survey https://forms.gle/89VQgpra8MkbVbaz9. There is no deadline for mentor's applications.
Matching process
The matching process of mentors with mentees who applied in the first round before 31st December 2019 will be completed at the beginning of February 2020. Stay tuned!
UPDATES FROM THE CRS ANNUAL MEETING & EXPOSITION IN VALENCIA
This year 1300+ attendees were at the CRS Annual Meeting & Exposition in Valencia in the past July. Among them 49 countries represented, 75+ sponsors & exhibitors, 110+ speakers, 900+ poster presenters and 100+ received awards. Within 10 pre-meeting workshops & events there were a lot of activities organized specifically for the CRS Local Chapters allowing our Chapter to establish good communication with the Spanish-Portuguese, Italy, UKI and German Local Chapters. In one of these sessions two of our early career scientists gave an oral talk. 9 members were chosen/invited as a speaker. 4 of our early career scientists were awarded with the CRS Travel Grants. Among 10 posters from our Chapter members, 1 poster was nominated for the poster prize from the CRS Yearly Scientist Committee. During Networking Borrell of our chapter we hosted 39 members including early career scientists, assistant professors, professors and industrial representatives. In total, during this meeting we recruited 20 new members among which established connections which 10 industrial representatives and 7 companies.
46th CRS Annual Meeting & Exposition July 21-24 Valencia, Spain
Local Chapters Programming
The purpose of CRS Local Chapters is to promote and stimulate local involvement in the delivery science community, enhance delivery science through collaboration, provide local networks, and to introduce at a local level the benefits of CRS membership. International Local Chapters act as resources for CRS-hosted meetings and events, topical workshops, webinars and other scientific-based educational opportunities, by providing insight and scientific content.
https://2019.controlledreleasesociety.org/local-chapters-programming
EARLY CAREER SCIENTIST COMMITTEE (ECSC)
Most recently, the CRS BNLF Chapter established its Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC): the team of six enthusiastic members who are coordinated by Roy van der Meel (Assistant Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology). The Committee is dedicated to contribute to the Chapter’s main objectives to support early career scientist members. To achieve this, the ECSC will regularly consult the Chapter’s early career scientist members to determine which opportunities and activities are most beneficial.
Examples of these activities include:
i) hosting sessions at local scientific meetings and conferences and acquiring sponsorship, fund travel grants;
ii) organizing webinars and workshops with leading scientists;
iii) creating mentorship and exchange programs, industrial internships.
We hope to grow further and welcome many more early career scientists to the Chapter. We are happy to announce our first members forming ECSC (see picture on the left).
CHAPTER GROWTH
Our chapter is growing fast and we are happy to announce that we have reached 100 members! Among them 48% are principal investigators, 30% are early career scientists, 15% are industrial members and 7% are members in other positions. Looking at the locations, 13% of members are from Belgium, 56% are from the Netherlands, 33% are from France and 1% is from Luxembourg.
If you know more people in your network who would like to join our Local Chapter, don’t hesitate to connect them with us!
Executive Council of the CRS BeNeLux & France Local Chapter has been elected
Among 20 Board Members of the Chapter, Executive Council was elected to run the chapter for the term 2019-2020. We are happy to announce these names:
1. President: Natalia Vtyurina (Groningen University, NL)
2. Vice-President: Jai Prakash (University of Twente, NL)
3. Secretary: Giovanna Lollo (Lyon University, Fr)
4. Treasurer: Koen van der Maaden (Leiden University, NL)
5. Industrial Relations Coordinator: Jos Paulusse (University of Twente, NL)
6. Early Career Scientists Coordinator: Roy van der Meel (Eindhoven University, NL)
Board Members Meeting April 2019 in Utrecht, the Netherlands
On 16th of April the very first meeting between the Board Members of Local Chapter took place in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It has been decided that in the coming year our Local Chapter will adhere to the following two missions:
1. Bridging industrial and academic experts in the field of drug delivery and targeting by providing them an extra opportunity to communicate with each other and stimulating collaborations and partnerships
2. Supporting early career scientists by providing them opportunities for career growth in academia or industry and boost their professional and personal development
Meet our Local Chapter Partner Cristal Therapeutics in Valencia
In the approaching 46th Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting & Exposition, our Local Chapter Partner, Dr. Cristianne Rijcken, the Chief Scientific Officer & Founder of Cristal Therapeutics, will give a talk as an invited speaker.
Focus Group Scientific Session: Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Drug Delivery (NNDD) on Wednesday, 7/24/2019 from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM.
“CriPec® platform and lead product CPC634: principles, nonclinical evaluation and clinical translation”
Student Travel Award 2019
The Controlled Release Society’s Patrick Couvreur Student Travel Grants aim to promote student connectivity by providing travel grants to promising students in the field of delivery science around the world to attend the 2019 CRS Annual Meeting being held in Valencia, Spain, July 21-24, 2019. The Student Travel Grant Program gives current CRS student and post-doc members the opportunity to attend the CRS Annual Meeting. Applicants must have been accepted to present (either an oral or poster) at the CRS Annual Meeting. Award selection will be based on the quality of the applicant's science reflected in their research abstract, impact statement, and curriculum vita. The amount of the award(s) will be based upon the number of accepted applicants and available funds.
Local Chapter Young Scientist Travel Grant Award Nominees 2019
1. Valentina Francia, Postdoctoral fellow at Groningen University and Chapter Social Media Coordinator, will present her topic on “Studying the Biological and Cellular Interactions of Nanomedicines for Drug Delivery”
2. Keni Yang, PhD at Groningen University and Chapter Membership Coordinator, will present her work on the “Effect of Protein Source on Nanoparticle-Protein Corona and Cellular Uptake”
3. Koen van der Maaden, Postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University LACDR and Chapter Social Media Coordinator, will present how “Intradermal vaccination with influenza hemagglutinin-loaded ceramic nanoporous microneedle arrays induces protective immune responses”
4. Natalia Vtyurina, Postdoctoral fellow at Groningen University and Chapter Founder & Coordinator, will present her efforts on building up “A live-cell fluorescence imaging platform to characterize internalization of nanomedicines by human cells”
The grants will be distributed to awardees at the CRS Annual Meeting 2019 in Valencia, Spain.