The CRS

The Controlled Release Society (CRS) is an international organization which serves 3,000 members from more than 50 countries. Two-thirds of the CRS membership represent industry and one-third represents academia and government.

This international and multi disciplinary organization is dedicated to improving quality of life by advancing science, technology and education in the field of controlled delivery of bioactive substances.

Controlled release is the field of scientific activity concerned with the control in time and space of the biological effects of therapeutic agents in human and animal health, and of other active agents in environmental, consumer and industrial applications. The objective may be to prolong the duration of action of an active agent, to minimize adverse reactions, or to maximize efficacy. This objective may be achieved by control of diffusion, reaction rates or other physicochemical parameters through the use of rate-controlling materials, manipulation of the appropriate biological barriers, targeting, or manipulation of the fate of the agent once beyond these barriers. Controlled release draws upon the expertise of many disciplines: chemistry, chemical engineering, pharmaceutics, physics, materials science, and the biological sciences—biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology, physiology, cell biology, medicine, etc. Newer approaches such as gene therapy are being addressed as other forms of controlled release.

The science of controlled release has become a research discipline whose future depends on a thorough understanding of the interactions between the delivery system and the biological or environmental barriers to delivery of active substances.

The Controlled Release Society has 18 local chapters. The Spanish Portuguese Local Chapter
(SPLC-CRS) is one of these and was founded in 1995 to cater for the particular needs in Spain and Portugal. The SPLC-CRS intends to address a broad range of research fields based on controlled release as such medecine, veterinary, agriculture, food or cosmetic science.

HISTORY

The Controlled Release Society (CRS) was conceived in 1973. In 1978, CRS was incorporated as a not-for-profit organisation, devoted to the advancement of the science and technology in the controlled release field. At the international level, this Organisation has been organised in the form of 18 local chapters, distributed in limited geographic areas. These chapters include all of those persons who are interested in this field.

The Spanish-Portuguese Local Chapter (SPLC-CRS) was formed in 1995 in Santiago de Compostela, under the auspices of Prof. Nicholas Peppas who presented the idea in 1994. The promoters of this local chapter came from research centres and Academia, such as Departments of Pharmaceutical Technology from Universities of Santiago de Compostela, La Laguna, Coimbra and INETI in Lisbon . The First Committee was headed by Prof. María José Alonso (President) and included Dr. María Eugenia Meirinhos da Cruz (Vice-president), Prof. Matías Llabrés (Treasurer), Prof. Dolores Torres López (Secretary) and Prof. Rogelio Pinto de Sa Gaspar (Vice-secretary).

One of the first activities of the new Association was to organise the first Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery which was held in Santiago de Compostela (25-27 September 1995). The Congress was divided into four different sessions including 'Oral Drug Delivery Systems', 'Micro and Nanoparticulate Systems for Parenteral Administration', 'New Physiological Approaches in Controlled Drug Delivery' and 'A Global View of Controlled Release Systems'. The conference was very successful with 20 individual sessions and 83 posters.

In February 1997, the II Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery was organised in collaboration with the 'Asociación de Docentes de Farmacia Galénica' (today SEFIG or Spanish Association in Industrial Pharmacy and Galenics). This meeting took place in Puerto de la Cruz ( Tenerife , Spain ). An excellent participation was noted, with 6 invited lecturers, 24 oral communications and 90 poster presentations. During the Conference, a new Committee was elected. This Committee was formed by María Eugénia Meirinhos da Cruz became (President), Manuel Guzmán, María José Alonso and Antonio Almeida.

In September de 1998, the III Spanish-Portuguese conference on Controlled Drug Delivery was held at the 'Instituto Nacional de Engenharia e Tecnologia Industrial' (INETI) in Lisbon (http://www.ineti.pt/congresso/crssplc.htm). This event was inaugurated by the Vice-Secretary of the Minister of Economy in Portugal (Dr. Vitor Ramalho) and the President of INFARMED (Dr. Aranda da Silva). The conference brought together over 155 participants from different countries . The scientific program was divided in one workshop, entitled 'Trends and Future in Drug Delivery' and the following five sessions: 'Pharmacokinetic Aspects of Controlled Release Formulations', 'Mechanisms of the Immune Response', 'Polymers as Excipients in Drug Delivery', 'Lipid Based Drug Delivery' and, finally, 'Oligonucleotides and Gene Therapy'. In addition, during the conference, Dr. Sergio Simoës (Faculty of Pharmacy in the University of Coimbra ) was awarded for his excellent PhD work entitled "Delivery of Antisense Oligonucleotides and Ribozymes Mediated by pH-sensitive Enhances their anti-HIV Effect".

Finally, the following Committee was elected: José Luis Pedraz (President), Antonio Almeida (Vice-President), María Jose Alonso, María Barbara Martins and Rosa Hernández (Treasurer).

The IV Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery took place in Vitoria (17-20 September 2000; http://www.vc.ehu.es/CRS2000/). The conference was split into seven different sessions and one Workshop ('Patents, Generics, and Controlled Release Formulations') with 8 plenary lectures, 17 oral communications and 62 poster communications. During the Conference, the general committee was again modified to include Prof. Antonio Rabasco, as President, and Prof. Juan Manuel Ginés, as Treasurer.

In November 2002, the V Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery was organised in Seville (http://tecnofar.us.es/crs/sevilla2002/). Within the conference activities, the following workshops were organised: 'New trends in controlled release systems' and 'Therapeutical advances in Cancer Treatment' with the participation of three experts in each one. In addition, three plenary lectures were assessed and 74 communications took place. In Sevilla, the elected committee was headed by Prof. Rogerio Gaspar and Prof. Sergio Simoës as main Secretary.

The last event organised by SPLC-CRS was the VI Congress of the Portuguese-Spanish Chapter of the Controlled Release Society. This Conference was held in Coimbra (31 March – 2 April 2005). This conference was organised in collaboration with the Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências Farmacêuticas and was divided into six plenary sessions, two short symposiums ('Oncology' and 'Future of New Systems for Drug Administration'), 20 oral communications and 70 posters. Around 160 people attend this Conference. In addition, all of the presented works were published in the 'Revista Portuguesa de Farmácia' (Volume LII, nº 2). What's more, its to important to note that the new Eudragit-CRS award to the best PhD work was given to Dr. Angel Montero Carcaboso, from the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria, for his work entitled 'Microparticulate Systems to Potentate and Modulate the Immunogenicity of the Synthetic Antimalaria Vaccine Spf66'.