The 13th Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery took place on January 22-24, 2020, at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain. The Conference was opened by Prof. Dolores Torres (President of the Spanish-Portuguese Local Chapter of the CRS; SPLC-CRS), USC, Spain; María José Alonso (Immediate Past President of the CRS) USC, Spain; Prof. Francisco Otero (Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, USC) and Victor Arce (Vice Chancellor of students and international relationships of the USC), for an audience of about 200 participants.
SPLC-CRS celebrated its 25th Anniversary during the meeting. SPLC-CRS was established in 1995 by Prof. María José Alonso with the guidance of Prof. Nicholas Peppas. The SPLC-CRS chapter was one of the first Chapters of the CRS. A session dedicated to the “25th Anniversary” of the SPLC-CRS, with testimonies from past Presidents, was held during the meeting.
The conference opened with a plenary lecture by Prof. Alexander Florence (University College of London, UK). During his lecture, he discussed his own trajectory in nanomedicine and “the complexities of targeting”. The talk was very inspiring, especially for the young scientists present. There were also plenary lectures from brilliant scientists like Profs. Mark Prausnitz (Georgia Tech, USA), Steven R. Little (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Luis Liz-Marzan (Biomagune Research Center, Spain) and Ignacio Melero (Universidad de Navarra, Spain).
The scientific program included papers about the most exiting research in the field of controlled drug delivery: Transdermal and Transmucosal Delivery, Therapy and Prevention of Infectious Diseases, Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy, Targeted Drug Delivery and Combination Therapies, Delivery of Biomacromolecules and Oligonucleotides and Oral Delivery of Drugs and other active ingredients. The different sessions provided a venue for a range of excellent speakers.
A special session with the representatives of the European Local Chapter also took place. The different representatives presented their vision about the future of the European CRS Local Chapters and their research interests.
The SPLC-CRS Young Section organized a very successful interactive session with Prof. Alexander Florence. During the Conference, an award was given to the best thesis of the last two years, and the best oral communication and poster presented during the meeting also received prizes thanks to the financial support of the international CRS.
The meeting ended with a round table of experts from the European industry analyzing the industry perspective on nanomedicine.
Attendees at the 13th Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery (Santiago de Compostela, 22-24 January, 2020)
Representatives of the CRS Local Chapters in Europe with the Moderator of the Session, Avi Schroeder, the special CRS guest Steven Litle and the Board Committee members.
María Jesús Vicent during the session dedicated to the 25 anniversary of the 1st Spanish-Portuguese Conference on Controlled Drug Delivery.
Sara Cordeiro, representative of the Young CRS Committee with Mark Prausnitz, moderator of the session dedicated to the 25 anniversary of the 1st Spanish-Portuguese Conference.
María José Alonso during the panel of discussion with experts from the Industry to analize the future of Nanomedicine.
Prof. Alexander Florence during the interactive session with the students, organized by the Young Section of the SPLC-CRS.
