The CRS 2020 Annual Meeting was recently held virtually, from June 28th to July 1st. The COVID-19 outbreak dictated the virtual format, but the Annual Meeting was still able to count with more than 1300 attendees from 46 different countries worldwide! The conference program included key highlights such as a plenary talk by the Nobel Laureate Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi on “Elucidating the Mechanisms for Autophagy”, as well as a special session entitled “The Magic of Bob Langer” and presented by Prof. Robert Langer himself. Besides this, the conference program included an outstanding line up of more than 200 speakers and moderators. Our Chapter was highly involved in this year’s Annual Meeting, with the participation of around 40 members, from which 70% and 30% are based in Spain and Portugal, respectively. Among several presentations ranging from keynote talks to posters, some of our Chapter members were also recognized with prestigious awards. Therefore, congratulations to our founder Maria José Alonso from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) for both the Distinguished Service Award and Women in Science Award, Maria Luisa Garcia from University of Barcelona (Spain) for the JCR Jorge Heller Outstanding Paper Award, and Helena Florindo from University of Lisbon (Portugal) for the Young Investigator Award of the Immuno Delivery Focus Group! Moreover, the winners of the SPLC-CRS Young Scientist Travel Grants of this year, Tamara Dacoba from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Artur Filipe Rodrigues from University of Coimbra (Portugal), presented their award-winning works on the Young Scientist Committee session and as an On-demand Talk, respectively. Despite the circumstances, the CRS 2020 Annual Meeting was one of the largest CRS meetings in the last ten years, also becoming the world’s largest virtual meeting dedicated to delivery science.
Stay tuned and do not miss the updates regarding the upcoming CRS 2021 Annual Meeting, which is planned to be held in Montreal, Canada, from June 23rd to 28th!
