Email : info@siminhale-cost.eu

Action Members


TitleNameSurname GenderE-mailType of OrganizationCountryWG PrimaryWG FollowerWG Follower 2Additional Information
DrSandraCvijicFemalegsandra@pharmacy.bg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG1WG2Info
MrUnaiCossíoMaleucossio@cicbiomagune.esResearch InstituteSpainWG4WG2Info
DrAleckAlexopoulosMalealeck@cperi.certh.grResearch InstituteGreeceWG2WG1WG3Info
DrJoaquimRigolaMalequim@cttc.upc.eduUniversitySpainWG3Info
Prof.Carlos DavidPérez SegarraMalesegarra@cttc.upc.eduUniversitySpainWG3WG1Info
DrÁrpádFarkasMalefarkas.arpad@energia.mta.huResearch InstituteHungaryWG3WG2Info
MrWilburde KruijfMalewilbur@medspray.comIndustryNetherlandsWG2Info
Prof.BeatrizSilva LimaFemalebeatrizlima@netcabo.ptUniversityPortugalWG5Info
DrWimVosMalewim.vos@fluidda.comIndustryBelgiumWG4WG2WG3Info
Prof.MagdalenaRadwanskaFemalemagdalena.radwanska@ghent.ac.krUniversityBelgiumWG1WG4Info
DrOriolLehmkuhlMaleoriol.lehmkuhl@bsc.esUniversitySpainWG3WG4Info
DrCorneliaVasileFemalecvasile@icmpp.roResearch InstituteRomaniaWG1WG2Info
DrPaolaRussoFemalepaorusso@unisa.itUniversityItalyWG1Info
Prof.MihalisLazaridisMalelazaridi@mred.tuc.grUniversityGreeceWG3WG5Info
Prof.AndreaDananiMaleandrea.danani@idsia.chUniversitySwitzerlandWG3WG1Info
DrCatalina NataliaCheaburu YilmazFemaleduncaty@gmail.comResearch InstituteRomaniaWG1WG2Info
DrDimitriosGerogiorgisD.Gerogiorgis@ed.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG1WG2WG2Info
Prof.ZoricaVujicFemalezvujic@pharmacy.bg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG1WG2Info
DrEliasFattalMaleelias.fattal@u-psud.frUniversityFranceWG1WG5Info
DrGaiaColomboFemaleclmgai@unife.itUniversityItalyWG1WG2Info
MrMingshiYangMalemingshi.yang@sund.ku.dkUniversityDenmarkWG1WG2WG3Info
MsLucieKubelovaFemalekubelova@icpf.cas.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG2WG1Info
DrNicolasTsapisMalenicolas.tsapis@u-psud.frResearch InstituteFranceWG1WG4Info
DrKristian Valen-SendstadMalekvs@simula.noResearch InstituteNorwayWG3WG4Info
DrStavroulaRozouFemaleava@elpen.grIndustryGreeceWG1WG2Info
MrYanCuiMaleyan.cui@iw.uni-halle.deUniversityGermanyWG3WG2Info
DrJanJedelskyMalejedelsky@fme.vutbr.cz
UniversityCzech RepublicWG4WG3Info
Prof.RitaVanbeverFemalerita.vanbever@uclouvain.be
UniversityBelgiumWG1WG5Info
DrKatrinBauerFemalekatrin.bauer@imfd.tu-freiberg.de
UniversityGermanyWG3WG1Info
DrAnne Haaijede BoerMalea.h.de.boer@rug.nlUniversityNetherlandsWG2WG1WG3Info
MsJanaKozakovaFemalekozakova@icpf.cas.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG2WG1Info
MrYanOstrovskiMaleyanost@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG3WG1WG2Info
DrAlessioAlexiadisMalea.alexiadis@bham.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG3Info
DrLauraNicolaouFemalelaura.nicolaou@imperial.ac.uk
University
United Kingdom
WG3WG1Info
DrFrantisekLizalMalelizal@fme.vutbr.czUniversityCzech RepublicWG4WG3Info
Prof.PaoloColomboMalepaolo.colombo@unipr.itUniversityItalyWG1WG2Info
MrPhilippHofemeierMalephilipph@bm.technion.ac.ilUniversityIsraelWG3Info
Prof.GerritBorchardMalegerrit.borchard@unige.chUniversitySwitzerlandWG1WG2WG5Info
DrTheodoraKrasiaFemalekrasia@ucy.ac.cyUniversityCyprusWG1Info
Prof.NenadFilipovicMalefica@kg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG2WG4Info
Prof.SitaramVelagaMalesivel@ltu.seUniversitySwedenWG2WG1Info
Prof.MariaCordinaFemalemaria.cordina@um.edu.mtUniversityMaltaWG5WG2Info
DrVladimirZdimalMalezdimal@icpf.cas.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG2WG1WG3Info
MrFotosStylianouMalefotosstylianou@yahoo.com
UniversityCyprusWG3WG2WG4Info
DrSarahZellnitzFemalesarah.zellnitz@rcpe.atResearch InstituteAustriaWG1WG2Info
Prof.MafaldaVideiraFemalemvideira@ff.ul.ptUniversityPortugalWG5WG1WG4Info
DrMårten
SvenssonMalemarten@emmace.se
Industry
SwedenWG3Info
Prof.BarbaraRothen-RutishauserFemalebarbara.rothen@unifr.chUniversitySwitzerlandWG1WG5Info
DrRamiFishlerMaleramyfishler@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG2WG1Info
DrKayeMorganFemalekaye.morgan@monash.eduUniversityGermanyWG4Info
ProfVasileiosBontozoglouMalebont@mie.uth.gr
UniversityGreeceWG1WG3Info
DrGuillaume
Houzeaux
Maleguillaume.houzeaux@bsc.esResearch InstituteSpainWG3WG1Info
MrPantelisKoullapisMalepjoull01@ucy.ac.cyUniversityCyprusWG3WG1Info
DrLudmilaMaškováFemalemaskova@icpf.cas.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG2WG1Info
DrBenForbesMaleben.forbes@kcl.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG5WG1WG4Info
DrPerBäckmanMalePer.backman@mylan.co.ukIndustrySwedenWG3WG2WG4Info
MrJordiLlopMalejllop@cicbiomagune.esResearch InstituteSpainWG4WG2Info
DrCarstenEhrhardtMaleehrhardc@tcd.ieUniversityirelandWG5WG1WG4Info
Prof.JosueSznitmanMalesznitman@bm.technion.ac.ilUniversityIsraelWG3Info
DrStavrosKassinosMalekassinos@ucy.ac.cyUniversityCyprusWG3WG2Info
Prof.ZoricaPotparaFemalezoricap@ac.meUniversityMontenegroWG1WG2WG3
DrDenise MorrisFemaledenise.morris@cognigencorp.comIndustryUnited StatesWG3WG5Info
MrMiroslabJichaMalejicha@fme.vutbr.czUniversityCzech RepublicWG3WG4
Prof.StuartElbornMales.elborn@qub.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG4WG3
DrLenaYoshiharaFemaleyoshihara@lnm.mw.tum.deUniversityGermanyWG3
DrAmritPaudelMaleamrit.paudel@rcpe.at
Research Institute
Austria
WG1WG3
DrLea AnnDaileyFemalelea.dailey@pharmazie.uni-halle.deUniversityUnited KingdomWG5WG4
DrFrancescaButtiniFemalefrancesca.buttini@unipr.itUniversityItalyWG2WG1
MsMarisada Costa GasparFemalemgaspar@ff.uc.ptUniversityPortugalWG1WG5
Prof.MartinSommerfeldMalemartin.sommerfeld@ovgu.deUniversityGermanyWG3WG2
DrMenachemMotieiMalemotiei.biu@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG1WG2WG4
DrMiguelRodriguesMalemiguelrodrigues@tecnico.ulisboa.ptResearch InstitutePortugalWG1WG2WG3
DrAbhinavKumarMaleabhinav.kumar@kcl.ac.ukUniversityUKWG5WG1
DrAlessandraRossiFemalealessandra.rossi@unipr.itUniversityItalyWG1WG2
Prof.WolfgangKueblerMalekueblerw@smh.caResearch InstituteGermanyWG4WG3WG5
DrJelenaDjurisFemalejelena.djuris@pharmacy.bg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG2WG1WG3
Prof.WilliamCouetMalewilliam.couet@univ-poitiers.frUniversityFranceWG1WG5
Prof.NebojsaZdravkovicMalenzdravkovic@medf.kg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG2
DrAlessandroDe RosisMalederosis.alessandro@icloud.comUniversityFranceWG3WG2
DrJanDe BackerMalejan.debacker@fluidda.comIndustryBelgiumWG4WG3
DrNievesGonzalez RamonFemaleNieves.GonzalezRamon@borealisgroup.comIndustryNetherlandsWG1WG2
Prof.TriantafyllosStylianopoulosMaletstylian@ucy.ac.cyUniversityCyprusWG3WG1WG5
DrDanielaTrainiFemaledaniela.traini@sydney.edu.auUniversityAustraliaWG1WG2WG4
Prof.IsabelVieiraFemalemisabel.vieira@infarmed.ptGovernmental AgencyPortugalWG5
DrSérgioSilvaMalesmcsilva@ff.ul.pt
UniversityPortugalWG1WG2WG5
DrParameswara RaoVuddandaMaleparrao@ltu.seUniversitySwedenWG1WG2WG4
Prof.SvetlanaIbricFemalesvetlana.ibric@pharmacy.bg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG1WG2
Prof.PetrosKoumoutsakosMalepetros@ethz.chUniversitySwitzerlandWG3
Prof.LenutaProfireFemalenprofire@yahoo.comUniversityRomaniaWG2WG1
Prof.RachelaPopovtzerFemalerachela.popovtzer@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG4WG1
Prof.DimitriosRekkasMalerekkas@pharm.uoa.grUniversityGreeceWG2WG1WG5
DrZoranLavričMalezoran.lavric@ffa.uni-lj.siUniversitySloveniaWG1WG3WG5
DrRonanMac LoughlinMaleronanmacloughlin@gmail.comIndustryIrelandWG2WG1WG3
DrSabrinaNickelFemalesnickel@tcd.ie
UniversityIrelandWG5WG14WG4
MsSandrineMarchandFemalesandrine.marchand@univ-poitiers.frUniversityFranceWG1
Prof.EdmundoGomes de AzevedoMaleegazevedo@tecnico.ulisboa.ptUniversityPortugalWG1
Prof.JoyConwayFemalejoy.conway@icloud.comUniversity
United Kingdom
WG4WG2
Prof.StaneSrcicMalesrcics@ffa.uni-lj.siUniversitySloveniaWG1WG3
Prof.MihaelaBaicanFemalem_pascu2000@yahoo.comUniversityRomaniaWG1WG2
DrTanjaVojinovicFemaletanjavojinovic88@gmail.comUniversityMontenegroWG1WG2
Prof.BrigitteEvrardFemaleb.evrard@ulg.ac.beUniversityBelgiumWG1WG2Info
DrHelenaThörnFemalehelena.thorn@astrazeneca.comIndustrySwedenWG3WG2WG4Info
Prof.BernardGeurtsMalebernard.geurts@gmail.comUniversitythe NetherlandsWG3WG4WG5Info
DrAndjelkaKovačevićFemaleandjelka.ana@gmail.comUniversityPortugalWG1WG4WG5
MsLihiShachar BermanFemalelihi.shachar@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG3WG4WG5
DrIreneVignon-ClementelFemaleirene.vignon-clementel@inria.frResearch InstituteFranceWG3WG4
Prof.LeslieYeoMaleleslie.yeo@rmit.edu.auUniversityAustraliaWG2WG1Info
MsChristaSchimpelFemalechrista.schimpel@bionanonet.atResearch InstituteAustriaWG5WG4
DrAnitaChvatalFemalechvatal.anita@gmail.comUniversityHungaryWG1WG5
MrMostaphaArianeMalemostapha.ariane@u-bourgogne.frUniversityFranceWG3
MrMitjaPohlenMalemitja.pohlen@ffa.uni-lj.siUniversitySloveniaWG1WG2WG4
MsJelisavetaIgnjatovicFemaleignjatovicjelisaveta@gmail.comUniversitySerbiaWG3WG1
Prof.Eleonore FröhlichFemaleeleonore.froehlich@medunigraz.atUniversityAustriaWG5WG4Info
DrSatyanarayanaSomavarapuMales.somavarapu@ucl.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG1WG2
DrDennisSandellMaledennis@s5consulting.comIndustrySwedenWG3WG1WG2
DrAlexanderZelinikMalezelikin@chem.au.dkUniversityDenmarkWG1WG4
MrSimonDorfmanMaledsemion@technion.ac.ilResearch InstituteIsraelWG2WG3WG5
DrKonstantinosEleftheriadisMaleelefther@ipta.demokritos.grResearch InstituteGreeceWG1WG2WG5
MrJordiMuela CastroMalejordim@cttc.upc.eduUniversitySpainWG3WG4
MsLihiShachar BermanFemalelihi.shachar@gmail.comUniversityIsraelWG1WG2WG5
MsTijanaSustersicFemaletijanas@kg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG2
MsPreciousAkhuemokhan Femaleprecious.akhuemokhan@kcl.ac.ukUniversityUnited KingdomWG1WG5
MsVarvaraZoumpliouFemalevzoumpliou@elpen.grIndustryGreeceWG1WG2
MsArgyro-NektariaTaouktsiFemaleataouktsi@elpen.grIndustryGreeceWG1WG2
MsMariaGkoliaFemalemgkolia@mie.uth.grUniversityGreeceWG3WG1WG2
DrBeatrizEguzkitzaFemalebeatriz.eguzkitza@bsc.esGovernmental AgencySpainWG3WG1
MrJiříTrousilMalejiri.trousil@centrum.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG1
MsAleksandraVulovićFemalealeksandra.vulovic@kg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG2
DrKiaoInthavongMalekiao.inthavong@rmit.edu.auUniversityAustraliaWG3WG2
DrAdityaDasMaleAditya_Das@hotmail.comCompanyUnited States of AmericaWG1WG3WG5Info
MsTijanaSustersicFemaletijanas@kg.ac.rsUniversitySerbiaWG3WG2
Prof.FabioSonvicoMalefabio.sonvico@unipr.itUniversityItalyWG1WG2WG5
DrNathalieWauthozFemalenawautho@ulb.ac.beUniversityBelgiumWG1WG4WG5
Prof.ReginaScherließFemalerscherliess@pharmazie.uni-kiel.deUniversityGermanyWG1WG2
DrKikoBelchiMalefrbegu@gmail.comUniversitySpainWG4-
DrMichaelBennettMalemichael.bennett@soton.ac.ukUniversityUKWG4WG3
Prof.CatherineGreeneFemalecmgreene@rcsi.ieUniversityIrelandWG5WG1
DrAneeshThakurMaleaneesh.thakur@sund.ku.dkGovernmental AgencyDenmarkWG1WG4
MrSohanSarangiMalesohan.sarangi@farmaci.uu.seUniversitySwedenWG3WG2
DrEditBenkeFemalebenke.edit@pharm.u-szeged.huUniversityHungaryWG1WG2WG3
DrRitaAmbrusFemalearita@pharm.u-szeged.huUniversityHungaryWG1WG2WG3
DrLudivinePetitFemalelpetit@aquilonpharma.comIndustryBelgiumWG1WG2WG5
DrAycaYıldız PeközFemaleaycayildizpekoz@gmail.comUniversityTurkeyWG1WG2
DrLucieOndráčkováFemaleondrackova@icpf.cas.czResearch InstituteCzech RepublicWG2WG1
MsDanielaPamfilFemalepamfil.daniela@icmpp.roResearch InstituteRomaniaWG2WG1
DrJohanUlanderMalejohan.ulander@astrazeneca.comIndustrySwedenWG3WG1WG4
MrThomasJankeMalethomas.janke@imfd.tu-freiberg.deUniversityGermanyWG3
DrGiorgioGiossiMalegiorgio.giossi@geneticspa.comIndustryItalyWG1WG2

  •   Dr. Aditya R. Das

    Email: aditya_das@hotmail.com

    Founder and Principal, Pharmaceutical Consulting LLC, USA

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Engineered Spray Dried Particles, 2. Pulmonary Toxicology, 3. Particle-Macrophage Interactions, 4. Infectious Disease Pathology, 5. Patient Inhalation Education, 6. Device Design and Development

    Golden Paragraph: My areas of focus over the past 25 years include both the mechanistic aspects of Pulmonary Disease Pathophysiology as well as the optimization of drug delivery to the whole lung for both local/regional disease states and for drug delivery using the lungs as a portal for entry to the systemic vasculature. Local/Regional disease states have included research into the etiology of Silicosis, mycobacterium tuberculosis infections, Cystic Fibrosis and Asthma/COPD, while systemic delivery has included efforts related to the treatment of diabetes and CNS diseases such as Schizophrenia using respirable engineered spray dried particles. The resulting work has assisted in the following product approvals-in January 2006 for the first-generation dry powder inhaled Insulin (Exubera), in December 2012 for thermal aerosol vapor generation and inhalation of Staccato Loxapine (Adasuve) and in March 2013 for dry powder inhaled Tobramycin (Tobi PodHaler). My current interests are in the positioning and placement of 505(b)(2) applications involving respirable engineered spray dried particles using both small molecule and macromolecule APIs delivered via inhalation as a dry powder using very simple off the shelf, low resistance devices thus delivering low cost, efficient and useful therapeutic strategies for both local and systemic applications.

  •   Prof. Dr. Eleonore Fröhlich

    Email: eleonore.froehlich@medunigraz.at

    Center for Medical Research, Medical University of Graz, Stiftingtalstr. 24, 8010 Graz, Austria

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biocompatibility testing, 2. Chronic culture models, 3.Nanoparticles, 4. Light microscopy techniques

    Golden Paragraph: Eleonore Fröhlich is a medical doctor with a diploma in Biochemistry.  Since 2007 she is Director of the Core Facility Imaging at the Center for Medical Research of the Medical University of Graz, Austria, and extraordinary professor at the Institute of Anatomy of the University of Tübingen, Germany. Since 2013 she is Chairperson and Scientific Advisor of the Animal Welfare Body of the Medical University of Graz and Key Researcher at the Competence Center Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering in Graz. As active member of the European Center for Nanotoxicology (EURO-NanoTox) coordinated by BioNanoNet GmbH, Graz, her group develops protocols for the standardized testing of nanoparticles. Her research addresses toxicological effects of (nano)particles by in-vitro studies in general with specific focus on models for chronic exposure and physiologically relevant testing of inhaled particles. The Core facility further offers analyses by light microscopy and flow cytometry and standardized cytotoxicity testing according to ISO 10993 guidelines.

  •  Prof. Leslie Yeo

    Email: leslie.yeo@rmit.edu.au

     RMIT University, Australia

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Microfluidics, 2. Acoustics, 3. Nebulisers, 4. Drug delivery

    Golden Paragraph:Leslie Yeo is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the MicroNanomedical Research Centre at RMIT University. Leslie’s expertise is focused on fundamental and applied acoustomicrofluidics for biotechnological applications that span biosensing, point-of-care diagnostics and drug delivery. His primary research activity in SimInhale is centered around the development of next generation nebulisation devices using acoustics for inhaled macromolecular aerosol and nanoparticle delivery. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Leslie will develop these devices and test them in both in vitro and in vivo models with a wide range of therapeutic targets for various respiratory diseases. He is also interest in collaborating with SimInhale members to develop in silico models to optimise the technology.

  • Andjelk Kovačević

    Email: andjelka.ana@gmail.com

    Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Azinhaga de Santa Comba, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. Formulation development for local/systemic action, 3. Safety assessment of engineered particles, 4. Excipients selection

    Golden Paragraph: Andjelka Kovačević finished PhD thesis “Lipid nanoparticles stabilized with polyhydroxy surfactants – formulation, characterization, stability and drug incorporation” in 2015 at the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Cosmetology, Faculty of Pharmacy – University of Belgrade, Serbia. During her PhD studies she was a guest researcher at Institute of Pharmacy, Free University of Berlin, where she performed experimental part of PhD thesis under supervison Prof. Dr Cornelia M. Keck and Prof. Dr Rainer H. Müller. She has started working with Prof. Eliana Souto (Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Portugal) in 2014.

    The primary research activity of Dr Kovačević in SimInhale is partical engineering and formulation development for local/systemic action. In this regard, she is interested in the design of aerosol formulations and integration of particle/formulation engineering with inhaler design for optimal lung delivery. Moreover, she is also interested in the safety assessment of engineered particles. In that sense toxicological investigation of the enginnered particles, i.e. selection of soluble substances that are non-irritating to the lung epithelium and safety concerns over excipient toxicity to lung tissues is part of the project she is interested in.

  •  Dr. Helena Thörn

    Email: Helena.Thorn@astrazeneca.com

    AstraZeneca R&D Gothenburg, Sweden

    Keywords of expertise: 1. PBPK modeling, 2. Pulmonary drug delivery, 3. Pharmacokinetics, 4. Drug product development

    Golden Paragraph: Helena Thörn works at AstraZeneca R&D in Gothenburg, Sweden and holds a position as a Senior Scientist in Biopharmaceutics with main focus in the inhaled drug delivery area. She has a Master of Science in Pharmacy and a PhD in Biopharmaceutics from Uppsala University. Her research has been focused on mechanistic understanding of drug absorption and the fate of an active moiety from administration to its site of action. She is experienced in PBPK modeling and believe that this tool will help to improve the understanding of the multiple factors involved in the absorption of an inhaled drug. The model need to take into account the deposition of the drug in the airways as well as the following mucociliary clearance, dissolution, permeation, tissue binding and the systemic distribution of the drug. A well-developed PBPK model together with high quality input data has the potential to predict the lung tissue concentration, i.e. concentration at target site. In the SimInhale collaboration Helena can provide expertise in the multiple factors involved in pulmonary drug absorption and insight into how the human physiology in combination with device, inhalation maneuver, drug characteristics and formulation factors will determine the lung tissue and plasma concentration.

  •  Prof. Brigitte Evrard

    Email: b.evrard@ulg.ac.be

    Université de Liège, Belgium

    Keywords of expertise: 1. DPI formulation, , 2. Cyclodextrins, 3.Particle engineering for inhalation

    Golden Paragraph: Brigitte EVRARD is a full professor in Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy at the University of Liège, Belgium. She received his Pharmacy Degree (1985) and Ph.D. (1992) from the University of Liège. After visiting the Laboratory of « Pharmacotechnie industrielle » of University of Lille 2, France for a post-doctoral position (2003-2004), she became Professor at the University of Liège (2007). She is heading the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy of the Center for interdisciplinary research on Medicines at University of Liège. Over the past 25 years, she has made fundamental and applied contributions to the fields of drug delivery in particular on the improvement of drugs bioavailability and on the optimization of pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. In this context, part of her research is focused on particle engineering of new inhaled formulations mainly based on cyclodextrin-API complexation in order to modulate dissolution and absorption pathways. Several of her inventions have been patented and licensed to the pharmaceutical industry. Prof. Evrard has authored more than 110 refereed articles and 3 book chapters. She also published her work in more than 220 posters or oral presentations at national and international scientific meetings. She is member of several scientific societies (AAPS, APGI, and Belgian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences)).

  •  Ms. Denise Morris

    Email:Denise.Morris@cognigencorp.com

    Simulations Plus, United States of America

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Population Pharmacokinetics, 2. Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling, 3. Clinical Pharmacology

    Golden Paragraph:Denise Morris is an Assistant Director of Clinical Pharmacology at Simulations Plus, Inc.. She strategically works with clients to plan and execute various analyses during the drug development process (including noncompartmental analysis, Population PK/PD analysis and Physiologically Base Pharmacokinetic analysis).

  • KAS4Prof. Stavros Kassinos

    Email: kassinos@ucy.ac.cy

    Dept. of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Particle Dynamics, 2. Two phase flows, 3. Turbulence theory and modeling, 4. High performance Computing

    Golden paragraph: Stavros Kassinos holds an Associate Professor position in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus and is the Head of the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci). The primary research activity of Stavros in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition for various combinations of inhaler devices, patient groups (based on age or health status) and formulations. In this regard, he is interested in the development of In Silico In Vivo Correlations (ISIVCV) for deposition. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Stavros is also pursuing the development of hybrid models coupling the upper airways to the alveolar region, e.g. using LES methods for the upper airways with reduced models for the deeper airways. Finally, in collaboration with other SimInhale members, he is looking into numerical techniques for modeling the fate of drug particles after deposition.

  • Prof. Josue Sznitman

    Email: sznitman@bm.technion.ac.il

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Respiratory flows, 2. Experimental flow visualization, 3. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 4. Particle transport

    Golden Paragraph: J. Sznitman has dedicated his research to uncovering, both through experiments and numerical simulations, respiratory transport phenomena in the deep lungs, with the aim of leveraging such knowledge towards improved strategies for pulmonary drug delivery. He was awarded the Silver Medal for a doctoral thesis at the ETH Zurich and the 2008 Research Award from the Swiss Society of Biomedical Engineering. Following his PhD, he was named a Fellow of the Science & Technology Council at Princeton University. Upon joining the Technion as an assistant professor, he was awarded a Young Scientist Award (2012) from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and served as Conference Chair at the 2nd International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics in Medicine & Biology (2015). Most recently, he was awarded the Young Investigator Award (2015) by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) for a researcher under 40 and a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (Horizon 2020). J. Sznitman has been a Guest Editor in the Journal of Biomechanics and serves as an Academic Editor in the journal PLoS One.

  • Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt

    Email: EHRHARDC@tcd.ie

     

    Associate Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Epithelial Transport, 2. Pulmonary Drug Delivery, 3. Drug Transporters

    Golden paragraph: Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt studied Pharmacy at the Universities of Frankfurt and Hamburg, before he read for his Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutics at Saarland University. Dr. Ehrhardt took up a Lectureship in Biopharmaceutics at Saarland University in 2003 and joined Trinity College Dublin as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in August 2004. He also holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Southern California and he served as Director of Research in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences from 2008-2012. Dr. Ehrhardt has been elected to Fellowship in 2013. He is the recipient of honours and awards from the German Pharmaceutical Society, American Physiological Society and the Galenus Foundation. His research studies transport mechanisms of xenobiotics and endogenous compounds at the respiratory epithelial barrier and also includes the development of advanced drug delivery systems for pulmonary administration. Dr. Ehrhardt has edited one book and authored 84 peer-reviewed research articles and reviews.

  • JordiMr. Jordi Llop

    Email: jllop@cicbiomagune.es

    Radiochemistry and Nuclear Imaging Group, CIC biomaGUNE, San Sebastián, Spain

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Radiochemistry, 2. Molecular imaging, 3. Positron emission tomography, 4. Nanotechnology

    Golden Paragraph: Jordi Llop is Principal Investigator and Head of Radiochemistry at CIC biomaGUNE. The primary research activity of Jordi in SimInhale is the development of radiolabelling strategies for the incorporation of positron and gamma emitters into nanoparticles for subsequent investigation of the regional distribution in the lungs after aerosol inhalation using a combination of in vivo imaging modalities, namely Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computerised Tomography (SPECT). Dr. Llop is interested in investigating different drug administration systems and compare the local and regional distribution in the lungs, as well as translocation of the labelled species to the blood torrent and remote organs. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Jordi is pursuing the development of strategies for radiolabelling solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) to be investigated as drug carriers for the treatment of lung cancer.

  • Dr. Per Backman

    Email: Per.Backman@mylan.co.uk

    Mylan Global Respiratory group

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Inhalation Drug Delivery, 2. Inhalation Biopharmaceutics, 3. Mechanistic computational modelling, 4. Drug development

    Golden Paragraph: Per Backman is Senior Director Inhalation Biopharmacutics at Mylan Global Respiratory Group, responsible for the predication of clinical performance of inhaled products. Primary research activities include development and integration of in vitro and computational methods to predict local and systemic exposure following inhalation of respiratory medicines.

  • ForbesDr. Ben Forbes

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    King’s College London

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Respiratory drug delivery, 3. Lung absorption, 4. Lung dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Ben Forbes studies drug delivery and formulation science – the factors that influence the rate and extent of drug absorption from pharmaceutical dosage forms: (1) medicines formulation / clinical pharmaceutics, (2) the development and application of cell cultures and ex vivo techniques to study drug transport and metabolism, (3) medicines safety/toxicology.  He is co-ordinator of the APSGB ‘Drug Delivery to the Lungs’ Network, a UK-based international academia-industry-regulatory consortium: http://www.apsgb.org/drugsinthelungs/

  • maškováDr. Ludmila Mašková

    Email: maskova@icpf.cas.cz

    Institute of Chemical Processes Fundamentals of the CAS, Rozvojová 135, 16502 Prague 6, Czech Republic

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle Size Distribution, 2. Number/Mass Concentration, 3. Nanoparticles, 4. Time-of-flight Measurements

    Golden Paragraph: Ludmila Mašková is a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Chemical Processes Fundamentals of the CAS in Prague, Czech Republic. The primary research activity of Ludmila in SimInhale is the detailed characterisation of aerodynamic properties of inhalable particles generated by different devices and formulations, and comparison of number and mass particle size distributions in the wide size range (3 nm – 20 µm). During the Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) Ludmila cooperated with the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Parma, Italy, at formulation and detailed characterisation of spray-dried antibiotics powders for inhalation used for treatment of cystic fibrosis. The STSM strongly advanced her understanding of methods for inhaled formulation manufacturing and chemical characterisation of the medical aerosols.

     

  • KoullapisMr. Pantelis Koullapis

    Email: koullapis.g.pantelis@ucy.ac.cy

    PhD Candidate, Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci), Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Incompressible flows, 3. Biomedical fluid flows (lungs), 4. Numerical simulations

    Golden Paragraph: Pantelis Koullapis is a PhD candidate at the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci) of the University of Cyprus. The primary research activity of Pantelis in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition for various combinations of inhaler devices, patient groups (based on age or health status) and formulations. In this regard, he is interested in the development of In Silico In Vivo Correlations (ISIVCV) for deposition. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Pantelis is also pursuing the development of hybrid models coupling the upper airways to the alveolar region, e.g. using LES methods for the upper airways with reduced models for the deeper airways.

  • guillaume_houzeauxDr. Guillaume Houzeaux

    Email: guillaume.houzeaux@bsc.es

    Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. High Performance Computational Mechanics, 3. Parallelization, 4. Biomechanics

    Golden Paragraph: Guillaume Houzeaux studied physics at the Université de Montréal, Canada. After his Batchelor studies, he joined Prof. Habashi’s CFD group at Concordia University, Montréal, to start working in CFD and turbulence modeling, and obtained a Master of Applied Science in 1995. Afterwards he moved to Barcelona and carried out a PhD in Domain Decomposition methods applied to CFD at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. He obtained the PhD degree in 2002 and during two years worked at the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) in the Building, Energy and Environment group. In 2004 he obtained a ‘Ramon y Cajal’ Spanish government contract to study indoor ventilation in buildings. Two years later he joined the newly created Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) to start the CFD research line in the Department of Computer Applications in Science and Engineering. Since then he has been working in basic research (variational multiscale), applied research (ventilation, biomechanics), and on the parallelization, optimization and tuning of Alya simulation codes for very large scale simulations.

  • BontozoglouProf. Vasilis Bontozoglou

    Email: bont@uth.gr

    Laboratory of Transport Processes, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Thessaly, 38334, Volos, Greece

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Transport Phenomena, 2. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 3. Interfacial Flows

    Golden Paragraph: Vasilis Bontozoglou is Professor of Transport Phenomena in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Thessaly and Head of the Laboratory of Transport Processes. The primary research activity of Vasilis in SimInhale is the prediction of drug deposition in the lungs by one-dimensional models that incorporate the correct physics of transport and mixing in the alveolar volumes. Vasilis is also working on fundamental understanding of the function of soluble surfactants in liquid films, a topic of keen interest for alveolar mechanics.

  • Kaye MorganDr. Kaye Morgan

    Email: kaye.morgan@monash.edu

    Chair of Biomedical Physics, Technische Universität München, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Respiratory drug delivery, 3. Lung absorption, 4. Lung dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Kaye Morgan is a Victorian Postgraduate Research Fellow in the School of Physics at Monash University, visiting the Technische Universität München on a Hans Fischer Fellowship.  Kaye has experience using the bright x-rays from synchrotron x-ray facilities to capture the structure and dynamics of the respiratory system.  But detecting small changes in the direction x-rays propagate, it is possible to reconstruct high resolution images of the lungs and the airway surface.  This can be used to better understand respiratory physiology, to monitor respiratory health and to measure the effects of treatments on the airway surface.  One example is tracking the depth of the airway surface liquid before, during and after inhalation of a nebulised treatment for Cystic Fibrosis, to provide direct and local feedback on treatment effectiveness.  Kaye is working with the imaging working group to see how else this new technology can be used to progress research on respiratory health and inhaled treatments.

  • RamyDr. Ramy Fishler

    Email: ramyfishler@gmail.com

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Microfluidics, 2. Acinar Flows, 3. Particle Image Velocimetry, 4. Inhaler Testing

    Golden Paragraph: Ramy Fishler is a scientist at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Insitute of technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and an M.Sc. in Nanoscience. Ramy’s primary research in SimInhale is the use of microfluidic models to investigate particle transport mechanisms in the lung acinus. Ramy is also devloping a proprietary new method of measuring aerodynamic particle size distribution from inhalers in real time.

  • Barbara-newProf. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser

    Email: barbara.rothen@unifr.ch

    Co-Chair BioNanomaterials, Adolphe Merkle Institute, Université de Fribourg, Ch. des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Lung cell culture models, 2. Aerosolized nanoparticles, 3. Hazard / risk assessment, 4. Biomedical nanoparticle design

    Golden Paragraph: Prof. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser has received her Ph.D. in 1996 in cell biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. From 1996 to 2000 she held a post-doctoral position in Biopharmacy at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the ETH and in 2000 she joined Prof. Peter Gehr’s research group at the University of Bern, Switzerland. B. Rothen-Rutishauser is an expert in the field of cell-nanoparticle interactions in the lung, with a special focus on 3D lung cell models and various microscopy techniques such as laser scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Since 2011 she is the new chair in BioNanomaterials at the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, the position is shared equally with Prof. Alke Fink. The research group’s activities stretch over many fields from material synthesis and characterization to biological responses and risk assessment. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and is an associate editor of the Particle and Fibre Toxicology.

  • MårtenDr. Mårten Svensson

    Email: marten@emmace.se

    Emmace Consulting AB, Sweden

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Experimental characterisation of aerosols, 2. Performance testing of inhalers, 3. Prediction of lung dose, 4. Anatomical throats and Inhalation profiles

    Golden Paragraph: Over a decade of experience in pharmaceutical industry in different phases of development from formulation development in early phase to late stage regulatory processes for drug products. Has been involved in various projects spanning pre-clinical, product development, and clinical discipline.

    Extensive experience as specialist within the inhalation technology,

    • Aerosol specialist, advanced method development (eg in-house built instrumentation), project support and guidance.
    • Managing the daily work for 5-10 people in lab environment.
    • Extensive experience in international collaborations, including due diligence matters.
    • Several years of experience as hub between mechanical engineers in product development and analytical pharmaceutical testing in the development of new inhaler platforms.
    • Inventor of patents and have performed review procedures of pharmacopoeias.
    • Several years of membership in EPAG and IPAC-RS Impactor groups
    • A very genuine background in method development, project support at various levels, management of lab personnel, advanced data handling, writing of SOPs and guidelines, and implementation and concept testing of new methodologies/instrumentation.

  • MafaldaDr. Mafalda de Castro Ascensão Marques Videira

    Email: mafaldavideira@campus.ul.pt

    Nanomedicines and Drug Delivery Systems Group, iMed.UL – Research Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade de Lisboa (FFUL), Lisboa, Portugal

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Nanomedicines, 2. Pulmonary Administration, 3. Oncology, 4. Cell Biology; Toxicology

    Golden Paragraph: Assessment of in-vivo/in-vitro response to pulmonary and lymphatic absorption and clearance of the pharmaceutical nanoparticulate dispersed dosage forms. Biodistribution studies using nuclear medicine approaches.
    Nanotechnology and intracellular Target: Design of innovative platforms for drug and gene delivery (e.g., Lipid nanoparticles, polymeric micelles and lipopolyplexes) using “smart” biomaterials.
    Receptor-ligand strategies in order to develop patentable nanoscale delivery systems for selective cell targeting (e.g. Cd44+ in cancer stem cells) using molecular biology tools and adequate cell models.
    Nanotechnology: Oncological pharmaceutical dosage forms development and full characterization of the designed systems. Assessment of properties of the nanoscale developed colloids, focusing in the relation between processes and materials. Applications of the lipid-based carriers for the intracellular deliver of new RNAi strategies against metastatic cancer sub-populations (signalling cascades, intracellular pathways and transcriptional proteins).
    Interaction between nanoparticles and cellular targets: Intracellular nanoparticles trafficking, in vitro efficacy and toxicity and in vitro/in vivo nanoparticulate system efficacy. Evaluation of pulmonary or mucosal nanoparticles administration and further implications on the their lymphatic uptake.
    Ethical implications of health-related innovations and experimentation.

  • P_Sarah_Zellnitz-004Dr. Sarah Zellnitz

    Email: sarah.zellnitz@tugraz.at

    Area II – Advanced Products and Delivery, Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH, A-8010 Graz, Inffeldgasse 13/III, Austria

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. Dry powder inhalers, 3. Material Characterization, 4. Spray drying

    Golden Paragraph: Sarah Zellnitz is a pharmacist by training and currently holds the position of Senior Scientist at Area II “Advanced Products and Delivery” at the Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering (RCPE) in Graz, (AT). During her PhD at the Graz Technical University (AT) she explored glass beads as new model carries in dry powder inhalers (DPIs) and gained expertise in particle engineering via surface modification and detailed material characterization. Her now focus is on tailoring DPI formulations via mechanistic understanding of the interplay of material properties, formulation properties, adhesive-cohesive force balance and drug detachment.

  • FotosMr. Fotos Stylianou

    Email: fotosstylianou@yahoo.com

    University of Cyprus

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Incompressible Flows, 3. Finite Volume Method, 4. Structure-Based Turbulence Modeling

    Golden Paragraph: Fotos Stylianou is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus and is a member of the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci). His research activity in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the human airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition in the upper airways. In this regard, he is interested in the factors that affect deposition in the mouth-throat region with the aim of understanding and controlling the leading effects that contribute to mouth-throat loss for drugs delivered via DPIs.

     

  • zDIMALDr. Vladimír Ždímal

    Email: Zdimal@icpf.cas.cz

    Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals CAS, Rozvojová 135, CZ-165 02 Praha 6, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol Technology, 2. Inhalation Aerosols, 3. Atmospheric and Indoor Aerosols, 4. Nucleation Studies

    Golden Paragraph: Vladimír Ždímal is a chemical engineer by education, obtained his Master’s degree with his thesis on precipitation in a Taylor-Couette flow from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, and his PhD dissertation was on homogeneous nucleation kinetics in supersaturated vapors under the supervision of Prof. Jiri Smolik at the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals (ICPF) in Prague. He continued his nucleation studies both during a NSF-NATO postdoctoral residency at Clarkson University in 1999 (with Prof. Philip Hopke), and after his return from the US with his PhD students. In the past decade, his activities have expanded into the fields of atmospheric aerosols and aerosol technology. Since 2009, he has led the aerosol group at the ICPF. As a supervisor of students in the field Pharmaceuticals and biomaterials he has  developed a sampling train and methodology for on-line and off-line determination of particle size distributions of inhalation aerosols and his students measured these distributions on several tens of commercial inhalers. In collaboration within the SimInhale project, Vladimír plans to use the improved experimental methodology in combination with advanced models to estimate the deposition efficiency of various inhalation aerosols on the target tissues in the respiratory tract.

  • Maria CordinaDr. Maria Cordina

    Email: maria.cordina@um.edu.mt

    Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Malta

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Pharmacotherapeutic management of respiratory disease, 2. Safety in medicines use, 3. Patient outcomes research, 4. Beliefs and attitudes about medicines

    Golden Paragraph: Maria Cordina is Associate Professor within the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Malta. Her research is focused on the interaction between the patient and medication. Within Simhale she contributes to the group which is responsible for toxicity, xenobiotics, risk assessment and policy development.

  • Sitaram VelagaDr. Sitaram Velaga

    Email: sitram.velaga@ltu.se

    Department of Health Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Solid-state pharmaceutics, 2. Particle engineering, 3. Surface properties, 4. Carrier-free formulations

    Golden Paragraph: Sitaram Velaga earned PhD from Uppsala University and currentlly holds a professorship in pharmacy at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. He is also a head of research education in Health Sciences. His major research interests include solid-state pharmaceutics and particle engieeneering for inhalation and nasal applications. His current projects in the area focus on carrier-free formulations, particle engineering through cystal engineering and effect of triboelectric charging on the particle deposition. Further, in collaboration with SimInhale members, Velaga is pursuing particle adhesion and cohesion properties and and dissolution of inhaled particles.

  • NenadProf. Dr. Nenad Filipovic

    Email: fica@kg.ac.rs

    Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Keywords of expertise: 1. CFD, 2. Multiscale modeling, 3. Molecular dynamics, 4. Dissipative particle dynamics

    Golden Paragraph: Prof. Dr. Nenad Filipovic, full professor at the Faculty of Engineering and the head of Center for Bioengineering of the University of Kragujevac, has a broad experience in computer simulation of the cardiovascular and cancer disease. He has developed a computer model for plaque formation and development under the FP7 project ARTreat (www.artreat.kg.ac.rs). He was also a Research Associate at Harvard University, USA (2003-2009). He is the author and co-author of 6 textbooks and 3 monographs in English, the author and co-author of over 150 publications, over 110 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, the author and co-author of over 10 software for modeling of lung airway, cancer and atherosclerosis growth with finite element method and discrete methods from fluid mechanics and multiphysics, as well as connection of medical data with mechanics solvers, PI of scientific program for Bioengineering, PI and Co-PI of many national and international scientific projects, a Managing editor of Journal of the Serbian Society for Computational Mechanics, a Coordinating member of European Society of Biomechanics for Serbia, a member of European Society for Artificial Organs, a member of Board of Serbian Society for Mechanics etc.

  • Theodora Krasia-ChristoforouDr. Theodora Krasia-Christoforou

    Email: krasia@ucy.ac.cy

     

    University of Cyprus, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Polymer Science, 2. Polymer synthesis, 3. Polymer characterization, 4. Polymer processing

    Golden Paragraph:  Theodora Krasia-Christoforou (Dr. Rer. Nat., Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, 2003) holds an Associate Professor position in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus. Her research interests are focused in the areas of synthesis, characterisation, processing and applications of polymers and polymer-based materials. She is particularly interested in the generation of novel, polymers of various architectures and chemical compositions comprising functionalities capable of responding to external stimuli, binding onto inorganic matter, adsorbing and releasing solutes in a controlled manner, etc. She is particularly interested in the preparation of polymer-inorganic nanohybrids and nanocomposites in the form of 3D networks, electrospun fibers and thin films. Her participation in the SimInhale COST Action aims in the creation of new collaborations with other SimInhale members, targeting towards the design, fabrication and characterization of novel and highly efficient stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems applicable in inhalation medicines.

  • Gerrit BorchardProf. Gerrit Borchard

    Email: Gerrit.Borchard@unige.ch

    School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Geneva-Lausanne (EPGL), University of Geneva, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Nanomedicines: drug & vaccine carriers, 3. Therapeutic protein formulation

    Golden Paragraph: Gerrit Borchard is a professor of Biopharmaceutics at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Geneva-Lausanne (EPGL) at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). His primary interest in SimInhale is the formulation of vaccine and drug carriers as nano-medicines adapted to the application by inhalation. Several alternative technologies need to be assessed with regard to optimization of efficacy, and lowering of costs and toxicity.

  • PhilipDr. Philipp Hofemeier

    Email: philipph@bm.technion.ac.il

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Acinar airflow, 3. Acinar drug delivery

    Golden Paragraph: Philipp Hofemeier recently finished his PhD at the department of biomedical engineering at the Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology. Where he explores particle transport and deposition in the respiratory region of the lung by means of computational simulations. He mainly focuses on predicting deposition efficiencies for pulmonary drug delivery applications. In SimInhale, Philipp is mainly interested in bridging the gap between computational models of the upper conducting airways and the respiratory region. Utilizing the expertise of other SimInhale member in upper airway simulations, Philipp has joined efforts to build a multi scale lung model. Furthermore, he is working on exchanging data and parameters to improve boundary conditions and increase the accuracy of computational deposition maps.

  • PaoloDr. Paolo Colombo

    Email: paolo.colombo@unipr.it

    President of Interuniversity Consortium on Innovative Pharmaceutical Technologies TEFARCO Innova, c/o Department of Pharmacy, Parma, Italy

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. DPI Device development, 3. In vitro assessment of respirability, 4. Spray drying technique for dry particle manufacturing

    Golden Paragraph: Paolo Colombo primary research activity in inhalation is the design and development of novel inhalation products with a special focus on DPI. The primary goal is the search of a safe and convenient administration of large doses of drug in particular antiinfectives, to treat lung microbial and viral dependent diseases. In this regard the recent pubblications on cystic fibrosis Pseudomonas infection treatment by aminoglycosides drive to an approval for orphan designation of a powder of amikacin or tobramycin. The product is administered with a new device for powder inhalation capable to accept a dose of powder larger that 100 mg. We found a novel system and technique capable to regulate the powder emission in order not to suffucate the patient during inhalation since the large dose is emitted in small portions. This allows the complete deposition of the drug in the lung area defined by the aerodynamic size distribution of the aerosol particles.

     

  • Lízal FrantišekDr. Frantisek Lizal

    Email: lizal@fme.vutbr.cz

    Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Energy Institute, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol deposition in lungs, 2. Physical models of lungs, 3. Experimental aerosol research, 4. Positron emission tomography

    Golden Paragraph: Frantisek Lizal works as senior lecturer at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic. His primary area of interest is experimental research of aerosol transport and deposition in human lungs. He and his team developed several physical replicas of human lungs. Some replicas were used for measurements of flow and velocity of particles within human lungs using laser Doppler-based methods. Other replicas are being used for measurements of regional aerosol deposition using optical microscopy or positron emission tomography. The data delivered by his team are being used by the community of SimInhale members as boundary conditions and for validation of numerical simulations of particle transport in lungs. He also collaborates on particle image velocimetry measurement of flow field in the replica of lungs. His secondary interests are thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and their applications.

     

  • LauraDr. Laura Nicolaou

    Email: laura.nicolaou@imperial.ac.uk

    Imperial College London

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational fluid dynamics, 2. Direct numerical simulations, 3. Aerosol deposition, 4. Upper airways

    Golden Paragraph: Laura is a Research Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. Her research activity focuses on bio-fluid mechanics, in particular flow and aerosol deposition in the respiratory airways and the development of numerical algorithms for high-fidelity, large-scale computations of complex physiological flows. Laura’s interests within pulmonary drug delivery include flow and aerosol optimisation in order to minimise extrathoracic losses, patient- and class-specific prediction/optimisation of drug delivery, and paediatrics. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Laura is currently investigating the effect of the extrathoracic airways on intrathoracic deposition, and examining the use of different numerical methods for prediction of flow and aerosol deposition in the airways.

     

  • alexiadis-alessioDr. Alessio Alexiadis

    Email: a.alexiadis@bham.ac.uk

    School of Chemical Engineering University if Birmingham

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Mathematical modelling, 2. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 3. Molecular Dynamics, 4. Hybrid modelling

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Alessio Alexiadis is currently working at the University of Birmingham on hybrid modelling and computer simulation. He accomplished his Ph.D. in 2001 in Italy at the Politecnico di Torino with a thesis on photocatalytic reactors. Since then, he has worked in France at ARMINES École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (2001−2003), in Germany at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (2003−2004), in Australia at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science & Technology, University of New South Wales, Sydney (2004−2006), and Cyprus at the Computational Sciences Laboratory at the University of Cyprus (2006-2008). In 2008 he was awarded of the Outgoing International Fellowship by the European Commission within the Marie Curie programme (FP6). He moved in the United States at the Washington University in St. Louis for the outgoing-phase of the fellowship (2008-2010) and in Sweden at the Royal Institute of Technology for the returning-phase (2010-2011). From 2012 to 2013, he worked at the University of Warwick on molecular-continuum modelling of micro/nano flows.  His academic interests and past research activities include photocatalysis, computational fluid dynamics, bubbly flows, multiphase reactors, polymer dynamics, membrane science, global warming modelling, electrochemistry, micro- and nano-fluidics, and both classical and ab initio molecular simulations.

     

  • YanOstrovskiMr. Yan Ostrovski

    Email: yanost@gmail.com

    Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Targeted pulmonary drug delivery, 2. In-vitro pulmonary drug deposition, 3. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), 4. Discrete element method (DEM)

    Golden Paragraph: Yan Ostrovski is a PhD student in Prof’s Sznitman’s lab in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His primary research activity is targeted delivery in the lungs using magnetic particles. In collaboration with other Siminhale members, Yan is using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and discrete element method (DEM) to model the behavior of inhaled magnetic particles on different scales in the lung. These simulations are then used to design in-vitro system. 3d printed models are used to study the behavior of magnetic particles in the upper airways. Whereas Microfluidic chips are used to study the particle dynamics in alveolar geometries on a true physiological scale.

     

  • Jana KozakovaMs. Jana Kozáková

    Email: kozakova@icpf.cas.cz

    Laboratory of Aerosols Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the CAS, Czech Republic

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol size distribution measurement, 2. Measurement with cascade impactors, 3. Chemical composition of aerosol

    Golden Paragraph: Jana Kozáková is a PhD candidate with a research interest in air quality of outdoor and indoor environment. Her current research is focused on aerosol particle measurement, aerosol size distribution assessment and aerosol chemical composition. The research activity of Jana in SimInhale project is the detailed size distribution measurement of aerosol particles from inhalers and subsequently the description of particle deposition in the respiratory system.

     

  • Anne Haaije de BoerProf. Anne Haaije de Boer

    Email: a.h.de.boer@rug.nl

    University of Groningen, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy, Ant. Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands.

    Keywords of expertise: 1. DPI design and development, 2. Powder formulation and characterisation, 3. Aerosol characterisation, 4. Laser diffraction technique

    Golden Paragraph: Anne de Boer is retired associate professor and former head of the inhalation group of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy (PTB) of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He still has a contract with the university for another ten years (until 2025) on a voluntarily basis, however, to finish the Twincer high dose dry powder inhaler platform, develop a second generation inhaler adapter for aerosol characterisation with laser diffraction technique (in collaboration with Sympatec, Germany) and support various formulation and patient studies with the (test) inhalers developed by the inhalation group. This group is financially virtually independent of research grants and governmental budgets thanks to received royalties from previous inhaler developments (Novolizer and Genuair) and anticipates to extend this situation with marketing of the Twincer platform. His interest in Siminhale is to find collaboration in the areas of solid state drug characterisation and CFD simulation of inhaler performance and drug deposition in the respiratory tract as function of the inhaler design.

  • Dr. Katrin Bauer

    Email: Katrin.Bauer@imfd.tu-freiberg.de

    TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Institute of Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics, Lampadiusstr. 4, 09599 Freiberg, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Optical flow visualisation, 2. 3D Particle Image Velocimetry, 3. Upper human airways, 4. Computational Fluid Dynamics

    Golden Paragraph: Katrin Bauer is a research associate at the Institute of  Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany. Katrin’s primary research activity in SinInhale is the experimental investigation of the 3D flow patterns in the upper bronchial tree. Therefore, she carries out time resolved, 3D PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) and PTV (Particle Tracking Velocity measurements) in transparent lung models in order to receive information about the evolving 3D flow patterns which drive the particle motion. These data can be used for validation of the numerical results. In collaboration with other SinInhale members she is setting up upper airway measurements of a patient specific geometry. At exactly the same geometry particle deposition is investigated. Besides that, Katrin also performs numerical simulations in order to gain deeper insight into the mass transport behavior in the upper human airways.

     

  • RVanbeverDr. Rita Vanbever

    Email: rita.vanbever@uclouvain.be

    Université catholique de Louvain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Sustained release strategies, 2. PEGylation, 3. Fate of inhaled drugs, 4. Inhalation dry powders

    Golden Paragraph: Rita Vanbever holds an Associate Professor position at the Louvain Drug Research Institute of the Université catholique de Louvain. The research activity of Rita Vanbever deals with the formulation of inhalation dry powders, the study of the pulmonary fate of diverse molecules following delivery to the lungs in vivo in mice and in rats, the assessment of the potential of vaccine delivery to the lungs for protection against respiratory infections as well as the development of formulation strategies to sustain drug release within the lungs. This latter topic has particularly been developed within Rita Vanbever’s group these last years, in particular with the demonstration that PEGylation of proteins largely prolongs their residence time in the lungs as well as their therapeutic efficacy locally.

  • JedelskyDr. Jan Jedelsky

    Email: jedelsky@fme.vutbr.cz

    Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technicka 2896/2, 616 69 Brno, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Experimental Fluid Dynamics, 2. Transport and deposition of aerosols, 3. Single- and multi-phase flows, 4. Optical diagnostic methods

    Golden Paragraph: Jan Jedelsky holds an Associate Professor position in the Energy Department, at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Brno University of Technology and he is the Head of the Spray research Laboratory and the Laboratory of fluid flow. The main research activity of Jan in SimInhale is the application of optical methods for flow and aerosol measurements in human airway replicas. The measurements of single and disperse two-phase flows for in-vitro lung studies namely involve point-wise methods for velocimetry in the airways: laser-Doppler based techniques (LDA, PDA) or planar optical methods, such as mono, stereo, and time-resolved PIV. The second research activity covers the measurement methods for preparation, characterisation and deposition of inhaled particles. The results acquired so far, or possibly obtained in the frame of SimInhale, provide a quantitative description of the flow and aerosol deposition and can be employed as the input or validation data for numerical simulations. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Jan is also supposed to contribute to a review article from our group for SimInhale Special Issue EJPS.

  • CuiMr. Yan Cui

    Email: yan.cui@iw.uni-halle.de

    Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Lattice-Boltzmann Method, 3. Dry Powder Inhaler, 4. Drug Detachment Models

    Golden Paragraph: Yan Cui holds an Assistant Researcher position in the Department of Mechanical Process Engineering at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. The primary research activity of Yan in SimInhale is to study the detachment of micro-sized fine drug particles from a larger carrier particle under various flow conditions by using the Lattice Boltzmann Method. This study is used for predicting the drug delivery efficiency inside the Dry Powder Inhaler. In this regard, three detachment models, i.e. plane wall detachment model, rough wall detachment model and cluster-wall collision model, were developed based on measured contact properties for different flow conditions and cluster structures. Moreover, those detachment models are implemented into the OpenFOAM® and are used for Euler/Lagrange calculations of an inhaler device and allow an optimization with regard to pressure drop and efficiency of drug powder delivery. Finally, he is looking for collaboration with other SimInhale members who can provide measured particle contact properties (e.g. adhesion force, surface energy, friction coefficient) for different surface treatment methods of carrier particles.

     

  • RozouDr. Stavroula Rozou

    Email: a.rozou@elpen.gr

    ELPEN  Pharm.Co.Inc., Greece

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Analytical Development, 2. Validation, 3. DPI development, 4. Dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Stavroula Rozou is a Msc, PhD Pharmacist, who has been working in pharmaceutical industry since 1994. She is currently Director of the Analytical and Documentation dpt of R&D in ELPEN Pharm.Co.Inc. She was involved in the development of ELPEN dry powder inhaler since its concept in 2003 and has been specializing since in the inhalation field. Apart from the analytical research, her activities include preparation of a new product’s documentation for submission and scientific support to clients and partners. Stavroula is in close collaboration with several universities and research centers over various projects. She is interested in the IVIVC or ISIVC as development or analytical tools. She is keen in new collaborations with other SimInhale members in order to contribute to the emerging need of new products through the inhalation route.

     

  • KristianDr. Kristian Valen-Sendstad

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    Computational Cardiac Modeling Department at Simula Research Laboratory, Norway

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2. Turbulence, 3. Computer Science

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Valen-Sendstad is currently employed as a research scientist in the Computational Cardiac Modeling Department at Simula Research Laboratory, Norway. During the first stages of his scientific career, Valen-Sendstad’s work focused around development of open-source numerical algorithms for solving the Navier-Stokes equations that governs fluid flow. The developed fluid flow solvers were later used to study blood flow in intracranial aneurysms – sick balloon-shaped blood vessels inside the brain that can burst and cause stroke. Over the years Valen-Sendstad has been working on investigating the extent and role of turbulent-like flows in the cardiovascular system. The published results have been very controversial, but backed up by irrefutable evidence. Valen-Sendstad has had impact on the scientific fields of vascular biology and neuroradiology, to mention a few. Valen-Sendstad is currently also focusing on applications of fluid flow in the human airways, especially targeting drug delivery.

     

  • nicolas-2016Dr. Nicolas Tsapis

    Email: nicolas.tsapis@u-psud.fr

    CNRS, Univ. PAris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. Lung delivery, 3. Trojan particles, 4. Porous particles

    Golden Paragraph: After studying fundamental Physics at Université Paris Sud (Paris, France), Nicolas Tsapis did a master degree followed by a PhD on the influence of proteins on the elastic properties of model biological membranes at Laboratoire de Physique Statistique (ENS, Paris, France). He defended his Ph.D thesis in November 2000. In 2001, he went to Harvard University as a post-doctoral fellow in the groups of Prof. David A. Edwards and Prof. David A. Weitz for three years. There he studied the drying process of droplets containing colloidal particles from a fundamental as well as from an applied point of view. Together with Alkermes, he patented The Trojan Particle concept: Large porous particles encapsulating nanoparticles. In October 2003, Nicolas Tsapis joined the team of Prof Elias Fattal as a CNRS researcher (Institut Galien Paris-Sud, Univ Paris-Sud, Faculté de Pharmacie, Châtenay-Malabry, France). His research activity focuses on two main topics: Novel contrast agents for medical imaging and theranostics, and spray drying from fundamentals to therapeutic applications. In 2009, he obtained the CNRS bronze medal as a recognition of his research work. and in 2014 he was appointed CNRS research director. He is the author of about 80 publications and 5 patents.

  • Ms. LuciLuciee Kubelová

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals, Czech Academy of Sciences

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Chemical composition of aerosols, 2. Size distribution of aerosols, 3. Aerosol Mass Spectrometer

    Golden Paragraph: Lucie Kubelová graduated in Physical Chemistry at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and currently is a PhD student in the Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics at the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals in Prague. Within SimInhale, Lucie focuses on measurement of size distribution of particles created by drug inhalers and their deposition in respiratory system.

    • Dr. Mingshi Yang

      Email: mingshi.yang@sund.ku.dk

      Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciencs, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Pharmaceutical particle engineering, 2. Spray drying and electrospinning, 3. Inhaled pharmaceutical formulations, 4. Biopharmaceutical formulations

      Golden Paragraph: Mingshi Yang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Copenhagen and an Adjunct Professor at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in China. He has particular interest in design nano/micro-structured particles and fibers for medical use, including drug delivery and tissue engineering. His primary interest in SimInhale is rational particle engineering of inhaled drug formulations. In this regard, he is interested in collaboration with other SimInhale members with the expertise in Device, Simulation and In-vivo Imaging for optimal inhaled drug product design. His current research activities in Copenhagen include the understanding of physical and chemical mechanisms that determine the design of the nano/micro-structured particles and fibers with optimal functionalities, the interplay between the nano/micro-structured materials and bio-membranes or cells, as well as the mechanisms that control the release of the bio-actives from these nano/micro-structured materials: http://research.ku.dk/search/?pure=en/persons/322079

       

    • Dr. Gaia Colombo

      Email: clmgai@unife.it

      University of Ferrara, Dept. of Life Sciences and Biotechnology

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Nasal drug delivery, 2. Particles and powders, 3. Pulmonary drug delivery, 4. Oral drug delivery

      Golden Paragraph: Gaia Colombo holds an Associate Professor position in the Life Sciences and Biotechnology Department at the University of Ferrara and is researcher and professor of Pharmaceutical Technology. Her scientific activity develops in the field of pharmaceutics, biopharmaceutics and pharmaceutical technology, focusing mainly on biopharmaceutical/pharmacokinetic and technological features of drug dosage forms. So far, Dr. Colombo’s production has led to the publication of 48 papers, as well as 5 patents and 8 book chapters.
      Her research is carried on in collaboration with groups from Parma, Salerno, Bologna, Pavia and Rome in the fields of drug delivery, pharmaceutical technology, pharmacology, human and veterinary medicine. Among these, there are other SimIhale members. In addition, fruitful collaborations have been established with several international groups in Europe, Malaysia and Australia.
      The primary research activity in SimIhale is the formulation of drugs for nasal delivery, either for local/systemic action or to exploit the nose-to-brain path. In this regard, she mainly focuses on solid preparations in the form of microparticulates and agglomerates for nasal insufflation. Great attention is paid to study the preparations with respect to drug dissolution and release in experimental conditions mimicking the nasal environment (e.g. diffusion cells). In collaboration with other SimIhale members, she is involved in projects on lung delivery of antibiotics.

    • Prof. Elias Fattal

      Email: elias.fattal@u-psud.fr 

      Director of Institut Galien Paris-Sud
      UMR CNRS 8612, University of Paris-Sud School of Pharmacy, 5 Rue Jean Baptiste Clément, 92290 Châtenay-Malabry, France

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Nanomedicine, 2. Drug targeting, 3. Drug delivery, 4. Nanotoxicology

      Golden Paragraph: Elias Fattal is a full professor in Drug Delivery Science at the University of Paris-Sud in Châtenay-Malabry, France. He is also the director of the Institut Galien Paris-Sud, UMR CNRS 8612, a research unit dealing with the design of nanomedicines where he is also leading one of the research group entitled “Particle and Cell Engineering for Therapeutics”. His multidisciplinary group is studying various aspects of lung delivery using nanotechnologies: designing new biodegradable materials, drug formulation, pharmacokinetics, cellular delivery and nanotoxicology. In collaboration with other Siminhale members, Elias is focusing on evaluating the possibility to design precision nanomedicines for a better targeting of different areas of lungs for the treatment of inflammatory and infectious diseases.

       

    • Dr. Zorica Vujic

      Email: zvujic@pharmacy.bg.ac.rs

      University of Belgrade-Faculty of Pharmacy, Vojvode Stepe 450, 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Medicinal Chemistry, 2. Analysis and Control of Drugs, 3. QSAR, 4. Analytical method development and validation

      Golden Paragraph: Zorica Vujic holds a dean position at the University of Belgrade-Faculty of Pharmacy and Full Professor position in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Since 1996 she has been participating in projects financing by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Development of Serbia. She is also co-author of number of papers published in international and national journals. She completed Specialization in Quality control in 2002 and Specialization in QP in 2014. Her professional background includes Medicinal Chemistry, Quantitative structure–activity relationship, Physico-chemical Properties of Drug, Stability testing, Drug Metabolism, Quality of Pharmaceutical Products as well as introduction and development of quality system in Quality Control and Assurance Departments. She joined SimInhale project in 2016. as a member of group from Faculty of Pharmacy, Belgrade. She is interested in the the development of In Silico investigation and ADMET prediction.

    • Dr. Dimitrios Gerogiorgis

      Email: D.Gerogiorgis@ed.ac.uk

      Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

      Golden Paragraph: Dr. Dimitrios Gerogiorgis holds a Diploma in Chemical Engineering with highest honors from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, an MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was advised by Prof. Erik Ydstie under Fulbright, Onassis and CMU fellowships. He also holds an Eberly Center Teaching Certificate (CMU) and a Diploma in Translation (Institute of Linguists, UK). His research portfolio encompasses process systems modeling, design and optimization, including the model-based development of the Alcoa ARP carbothermic aluminium reactor and the NTUA vertical perlite expansion furnace, the optimization of investment planning for efficient polygeneration energy systems (CPSE, Imperial College London), the systematic methodology for interval arithmetic evaluation of candidate flowsheets, and the first comparative economic evaluation of batch vs. continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing strategies (Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing). His contributions have resulted in several externally funded projects (e.g. Combined CFD and Similarity Modeling of Carbothermic Reactors/Alcoa, Economic Optimization of Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing/EPSRC-DTP). He is supervising 3 PhD students, trained 4 postdoctoral researchers and 15 MSc projects, and published 40 peer-reviewed articles in journals and book series. He has been recognized with the Academy of Athens “L. Mousoulos” Research Excellence Prize (2015), the Best Oral Presentation Award of the 3rd CSIRO International CFD Conference (Melbourne, Australia), and with a Scottish Crucible membership (2015); he has delivered invited lectures at McGill University (Canada), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain), NTUA (Greece), Strathclyde and Leeds (UK).

    • Dr. Catalina Natalia Cheaburu-Yilmaz

      Email: duncaty@gmail.com

      Romanian Academy, “Petru Poni” Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Iasi, Romania, Grigore Ghica Voda Alley 41A, 700487 Iasi, Romania

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Polymers, physical-chemical characterization, polymeric architectures, 2. Chitosan, hyaluronic acid , alginate, temperature and pH- responsive, 3. Controlled polymerization techniques (RAFT and click chemistry), micro- and nanoparticles, 4. Polymeric matrices for pharmaceutical application (topical, inhalers)

      Golden Paragraph: Catalina Natalia Cheaburu-Yilmaz holds a Researcher position in the Department of Physical Chemistry of Polymers of “Petru Poni” Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry from Romanian Academy.
      For a period of two years she got awarded with a EC-FP7 Marie Curie Actions-People-COFUND project of TUBITAK called CO-FUNDED Brain Circulation Scheme (Co-Circulation Scheme) at “EGE” University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Technolog, Izmir, Turkey. The main aim of her stage is preparation of topical pharmaceutical formulation based on biopolymers by using advanced organic techniques to design the polymeric architecture.
      The primary research activity of Catalina in SimInhale is the development of different pharmaceutical formulation based on natural polymers, responsive to the action of various stimuli with special properties which make them ideal candidates for controlled delivery of active substances. By combining her knowledge regarding polymeric systems and their physical chemical properties, with SimInhale members’ expertize on the inhalers, Catalina is interested in obtaining of different polymeric systems by using modern and cotrolled sysnthesis techniques to design proper systems for inhalatory administration of drugs. She is looking into strenghtneing the collaboration between chemists i.e. polymer chemists with pharmaceutical scientists and further collaboration between the research groups.

    • Dr. Andrea Danani

      Email: andrea.danani@gmail.com

      IDSIA- Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (USI/SUPSI)

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, 2. Molecular Dynamics, 3. Nanoscaled Delivery Systems, 4. Virtual Screening

      Golden Paragraph:

      Dr. Andrea Danani is presently working at IDSIA, the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence affiliated to USI and SUPSI, where he leads a computational biophysics unit.
      He received the Dipl.-Ing degree in Physics from ETH in Zurich in 1987 and the Ph.D. degrees at SISSA/ISAS in Trieste in 1992. His scientific activity was first centered on the modellization of many-electron systems and their phase transitions and later on the description of surface diffusion of adatoms in metals using analytical models and several numerical simulation methods like Cluster Variation Method, MonteCarlo and Molecular dynamics. He has been project leader of several projects related to the numerical simulation and the modellization of several systems mainly at the molecular level: polymer nanocomposites, biological systems in interaction with drugs and DNA/RNA with related virtual screening, macromolecules for drug delivery, protein/protein interaction for neurodegenerative problems. His activity in SimInhale is mainly related to the characterization and optimization of nanocarriers for drugs and genes delivery in certain pulmonary diseases.

    • Dr. Mihalis Lazaridis

      Email: lazaridi@mred.tuc.gr

      Technical University of Crete, School of Environmental Engineering, Polytechneioupolis, 73100, Chania, Greece

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol dynamics, 1. Human exposure, 3. Dose modelling

      Golden Paragraph: Mihalis Lazaridis is a Professor at the Technical University of Crete, School of Environmental Engineering, Greece. His research interests are in the area of aerosol physico-chemical processes, source characterization, human exposure to particulate matter and delivred dose in the human body.

       

    • Dr. Paola Russo

      Email: paorusso@unisa.it

      Department of Pharmacy, University of Salerno, Italy

      Keywords of expertise: 1. Drug Delivery Systems, 2. Dry Powder Inhalers, 3. Dissolution/Permeation Studies, 4. Micro/nano particles

      Golden Paragraph: Paola Russo is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Salerno. Her research interests include formulation and characterisation of powders for inhalation, design and production of advanced drug delivery systems for oral or dermal/transdermal delivery. In particular, she is now involved in the design of dry powder inhalers containing drug active against Cystic Fibrosis, a pathology characterized by the production of a highly dense and sticky mucus in the lung, which impairs lung mucociliary function. Moreover, this mucus is often responsible for the failure of the inhalation therapies, hampering the drug dissolution after the deposition on the lung. Therefore, the research is now focused on the possibility to co-formulate the drug (antibiotic, antioxidant and/or anti-inflammatory drugs) with molecules able to reduce mucus viscosity and to allow the active compound to dissolve and permeate through the mucus. To this aim, is mandatory to study the dissolution of the drug product in sputum from cystic fibrosis patient or in simulated mucus fluid.

  • Oriol_LehmkuhlDr. Oriol Lehmkuhl Barba

    Email: oriol.lehmkuhl@bsc.es

    Dpt. Computer Applications in Science and Engineering Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS)
    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Large Eddy Simulation, 3. Multi-phase flow, 4. Unstructured meshes discretization

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Oriol Lehmkuhl Barba holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (UPC, 2012). He is post-doct researcher at the Heat Engines Department at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) for the research project “Study of turbulent flows past bluff bodies with massive separation:

    Application to flow control.” His main research interests are related to turbulence modelling, multi-phase modelling, high-performance computing (HPC), multi-physics modelling, aerodynamic simulations and loads-alleviation optimization, biological flows simulations. He has been the director 8 PhD theses and 2 master theses, is author of 32 papers in JCR journals (h-index 8), more than 150 contributions to peer-reviewed international conferences and 4 patents.  As a consequence of this research activity Dr. Lehmkuhl has built a strong research network in the fields of high performance computing, turbulence modelling, aerodynamics and industrial applications (wind energy, solar thermal energy, etc.), including different Universities (i.e Stanford University, University of Stuttgart, University of Groningen, University of Southampton, University of Eindhoven, etc.), research institutes (i.e Center of Turbulence Research, Barcelona Supercomputer Center,  Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics,  Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, etc.) and companies (i.e Alstom Wind, Envision Energy, Total, Gas Natural, Scnema, Liebherr, Abengoa Solar, Fagor, HP, Seat, Enair, Ficosa, …). In adition, Dr. Lehmkuhl has been involved in 8 national and EU financially supported projects focused on the development of HPC CFD codes (FP6, FP7, H2020 and CleanSky and has been participant of 19 High Performance Computing research projects of the Spanish Supercomputer Network (RES) and 3 Tier-0 PRACE HPC projects.

  • Oriol_LehmkuhlDr. Oriol Lehmkuhl Barba

    Email: oriol.lehmkuhl@bsc.es

    Dpt. Computer Applications in Science and Engineering Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS)
    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Large Eddy Simulation, 3. Multi-phase flow, 4. Unstructured meshes discretization

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Oriol Lehmkuhl Barba holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (UPC, 2012). He is post-doct researcher at the Heat Engines Department at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) for the research project “Study of turbulent flows past bluff bodies with massive separation:

    Application to flow control.” His main research interests are related to turbulence modelling, multi-phase modelling, high-performance computing (HPC), multi-physics modelling, aerodynamic simulations and loads-alleviation optimization, biological flows simulations. He has been the director 8 PhD theses and 2 master theses, is author of 32 papers in JCR journals (h-index 8), more than 150 contributions to peer-reviewed international conferences and 4 patents.  As a consequence of this research activity Dr. Lehmkuhl has built a strong research network in the fields of high performance computing, turbulence modelling, aerodynamics and industrial applications (wind energy, solar thermal energy, etc.), including different Universities (i.e Stanford University, University of Stuttgart, University of Groningen, University of Southampton, University of Eindhoven, etc.), research institutes (i.e Center of Turbulence Research, Barcelona Supercomputer Center,  Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics,  Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, etc.) and companies (i.e Alstom Wind, Envision Energy, Total, Gas Natural, Scnema, Liebherr, Abengoa Solar, Fagor, HP, Seat, Enair, Ficosa, …). In adition, Dr. Lehmkuhl has been involved in 8 national and EU financially supported projects focused on the development of HPC CFD codes (FP6, FP7, H2020 and CleanSky and has been participant of 19 High Performance Computing research projects of the Spanish Supercomputer Network (RES) and 3 Tier-0 PRACE HPC projects.

  • RadwankaDr. Magdalena Radwanska

    Email: magdalena.radwanska@ghent.ac.kr

    Gent University, Belgium

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Vaccines, 2. Mucosal Immunity, 3. Adjuvants, 4. Respiratory Bacterial

    Golden Paragraph: Magdalena Radwanska holds a professorship at the Gent University, Belgium, Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology and at the Gent University Global Campus in South Korea. Her main research focus is understanding the mechanisms behind vaccination failure and design of new vaccines. This includes induction of mucosal immunity of the respiratory and gastrointestinal system, and identification of new adjuvant molecules that can be used in mucosal vaccination strategies.

  • Dr. Wim Vos

    Email: Wim.vos@fluidda.com

    CTO at FLUIDDA nv

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Functional respiratory imaging, 2. Translational modelling, 3. Clinical trials, 4. Computational fluid dynamics

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Vos received an MSc degree in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands and a PhD degree in physics from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Dr. Vos is responsible for the technical developments within FLUIDDA and ensures the company remains leading edge by implementing validated technology in clinical research and clinical practice. Dr. Vos is author of many papers in international journals and received several awards for his research. Since 2010 Dr. Vos is Chief Technology Officer at FLUIDDA.

  • Prof. Beatriz Silva Lima

    Email: beatrizlima@netcabo.pt

    Universidade de Lisboa, Faculty of Pharmacy

    Keywords of expertise: 1.Regulatory Science, 2.Nonclinical Safety, 3.Translational Pharmacology, 4.drug development planning

  • WilburDr. Wilbur de Kruijf

    Email: wilbur@medspray.com

    Wilbur de Kruijf is an employee and shareholder of Medspray BV, the Netherlands, Secretary of MAD Foundation, a Dutch aerosol science think tank, Member of the device working group of the IPAC-RS consortium

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Liquid aerosol device development, 2. Multi dose liquid inhalers, 3. Drug delivery device design, 4. Human factors engineering

    Golden Paragraph: Wilbur de Kruijf is responsible for new business development at Medspray, the Netherlands. Medspray develops novel metered dose liquid inhalers and eye spray devices, based on their proprietary micro nano technology spray nozzles. Wilbur joined Medspray in 2006 to start up device development in collaboration with Medspray’s device partners. Wilbur (born in 1971) has a background in Industrial Design Engineering (M.Sc. Design Engineering 1995, M.Sc.  Advanced Industrial Design Engineering 1997, Delft University of Technology) with further specialisation in medical device development (acc. ISO 13485), design for six sigma and user centred design. Before joining Medspray, Wilbur worked almost 10 years for a Dutch design consultancy firm, Indes, winning several international design and usability awards for homecare & rehab products and hospital equipment. Wilbur is active in the IPAC-RS consortium’s device work group and he is the secretary of the Dutch medical aerosol scientist network ‘MAD Foundation’, organising two lecture and discussion events yearly on aerosols in medicine. MAD foundation celebrates its 20th anniversary with ‘MAD#40’ in November 2016, see also www.stichtingmad.nl

  • Dr. Arpad Farkas

    Email: farkas.arpad@energia.mta.hu

    Centre for Energy Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Konkoly Thege M. út 29-33, 1121 Budapest, Hungary

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid and Particle Dynamics, 2. Inhaled aerosol transport and deposition, 3. Health effects of deposited aerosols, 4. Numerical modelling

    Golden Paragraph: Árpád Farkas is a senior research fellow working for Centre for Energy Research of Budapest, Hungary. The area of his research interest is modelling the transport and airway deposition of the inhaled aerosols. He is applying both analytical and CFD techniques to quantify the regional and local distribution of the deposited aerosols. He is also developing numerical techniques for the study of mucociliary clearance of the deposited particles. Revealing the biological effects associated with aerosol inhalation and deposition is another research area explored by Árpád Farkas.

  • Prof. Carlos David Pérez Segarra

    Email: farkas.arpad@energia.mta.hu

    Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (CTTC), Universitat Politècnica de Cataluna-BarcelonaTech (UPC),  ESEIAAT, Colom 11, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer, 2. Computational Fluid Particle Dynamics, 3. Computational Multi-Fluid Dynamics, 4. High Performance Computing

    Golden Paragraph: Full Professor at the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Centre (CTTC), of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech (UPC). He has conducted research in more than 30 relevant financially supported projects about mathematical modelling and optimisation of thermal systems and equipment. Co-ordinator of five different European projects about heat exchangers, refrigeration, heat storage, concentrated solar power (CSP), etc., being computational fluid dynamics an essential tool of analysis. These projects solve the multi-physic and multi-scale problems related to their thermal and fluid dynamic behaviour. As an example, the EFROST project on complex thermal systems and airflow management, and the TESCONSOL project regarding thermal energy storage systems in CSP plants. Research is concentrated on two main lines: i) basic aspects related to the numerical simulation and experimental validation of heat and mass transfer problems (turbulence modelling, radiation, two-phase flows, combustion, high performance computing, etc.); ii) applied aspects related to the thermal and fluid dynamic analysis of a wide range of situations. He has been author or co-author of over 230 publications in international journals and congresses. Supervisor of 21 Ph.D. Thesis.

  • Photo_Joaquim_RigolaProf. Joaquim Rigola Serrano

    Email: quim@cttc.upc.edu

    Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (CTTC), Universitat Politècnica de Cataluna-BarcelonaTech (UPC), ESEIAAT, Colom 11, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer, 2. Computational Fluid Particle Dynamics, 3. Computational Multi-Fluid Dynamics, 4. High Performance Computing

    Golden Paragraph: Prof. Joaquim Rigola holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (UPC, 2003). He is researcher and promoter of the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (CTTC) and Dr. Ing. Agregate Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech (UPC). Ha has more than 20 years working in heat and mass transfer phenomena analysis, numerical simulation models and experimental test facilities. His main research interest are related to numerical simulation of liquid-vapour (condensation and evaporation) and solid-liquid (Phase Change Material) multi-phase flow, and object oriented modular modelling of thermal systems and equipment (with special focus on HVAC&R cycles in general and compressors in particular). Prof. Rigola has conducted research in 47 relevant financially supported projects: coordinating 3 basic research national projects; participating in 19 national competitive projects (8 as research coordinator), 14 EU financially supported projects (6 as research coordinator) and 11 projects with national and international industrial partners (5 as project coordinator). Supervisor of 8 Ph.D. Thesis, and is author of 25 papers in JCR journals, about 90 contributions to peer-reviewed international conferences and 5 patents. At this moment he is the project coordinator of EFFAN Clean Sky project. He is also professor at different KIC Masters and the thermal engineering doctorate program at UPC. h index = 9 (source: Scopus database).

     

  • aleck_alexopoulosDr. Aleck H Alexopoulos

    Email: aleck@cperi.certh.gr

    Centre for Research and Technology Hellas   (CERTH), Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute (CPERI), Thessaloniki, Greece
    Keywords of expertise: 1. CComputation Fluid Mechanics, 2. Population Balance Models, 3. Dispersed Phases, 4. Colloidal and Interface Science

    Golden Paragraph: Aleck Alexopoulos is a Senior Researcher at the Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) located in Thessaloniki, Greece. Primary research activity of Aleck is the application of an integrated computational platform, first developed for dispersed phase polymerization reactors, to respiratory flow from inhaler to alveoli. The computational platform includes CFD, particle models, population balances, and compartment model. He is interested mostly in the application of the approach to describe the interaction of multi-component particle populations in complex powder formulations during inhalation.

  • unai-cossio-photoUnai Cossío

    Email: ucossio@cicbiomagune.es

    CIC biomaGUNE

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Radiochemistry, 2. Molecular Imaging, 3. Positron Emission Tomography, 4. Nanotechnology

    Golden Paragraph: Unai Cossío is a PhD student in Dr. Jordi Llop’s lab at CIC biomaGUNE (San Sebastián, Spain). The primary research activity of Unai in SimInhale is mainly related to the radiolabelling of nanoparticles and their evaluation as drug delivery agents following inhaled administration using a combination of in vivo imaging modalities, including Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computerised Tomography (SPECT). One of his main interests is the assessment of regional drug deposition within the lungs using different inhalation techniques.

  • sandra-cvijicDr. Sandra Cvijic

    Email: gsandra@pharmacy.bg.ac.rs

    Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Cosmetology, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Pharmacy, Blgrade, Serbia

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutical Characterization, 2. Bioperformance Dissolution Testing, 3. Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling, 4. In Vitro-In Vivo Correlation

    Golden Paragraph: Sandra Cvijic is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Cosmetology, University of Belgrade-Faculty of Pharmacy. Her research interest within SimInhale COST Action is related to biopharmaceutical characterization of inhaled medicines, including: (i) design of biorelevant in vitro dissolution test, (ii) assessment of pulmonary drug permeability, (iii) development of Biopharmaceutical Classification System for inhaled drugs (iBCS); (iv) in silico modeling and simulation of inhaled drugs bioperformance in different patients/population groups, (v) development of the coupled in silico platform Computer Flow Dynamics & Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling (CFD & PBPK) to predict in vivo deposition and absorption of inhaled drugs, (vi) establishment of in vitro-in silico-in vivo relationship/correlation (IVISIVC/IVISIVR) for inhaled drugs dissolution/absorption.

  • Ms. LuciLuciee Kubelová

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals, Czech Academy of Sciences

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Chemical composition of aerosols, 2. Size distribution of aerosols, 3. Aerosol Mass Spectrometer

    Golden Paragraph: Lucie Kubelová graduated in Physical Chemistry at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and currently is a PhD student in the Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics at the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals in Prague. Within SimInhale, Lucie focuses on measurement of size distribution of particles created by drug inhalers and their deposition in respiratory system.

  • nicolas-2016Dr. Nicolas Tsapis

    Email: nicolas.tsapis@u-psud.fr

    CNRS, Univ. PAris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. Lung delivery, 3. Trojan particles, 4. Porous particles

    Golden Paragraph: After studying fundamental Physics at Université Paris Sud (Paris, France), Nicolas Tsapis did a master degree followed by a PhD on the influence of proteins on the elastic properties of model biological membranes at Laboratoire de Physique Statistique (ENS, Paris, France). He defended his Ph.D thesis in November 2000. In 2001, he went to Harvard University as a post-doctoral fellow in the groups of Prof. David A. Edwards and Prof. David A. Weitz for three years. There he studied the drying process of droplets containing colloidal particles from a fundamental as well as from an applied point of view. Together with Alkermes, he patented The Trojan Particle concept: Large porous particles encapsulating nanoparticles. In October 2003, Nicolas Tsapis joined the team of Prof Elias Fattal as a CNRS researcher (Institut Galien Paris-Sud, Univ Paris-Sud, Faculté de Pharmacie, Châtenay-Malabry, France). His research activity focuses on two main topics: Novel contrast agents for medical imaging and theranostics, and spray drying from fundamentals to therapeutic applications. In 2009, he obtained the CNRS bronze medal as a recognition of his research work. and in 2014 he was appointed CNRS research director. He is the author of about 80 publications and 5 patents.

  • KristianDr. Kristian Valen-Sendstad

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    Computational Cardiac Modeling Department at Simula Research Laboratory, Norway

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2. Turbulence, 3. Computer Science

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Valen-Sendstad is currently employed as a research scientist in the Computational Cardiac Modeling Department at Simula Research Laboratory, Norway. During the first stages of his scientific career, Valen-Sendstad’s work focused around development of open-source numerical algorithms for solving the Navier-Stokes equations that governs fluid flow. The developed fluid flow solvers were later used to study blood flow in intracranial aneurysms – sick balloon-shaped blood vessels inside the brain that can burst and cause stroke. Over the years Valen-Sendstad has been working on investigating the extent and role of turbulent-like flows in the cardiovascular system. The published results have been very controversial, but backed up by irrefutable evidence. Valen-Sendstad has had impact on the scientific fields of vascular biology and neuroradiology, to mention a few. Valen-Sendstad is currently also focusing on applications of fluid flow in the human airways, especially targeting drug delivery.

     

  • RozouDr. Stavroula Rozou

    Email: a.rozou@elpen.gr

    ELPEN  Pharm.Co.Inc., Greece

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Analytical Development, 2. Validation, 3. DPI development, 4. Dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Stavroula Rozou is a Msc, PhD Pharmacist, who has been working in pharmaceutical industry since 1994. She is currently Director of the Analytical and Documentation dpt of R&D in ELPEN Pharm.Co.Inc. She was involved in the development of ELPEN dry powder inhaler since its concept in 2003 and has been specializing since in the inhalation field. Apart from the analytical research, her activities include preparation of a new product’s documentation for submission and scientific support to clients and partners. Stavroula is in close collaboration with several universities and research centers over various projects. She is interested in the IVIVC or ISIVC as development or analytical tools. She is keen in new collaborations with other SimInhale members in order to contribute to the emerging need of new products through the inhalation route.

     

  • CuiMr. Yan Cui

    Email: yan.cui@iw.uni-halle.de

    Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Lattice-Boltzmann Method, 3. Dry Powder Inhaler, 4. Drug Detachment Models

    Golden Paragraph: Yan Cui holds an Assistant Researcher position in the Department of Mechanical Process Engineering at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. The primary research activity of Yan in SimInhale is to study the detachment of micro-sized fine drug particles from a larger carrier particle under various flow conditions by using the Lattice Boltzmann Method. This study is used for predicting the drug delivery efficiency inside the Dry Powder Inhaler. In this regard, three detachment models, i.e. plane wall detachment model, rough wall detachment model and cluster-wall collision model, were developed based on measured contact properties for different flow conditions and cluster structures. Moreover, those detachment models are implemented into the OpenFOAM® and are used for Euler/Lagrange calculations of an inhaler device and allow an optimization with regard to pressure drop and efficiency of drug powder delivery. Finally, he is looking for collaboration with other SimInhale members who can provide measured particle contact properties (e.g. adhesion force, surface energy, friction coefficient) for different surface treatment methods of carrier particles.

     

  • JedelskyDr. Jan Jedelsky

    Email: jedelsky@fme.vutbr.cz

    Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technicka 2896/2, 616 69 Brno, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Experimental Fluid Dynamics, 2. Transport and deposition of aerosols, 3. Single- and multi-phase flows, 4. Optical diagnostic methods

    Golden Paragraph: Jan Jedelsky holds an Associate Professor position in the Energy Department, at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Brno University of Technology and he is the Head of the Spray research Laboratory and the Laboratory of fluid flow. The main research activity of Jan in SimInhale is the application of optical methods for flow and aerosol measurements in human airway replicas. The measurements of single and disperse two-phase flows for in-vitro lung studies namely involve point-wise methods for velocimetry in the airways: laser-Doppler based techniques (LDA, PDA) or planar optical methods, such as mono, stereo, and time-resolved PIV. The second research activity covers the measurement methods for preparation, characterisation and deposition of inhaled particles. The results acquired so far, or possibly obtained in the frame of SimInhale, provide a quantitative description of the flow and aerosol deposition and can be employed as the input or validation data for numerical simulations. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Jan is also supposed to contribute to a review article from our group for SimInhale Special Issue EJPS.

  • RVanbeverDr. Rita Vanbever

    Email: rita.vanbever@uclouvain.be

    Université catholique de Louvain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Sustained release strategies, 2. PEGylation, 3. Fate of inhaled drugs, 4. Inhalation dry powders

    Golden Paragraph: Rita Vanbever holds an Associate Professor position at the Louvain Drug Research Institute of the Université catholique de Louvain. The research activity of Rita Vanbever deals with the formulation of inhalation dry powders, the study of the pulmonary fate of diverse molecules following delivery to the lungs in vivo in mice and in rats, the assessment of the potential of vaccine delivery to the lungs for protection against respiratory infections as well as the development of formulation strategies to sustain drug release within the lungs. This latter topic has particularly been developed within Rita Vanbever’s group these last years, in particular with the demonstration that PEGylation of proteins largely prolongs their residence time in the lungs as well as their therapeutic efficacy locally.

  • Dr. Katrin Bauer

    Email: Katrin.Bauer@imfd.tu-freiberg.de

    TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Institute of Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics, Lampadiusstr. 4, 09599 Freiberg, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Optical flow visualisation, 2. 3D Particle Image Velocimetry, 3. Upper human airways, 4. Computational Fluid Dynamics

    Golden Paragraph: Katrin Bauer is a research associate at the Institute of  Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany. Katrin’s primary research activity in SinInhale is the experimental investigation of the 3D flow patterns in the upper bronchial tree. Therefore, she carries out time resolved, 3D PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) and PTV (Particle Tracking Velocity measurements) in transparent lung models in order to receive information about the evolving 3D flow patterns which drive the particle motion. These data can be used for validation of the numerical results. In collaboration with other SinInhale members she is setting up upper airway measurements of a patient specific geometry. At exactly the same geometry particle deposition is investigated. Besides that, Katrin also performs numerical simulations in order to gain deeper insight into the mass transport behavior in the upper human airways.

     

  • Anne Haaije de BoerProf. Anne Haaije de Boer

    Email: a.h.de.boer@rug.nl

    University of Groningen, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy, Ant. Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands.

    Keywords of expertise: 1. DPI design and development, 2. Powder formulation and characterisation, 3. Aerosol characterisation, 4. Laser diffraction technique

    Golden Paragraph: Anne de Boer is retired associate professor and former head of the inhalation group of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy (PTB) of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He still has a contract with the university for another ten years (until 2025) on a voluntarily basis, however, to finish the Twincer high dose dry powder inhaler platform, develop a second generation inhaler adapter for aerosol characterisation with laser diffraction technique (in collaboration with Sympatec, Germany) and support various formulation and patient studies with the (test) inhalers developed by the inhalation group. This group is financially virtually independent of research grants and governmental budgets thanks to received royalties from previous inhaler developments (Novolizer and Genuair) and anticipates to extend this situation with marketing of the Twincer platform. His interest in Siminhale is to find collaboration in the areas of solid state drug characterisation and CFD simulation of inhaler performance and drug deposition in the respiratory tract as function of the inhaler design.

  • Jana KozakovaMs. Jana Kozáková

    Email: kozakova@icpf.cas.cz

    Laboratory of Aerosols Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the CAS, Czech Republic

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol size distribution measurement, 2. Measurement with cascade impactors, 3. Chemical composition of aerosol

    Golden Paragraph: Jana Kozáková is a PhD candidate with a research interest in air quality of outdoor and indoor environment. Her current research is focused on aerosol particle measurement, aerosol size distribution assessment and aerosol chemical composition. The research activity of Jana in SimInhale project is the detailed size distribution measurement of aerosol particles from inhalers and subsequently the description of particle deposition in the respiratory system.

     

  • YanOstrovskiMr. Yan Ostrovski

    Email: yanost@gmail.com

    Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Targeted pulmonary drug delivery, 2. In-vitro pulmonary drug deposition, 3. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), 4. Discrete element method (DEM)

    Golden Paragraph: Yan Ostrovski is a PhD student in Prof’s Sznitman’s lab in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His primary research activity is targeted delivery in the lungs using magnetic particles. In collaboration with other Siminhale members, Yan is using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and discrete element method (DEM) to model the behavior of inhaled magnetic particles on different scales in the lung. These simulations are then used to design in-vitro system. 3d printed models are used to study the behavior of magnetic particles in the upper airways. Whereas Microfluidic chips are used to study the particle dynamics in alveolar geometries on a true physiological scale.

     

  • alexiadis-alessioDr. Alessio Alexiadis

    Email: a.alexiadis@bham.ac.uk

    School of Chemical Engineering University if Birmingham

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Mathematical modelling, 2. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 3. Molecular Dynamics, 4. Hybrid modelling

    Golden Paragraph: Dr. Alessio Alexiadis is currently working at the University of Birmingham on hybrid modelling and computer simulation. He accomplished his Ph.D. in 2001 in Italy at the Politecnico di Torino with a thesis on photocatalytic reactors. Since then, he has worked in France at ARMINES École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (2001−2003), in Germany at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (2003−2004), in Australia at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science & Technology, University of New South Wales, Sydney (2004−2006), and Cyprus at the Computational Sciences Laboratory at the University of Cyprus (2006-2008). In 2008 he was awarded of the Outgoing International Fellowship by the European Commission within the Marie Curie programme (FP6). He moved in the United States at the Washington University in St. Louis for the outgoing-phase of the fellowship (2008-2010) and in Sweden at the Royal Institute of Technology for the returning-phase (2010-2011). From 2012 to 2013, he worked at the University of Warwick on molecular-continuum modelling of micro/nano flows.  His academic interests and past research activities include photocatalysis, computational fluid dynamics, bubbly flows, multiphase reactors, polymer dynamics, membrane science, global warming modelling, electrochemistry, micro- and nano-fluidics, and both classical and ab initio molecular simulations.

     

  • LauraDr. Laura Nicolaou

    Email: laura.nicolaou@imperial.ac.uk

    Imperial College London

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational fluid dynamics, 2. Direct numerical simulations, 3. Aerosol deposition, 4. Upper airways

    Golden Paragraph: Laura is a Research Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. Her research activity focuses on bio-fluid mechanics, in particular flow and aerosol deposition in the respiratory airways and the development of numerical algorithms for high-fidelity, large-scale computations of complex physiological flows. Laura’s interests within pulmonary drug delivery include flow and aerosol optimisation in order to minimise extrathoracic losses, patient- and class-specific prediction/optimisation of drug delivery, and paediatrics. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Laura is currently investigating the effect of the extrathoracic airways on intrathoracic deposition, and examining the use of different numerical methods for prediction of flow and aerosol deposition in the airways.

     

  • Lízal FrantišekDr. Frantisek Lizal

    Email: lizal@fme.vutbr.cz

    Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Energy Institute, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol deposition in lungs, 2. Physical models of lungs, 3. Experimental aerosol research, 4. Positron emission tomography

    Golden Paragraph: Frantisek Lizal works as senior lecturer at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic. His primary area of interest is experimental research of aerosol transport and deposition in human lungs. He and his team developed several physical replicas of human lungs. Some replicas were used for measurements of flow and velocity of particles within human lungs using laser Doppler-based methods. Other replicas are being used for measurements of regional aerosol deposition using optical microscopy or positron emission tomography. The data delivered by his team are being used by the community of SimInhale members as boundary conditions and for validation of numerical simulations of particle transport in lungs. He also collaborates on particle image velocimetry measurement of flow field in the replica of lungs. His secondary interests are thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and their applications.

     

  • PaoloDr. Paolo Colombo

    Email: paolo.colombo@unipr.it

    President of Interuniversity Consortium on Innovative Pharmaceutical Technologies TEFARCO Innova, c/o Department of Pharmacy, Parma, Italy

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. DPI Device development, 3. In vitro assessment of respirability, 4. Spray drying technique for dry particle manufacturing

    Golden Paragraph: Paolo Colombo primary research activity in inhalation is the design and development of novel inhalation products with a special focus on DPI. The primary goal is the search of a safe and convenient administration of large doses of drug in particular antiinfectives, to treat lung microbial and viral dependent diseases. In this regard the recent pubblications on cystic fibrosis Pseudomonas infection treatment by aminoglycosides drive to an approval for orphan designation of a powder of amikacin or tobramycin. The product is administered with a new device for powder inhalation capable to accept a dose of powder larger that 100 mg. We found a novel system and technique capable to regulate the powder emission in order not to suffucate the patient during inhalation since the large dose is emitted in small portions. This allows the complete deposition of the drug in the lung area defined by the aerodynamic size distribution of the aerosol particles.

     

  • PhilipDr. Philipp Hofemeier

    Email: philipph@bm.technion.ac.il

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Acinar airflow, 3. Acinar drug delivery

    Golden Paragraph: Philipp Hofemeier recently finished his PhD at the department of biomedical engineering at the Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology. Where he explores particle transport and deposition in the respiratory region of the lung by means of computational simulations. He mainly focuses on predicting deposition efficiencies for pulmonary drug delivery applications. In SimInhale, Philipp is mainly interested in bridging the gap between computational models of the upper conducting airways and the respiratory region. Utilizing the expertise of other SimInhale member in upper airway simulations, Philipp has joined efforts to build a multi scale lung model. Furthermore, he is working on exchanging data and parameters to improve boundary conditions and increase the accuracy of computational deposition maps.

  • Gerrit BorchardProf. Gerrit Borchard

    Email: Gerrit.Borchard@unige.ch

    School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Geneva-Lausanne (EPGL), University of Geneva, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Nanomedicines: drug & vaccine carriers, 3. Therapeutic protein formulation

    Golden Paragraph: Gerrit Borchard is a professor of Biopharmaceutics at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Geneva-Lausanne (EPGL) at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). His primary interest in SimInhale is the formulation of vaccine and drug carriers as nano-medicines adapted to the application by inhalation. Several alternative technologies need to be assessed with regard to optimization of efficacy, and lowering of costs and toxicity.

  • Theodora Krasia-ChristoforouDr. Theodora Krasia-Christoforou

    Email: krasia@ucy.ac.cy

     

    University of Cyprus, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Polymer Science, 2. Polymer synthesis, 3. Polymer characterization, 4. Polymer processing

    Golden Paragraph:  Theodora Krasia-Christoforou (Dr. Rer. Nat., Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, 2003) holds an Associate Professor position in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus. Her research interests are focused in the areas of synthesis, characterisation, processing and applications of polymers and polymer-based materials. She is particularly interested in the generation of novel, polymers of various architectures and chemical compositions comprising functionalities capable of responding to external stimuli, binding onto inorganic matter, adsorbing and releasing solutes in a controlled manner, etc. She is particularly interested in the preparation of polymer-inorganic nanohybrids and nanocomposites in the form of 3D networks, electrospun fibers and thin films. Her participation in the SimInhale COST Action aims in the creation of new collaborations with other SimInhale members, targeting towards the design, fabrication and characterization of novel and highly efficient stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems applicable in inhalation medicines.

  • NenadProf. Dr. Nenad Filipovic

    Email: fica@kg.ac.rs

    Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Keywords of expertise: 1. CFD, 2. Multiscale modeling, 3. Molecular dynamics, 4. Dissipative particle dynamics

    Golden Paragraph: Prof. Dr. Nenad Filipovic, full professor at the Faculty of Engineering and the head of Center for Bioengineering of the University of Kragujevac, has a broad experience in computer simulation of the cardiovascular and cancer disease. He has developed a computer model for plaque formation and development under the FP7 project ARTreat (www.artreat.kg.ac.rs). He was also a Research Associate at Harvard University, USA (2003-2009). He is the author and co-author of 6 textbooks and 3 monographs in English, the author and co-author of over 150 publications, over 110 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, the author and co-author of over 10 software for modeling of lung airway, cancer and atherosclerosis growth with finite element method and discrete methods from fluid mechanics and multiphysics, as well as connection of medical data with mechanics solvers, PI of scientific program for Bioengineering, PI and Co-PI of many national and international scientific projects, a Managing editor of Journal of the Serbian Society for Computational Mechanics, a Coordinating member of European Society of Biomechanics for Serbia, a member of European Society for Artificial Organs, a member of Board of Serbian Society for Mechanics etc.

  • Sitaram VelagaDr. Sitaram Velaga

    Email: sitram.velaga@ltu.se

    Department of Health Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Solid-state pharmaceutics, 2. Particle engineering, 3. Surface properties, 4. Carrier-free formulations

    Golden Paragraph: Sitaram Velaga earned PhD from Uppsala University and currentlly holds a professorship in pharmacy at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. He is also a head of research education in Health Sciences. His major research interests include solid-state pharmaceutics and particle engieeneering for inhalation and nasal applications. His current projects in the area focus on carrier-free formulations, particle engineering through cystal engineering and effect of triboelectric charging on the particle deposition. Further, in collaboration with SimInhale members, Velaga is pursuing particle adhesion and cohesion properties and and dissolution of inhaled particles.

  • Maria CordinaDr. Maria Cordina

    Email: maria.cordina@um.edu.mt

    Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Malta

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Pharmacotherapeutic management of respiratory disease, 2. Safety in medicines use, 3. Patient outcomes research, 4. Beliefs and attitudes about medicines

    Golden Paragraph: Maria Cordina is Associate Professor within the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Malta. Her research is focused on the interaction between the patient and medication. Within Simhale she contributes to the group which is responsible for toxicity, xenobiotics, risk assessment and policy development.

  • zDIMALDr. Vladimír Ždímal

    Email: Zdimal@icpf.cas.cz

    Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals CAS, Rozvojová 135, CZ-165 02 Praha 6, Czech Republic

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Aerosol Technology, 2. Inhalation Aerosols, 3. Atmospheric and Indoor Aerosols, 4. Nucleation Studies

    Golden Paragraph: Vladimír Ždímal is a chemical engineer by education, obtained his Master’s degree with his thesis on precipitation in a Taylor-Couette flow from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, and his PhD dissertation was on homogeneous nucleation kinetics in supersaturated vapors under the supervision of Prof. Jiri Smolik at the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals (ICPF) in Prague. He continued his nucleation studies both during a NSF-NATO postdoctoral residency at Clarkson University in 1999 (with Prof. Philip Hopke), and after his return from the US with his PhD students. In the past decade, his activities have expanded into the fields of atmospheric aerosols and aerosol technology. Since 2009, he has led the aerosol group at the ICPF. As a supervisor of students in the field Pharmaceuticals and biomaterials he has  developed a sampling train and methodology for on-line and off-line determination of particle size distributions of inhalation aerosols and his students measured these distributions on several tens of commercial inhalers. In collaboration within the SimInhale project, Vladimír plans to use the improved experimental methodology in combination with advanced models to estimate the deposition efficiency of various inhalation aerosols on the target tissues in the respiratory tract.

  • FotosMr. Fotos Stylianou

    Email: fotosstylianou@yahoo.com

    University of Cyprus

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Incompressible Flows, 3. Finite Volume Method, 4. Structure-Based Turbulence Modeling

    Golden Paragraph: Fotos Stylianou is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus and is a member of the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci). His research activity in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the human airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition in the upper airways. In this regard, he is interested in the factors that affect deposition in the mouth-throat region with the aim of understanding and controlling the leading effects that contribute to mouth-throat loss for drugs delivered via DPIs.

     

  • P_Sarah_Zellnitz-004Dr. Sarah Zellnitz

    Email: sarah.zellnitz@tugraz.at

    Area II – Advanced Products and Delivery, Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH, A-8010 Graz, Inffeldgasse 13/III, Austria

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle engineering, 2. Dry powder inhalers, 3. Material Characterization, 4. Spray drying

    Golden Paragraph: Sarah Zellnitz is a pharmacist by training and currently holds the position of Senior Scientist at Area II “Advanced Products and Delivery” at the Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering (RCPE) in Graz, (AT). During her PhD at the Graz Technical University (AT) she explored glass beads as new model carries in dry powder inhalers (DPIs) and gained expertise in particle engineering via surface modification and detailed material characterization. Her now focus is on tailoring DPI formulations via mechanistic understanding of the interplay of material properties, formulation properties, adhesive-cohesive force balance and drug detachment.

  • MafaldaDr. Mafalda de Castro Ascensão Marques Videira

    Email: mafaldavideira@campus.ul.pt

    Nanomedicines and Drug Delivery Systems Group, iMed.UL – Research Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade de Lisboa (FFUL), Lisboa, Portugal

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Nanomedicines, 2. Pulmonary Administration, 3. Oncology, 4. Cell Biology; Toxicology

    Golden Paragraph: Assessment of in-vivo/in-vitro response to pulmonary and lymphatic absorption and clearance of the pharmaceutical nanoparticulate dispersed dosage forms. Biodistribution studies using nuclear medicine approaches.
    Nanotechnology and intracellular Target: Design of innovative platforms for drug and gene delivery (e.g., Lipid nanoparticles, polymeric micelles and lipopolyplexes) using “smart” biomaterials.
    Receptor-ligand strategies in order to develop patentable nanoscale delivery systems for selective cell targeting (e.g. Cd44+ in cancer stem cells) using molecular biology tools and adequate cell models.
    Nanotechnology: Oncological pharmaceutical dosage forms development and full characterization of the designed systems. Assessment of properties of the nanoscale developed colloids, focusing in the relation between processes and materials. Applications of the lipid-based carriers for the intracellular deliver of new RNAi strategies against metastatic cancer sub-populations (signalling cascades, intracellular pathways and transcriptional proteins).
    Interaction between nanoparticles and cellular targets: Intracellular nanoparticles trafficking, in vitro efficacy and toxicity and in vitro/in vivo nanoparticulate system efficacy. Evaluation of pulmonary or mucosal nanoparticles administration and further implications on the their lymphatic uptake.
    Ethical implications of health-related innovations and experimentation.

  • MårtenDr. Mårten Svensson

    Email: marten@emmace.se

    Emmace Consulting AB, Sweden

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Experimental characterisation of aerosols, 2. Performance testing of inhalers, 3. Prediction of lung dose, 4. Anatomical throats and Inhalation profiles

    Golden Paragraph: Over a decade of experience in pharmaceutical industry in different phases of development from formulation development in early phase to late stage regulatory processes for drug products. Has been involved in various projects spanning pre-clinical, product development, and clinical discipline.

    Extensive experience as specialist within the inhalation technology,

    • Aerosol specialist, advanced method development (eg in-house built instrumentation), project support and guidance.
    • Managing the daily work for 5-10 people in lab environment.
    • Extensive experience in international collaborations, including due diligence matters.
    • Several years of experience as hub between mechanical engineers in product development and analytical pharmaceutical testing in the development of new inhaler platforms.
    • Inventor of patents and have performed review procedures of pharmacopoeias.
    • Several years of membership in EPAG and IPAC-RS Impactor groups
    • A very genuine background in method development, project support at various levels, management of lab personnel, advanced data handling, writing of SOPs and guidelines, and implementation and concept testing of new methodologies/instrumentation.

  • Barbara-newProf. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser

    Email: barbara.rothen@unifr.ch

    Co-Chair BioNanomaterials, Adolphe Merkle Institute, Université de Fribourg, Ch. des Verdiers 4, CH-1700 Fribourg, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Lung cell culture models, 2. Aerosolized nanoparticles, 3. Hazard / risk assessment, 4. Biomedical nanoparticle design

    Golden Paragraph: Prof. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser has received her Ph.D. in 1996 in cell biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. From 1996 to 2000 she held a post-doctoral position in Biopharmacy at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the ETH and in 2000 she joined Prof. Peter Gehr’s research group at the University of Bern, Switzerland. B. Rothen-Rutishauser is an expert in the field of cell-nanoparticle interactions in the lung, with a special focus on 3D lung cell models and various microscopy techniques such as laser scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Since 2011 she is the new chair in BioNanomaterials at the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, the position is shared equally with Prof. Alke Fink. The research group’s activities stretch over many fields from material synthesis and characterization to biological responses and risk assessment. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and is an associate editor of the Particle and Fibre Toxicology.

  • RamyDr. Ramy Fishler

    Email: ramyfishler@gmail.com

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Microfluidics, 2. Acinar Flows, 3. Particle Image Velocimetry, 4. Inhaler Testing

    Golden Paragraph: Ramy Fishler is a scientist at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Insitute of technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and an M.Sc. in Nanoscience. Ramy’s primary research in SimInhale is the use of microfluidic models to investigate particle transport mechanisms in the lung acinus. Ramy is also devloping a proprietary new method of measuring aerodynamic particle size distribution from inhalers in real time.

  • Kaye MorganDr. Kaye Morgan

    Email: kaye.morgan@monash.edu

    Chair of Biomedical Physics, Technische Universität München, Germany

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Respiratory drug delivery, 3. Lung absorption, 4. Lung dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Kaye Morgan is a Victorian Postgraduate Research Fellow in the School of Physics at Monash University, visiting the Technische Universität München on a Hans Fischer Fellowship.  Kaye has experience using the bright x-rays from synchrotron x-ray facilities to capture the structure and dynamics of the respiratory system.  But detecting small changes in the direction x-rays propagate, it is possible to reconstruct high resolution images of the lungs and the airway surface.  This can be used to better understand respiratory physiology, to monitor respiratory health and to measure the effects of treatments on the airway surface.  One example is tracking the depth of the airway surface liquid before, during and after inhalation of a nebulised treatment for Cystic Fibrosis, to provide direct and local feedback on treatment effectiveness.  Kaye is working with the imaging working group to see how else this new technology can be used to progress research on respiratory health and inhaled treatments.

  • BontozoglouProf. Vasilis Bontozoglou

    Email: bont@uth.gr

    Laboratory of Transport Processes, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Thessaly, 38334, Volos, Greece

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Transport Phenomena, 2. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 3. Interfacial Flows

    Golden Paragraph: Vasilis Bontozoglou is Professor of Transport Phenomena in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Thessaly and Head of the Laboratory of Transport Processes. The primary research activity of Vasilis in SimInhale is the prediction of drug deposition in the lungs by one-dimensional models that incorporate the correct physics of transport and mixing in the alveolar volumes. Vasilis is also working on fundamental understanding of the function of soluble surfactants in liquid films, a topic of keen interest for alveolar mechanics.

  • guillaume_houzeauxDr. Guillaume Houzeaux

    Email: guillaume.houzeaux@bsc.es

    Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. High Performance Computational Mechanics, 3. Parallelization, 4. Biomechanics

    Golden Paragraph: Guillaume Houzeaux studied physics at the Université de Montréal, Canada. After his Batchelor studies, he joined Prof. Habashi’s CFD group at Concordia University, Montréal, to start working in CFD and turbulence modeling, and obtained a Master of Applied Science in 1995. Afterwards he moved to Barcelona and carried out a PhD in Domain Decomposition methods applied to CFD at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. He obtained the PhD degree in 2002 and during two years worked at the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) in the Building, Energy and Environment group. In 2004 he obtained a ‘Ramon y Cajal’ Spanish government contract to study indoor ventilation in buildings. Two years later he joined the newly created Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) to start the CFD research line in the Department of Computer Applications in Science and Engineering. Since then he has been working in basic research (variational multiscale), applied research (ventilation, biomechanics), and on the parallelization, optimization and tuning of Alya simulation codes for very large scale simulations.

  • KoullapisMr. Pantelis Koullapis

    Email: koullapis.g.pantelis@ucy.ac.cy

    PhD Candidate, Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci), Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2. Incompressible flows, 3. Biomedical fluid flows (lungs), 4. Numerical simulations

    Golden Paragraph: Pantelis Koullapis is a PhD candidate at the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci) of the University of Cyprus. The primary research activity of Pantelis in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition for various combinations of inhaler devices, patient groups (based on age or health status) and formulations. In this regard, he is interested in the development of In Silico In Vivo Correlations (ISIVCV) for deposition. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Pantelis is also pursuing the development of hybrid models coupling the upper airways to the alveolar region, e.g. using LES methods for the upper airways with reduced models for the deeper airways.

  • maškováDr. Ludmila Mašková

    Email: maskova@icpf.cas.cz

    Institute of Chemical Processes Fundamentals of the CAS, Rozvojová 135, 16502 Prague 6, Czech Republic

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Particle Size Distribution, 2. Number/Mass Concentration, 3. Nanoparticles, 4. Time-of-flight Measurements

    Golden Paragraph: Ludmila Mašková is a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Chemical Processes Fundamentals of the CAS in Prague, Czech Republic. The primary research activity of Ludmila in SimInhale is the detailed characterisation of aerodynamic properties of inhalable particles generated by different devices and formulations, and comparison of number and mass particle size distributions in the wide size range (3 nm – 20 µm). During the Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) Ludmila cooperated with the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Parma, Italy, at formulation and detailed characterisation of spray-dried antibiotics powders for inhalation used for treatment of cystic fibrosis. The STSM strongly advanced her understanding of methods for inhaled formulation manufacturing and chemical characterisation of the medical aerosols.

     

  • ForbesDr. Ben Forbes

    Email: ben.forbes@kcl.ac.uk

    King’s College London

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Biopharmaceutics, 2. Respiratory drug delivery, 3. Lung absorption, 4. Lung dissolution

    Golden Paragraph: Ben Forbes studies drug delivery and formulation science – the factors that influence the rate and extent of drug absorption from pharmaceutical dosage forms: (1) medicines formulation / clinical pharmaceutics, (2) the development and application of cell cultures and ex vivo techniques to study drug transport and metabolism, (3) medicines safety/toxicology.  He is co-ordinator of the APSGB ‘Drug Delivery to the Lungs’ Network, a UK-based international academia-industry-regulatory consortium: http://www.apsgb.org/drugsinthelungs/

  • Dr. Per Backman

    Email: Per.Backman@mylan.co.uk

    Mylan Global Respiratory group

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Inhalation Drug Delivery, 2. Inhalation Biopharmaceutics, 3. Mechanistic computational modelling, 4. Drug development

    Golden Paragraph: Per Backman is Senior Director Inhalation Biopharmacutics at Mylan Global Respiratory Group, responsible for the predication of clinical performance of inhaled products. Primary research activities include development and integration of in vitro and computational methods to predict local and systemic exposure following inhalation of respiratory medicines.

  • JordiMr. Jordi Llop

    Email: jllop@cicbiomagune.es

    Radiochemistry and Nuclear Imaging Group, CIC biomaGUNE, San Sebastián, Spain

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Radiochemistry, 2. Molecular imaging, 3. Positron emission tomography, 4. Nanotechnology

    Golden Paragraph: Jordi Llop is Principal Investigator and Head of Radiochemistry at CIC biomaGUNE. The primary research activity of Jordi in SimInhale is the development of radiolabelling strategies for the incorporation of positron and gamma emitters into nanoparticles for subsequent investigation of the regional distribution in the lungs after aerosol inhalation using a combination of in vivo imaging modalities, namely Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computerised Tomography (SPECT). Dr. Llop is interested in investigating different drug administration systems and compare the local and regional distribution in the lungs, as well as translocation of the labelled species to the blood torrent and remote organs. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Jordi is pursuing the development of strategies for radiolabelling solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) to be investigated as drug carriers for the treatment of lung cancer.

  • Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt

    Email: EHRHARDC@tcd.ie

     

    Associate Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Epithelial Transport, 2. Pulmonary Drug Delivery, 3. Drug Transporters

    Golden paragraph: Dr. Carsten Ehrhardt studied Pharmacy at the Universities of Frankfurt and Hamburg, before he read for his Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutics at Saarland University. Dr. Ehrhardt took up a Lectureship in Biopharmaceutics at Saarland University in 2003 and joined Trinity College Dublin as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in August 2004. He also holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Southern California and he served as Director of Research in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences from 2008-2012. Dr. Ehrhardt has been elected to Fellowship in 2013. He is the recipient of honours and awards from the German Pharmaceutical Society, American Physiological Society and the Galenus Foundation. His research studies transport mechanisms of xenobiotics and endogenous compounds at the respiratory epithelial barrier and also includes the development of advanced drug delivery systems for pulmonary administration. Dr. Ehrhardt has edited one book and authored 84 peer-reviewed research articles and reviews.

  • Prof. Josue Sznitman

    Email: sznitman@bm.technion.ac.il

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Respiratory flows, 2. Experimental flow visualization, 3. Computational Fluid Dynamics, 4. Particle transport

    Golden Paragraph: J. Sznitman has dedicated his research to uncovering, both through experiments and numerical simulations, respiratory transport phenomena in the deep lungs, with the aim of leveraging such knowledge towards improved strategies for pulmonary drug delivery. He was awarded the Silver Medal for a doctoral thesis at the ETH Zurich and the 2008 Research Award from the Swiss Society of Biomedical Engineering. Following his PhD, he was named a Fellow of the Science & Technology Council at Princeton University. Upon joining the Technion as an assistant professor, he was awarded a Young Scientist Award (2012) from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and served as Conference Chair at the 2nd International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics in Medicine & Biology (2015). Most recently, he was awarded the Young Investigator Award (2015) by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) for a researcher under 40 and a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (Horizon 2020). J. Sznitman has been a Guest Editor in the Journal of Biomechanics and serves as an Academic Editor in the journal PLoS One.

  • KAS4Prof. Stavros Kassinos

    Email: kassinos@ucy.ac.cy

    Dept. of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus

     

    Keywords of expertise: 1. Computational Fluid Particle Dynamics, 2. Two phase flows, 3. Turbulence theory and modeling, 4. High performance Computing

    Golden paragraph: Stavros Kassinos holds an Associate Professor position in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cyprus and is the Head of the Computational Sciences Laboratory (UCY-CompSci). The primary research activity of Stavros in SimInhale is the use of high fidelity computer simulations for the prediction of drug deposition in the airways, in particular the prediction of regional deposition for various combinations of inhaler devices, patient groups (based on age or health status) and formulations. In this regard, he is interested in the development of In Silico In Vivo Correlations (ISIVCV) for deposition. In collaboration with other SimInhale members, Stavros is also pursuing the development of hybrid models coupling the upper airways to the alveolar region, e.g. using LES methods for the upper airways with reduced models for the deeper airways. Finally, in collaboration with other SimInhale members, he is looking into numerical techniques for modeling the fate of drug particles after deposition.