By Mohammad Asif Ali, chair
During last summer, we held the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology & Education annual conference at LIU. The three-day event on Current State of Pharmaceutical Product Development focused on continuous manufacturing, complex dosage forms, and semi-solids. Various industry stalwarts presented their ideas on where the industry is moving. Most remarkable was the keynote speech delivered by Ajaz Hussain, Ph.D., on pharmaceutical quality systems, professional development, and continual improvement. The event was well received, and the effort of our chapter members was appreciated at large.
Chapter Chair Mohammad Asif Ali handing over memento to Tycho Heimbach, Ph.D., AAPS Ambassador, for his support of the graduate students of LIU.
We are an assortment of grad students who are working on different fields of research and have different research needs. Thus throughout the year, we planned educational discussions among all tracks within our academic curriculum. For researchers interested in novel delivery ideas, Mahavir Chougule, Ph.D. (associate professor, Ole Miss Pharmacy), introduced us to his research ideas and findings through his presentation
Nanocarrier Mediated Target Delivery for Lung Cancer Therapy. James DiNunzio, Ph.D. (senior principal scientist, Merck), gave a very interesting presentation on solid dispersion and melt extrusion technique. DiNunzio could relate to our work and actively involved himself in discussing the problems that our researchers are facing in their day-to-day research. With our alumni outreach program, we had Giselle Benitez, Ph.D. (associate director, Boehringer Ingelheim), present her transition story from a grad student at LIU to a pharmacometrician. Her talk focused on exposing our grad student pharmacometricians to the maximum available resources. Tycho Heimbach, Ph.D. (Novartis), also delivered his research findings and ideas to our grad pharmacometricians. During our usual meet-the-speaker session after the research talk, Heimbach enlightened us with professional development tips, career guidance, skill development advice, and industry tips for new recruits. He also agreed to provide one-on-one help with résumés and recommended we contact him personally.
As every year, we organized equipment workshops for our newly inducted grad students interested in working in dermal delivery systems and rheological focus. These workshops are conducted by students for students, giving the audience the opportunity to focus intricately on the challenges and methods of troubleshooting in a friendly interface.
At the LIU AAPS student chapter, we understand the importance of early influence of a career in science to young minds. We are continuously involved with introducing the pharmacy profession to high school students through our high school outreach initiative. We introduced students to the importance of pharmaceutical scientists in society and their role and commitment toward health care. We also demonstrated some basic techniques in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
We also collaborated with LIU Promise and the New York Blood Centre and volunteered in blood donation awareness and blood donation camp.
The LIU AAPS student chapter is actively involved in promoting professional and leadership activities and social networking and increasing awareness of the pharmaceutical sciences at regional, national, and international levels.
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