Dear AAPS members–
It's hard to believe that we're well into February! As the skies slowly lighten, our programming is continuing to pick up as well. I have so many things to tell you about!
I am personally looking forward to the webinar collaboration with IQ later this month on February 25, and it seems that you share my excitement: we have nearly 300 registrants already, so don't delay in getting your virtual seat. If you register by this coming Wednesday, you'll have an opportunity to participate in a survey the organizers created, and your anonymous responses will help shape the webinar.
Ahead of that we have two excellent eChalk Talks that you can easily fit into your busy day during a lunch break. On February 10, @Philip Kuehl will talk about intranasal drug delivery. He will focus on the advantage of nasal powder formulations and non-human primate (NHP) models to quantify nose-to-brain delivery of a model compound.
As nations around the world race to get their populations vaccinated and more COVID vaccines get licensed, the conversation about Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) as a high-speed solution to approval continues. On February 17 Eyal Barash will delve into this deeper, especially with regard to what that means in the case of potential vaccine injuries.
If you are interested in the EUA topic in the context of vaccines, don't miss Session 3 of the upcoming Vaccine Stability workshop, either! It will discuss vaccine stability considerations for this approval pathway. I have already made up my mind that I will follow this vaccine thread throughout the year – and not just because of the currently elevated relevance driven by COVID-vaccine innovation. I suspect that the NBC Scientific Programming Committee will deliver sessions that explore interesting ideas about vaccine-related challenges in the nucleic-acid-based therapies track. I can't wait! (By the way –the NBC poster abstract deadline is only two weeks away! Submit your proposal here.)
As much of the world stays in out of the winter's snow and wind, good reading becomes important! I hope you have seen that the latest issue of the AAPS Newsmagazine has been published, and it is full of good stuff. This is the time of year when we share the data from our annual salary survey with you – read the top line summary in the magazine or follow the link to the full report, which is free to our members and also includes access to the ever-popular salary calculator. We know that this is one of our most popular membership benefits each year, and since 2020 was a more than unusual year for many professionals in our industry, I have a suspicion that this may be our most anticipated report, yet.
Interestingly, I read the article about the salary survey just shortly before @Andrew Vick and I got on a Zoom call with a group of very energetic high school students at the Technology Leadership Highschool in Albuquerque, NM. I have to say that this was the best part of my day that day, and talking to these students about our profession, serving public health, and advancing science was one of those grounding and humbling moments that reminds us why we come to work every morning. The students had excellent questions for us that ran the gamut from career choices and scientific focus areas all the way to the ever-present concern about the continuing global challenge of the pandemic and what our profession is doing to help. It always gives me great hope to see so many inquisitive minds wanting to know more about our field and thinking about how they might build a career in science. With that, I hope you let our science inspire you to look up and ahead.
Tina
Share your thoughts with Tina via the AAPS Community!