Following that update, the five finalists for the 2019 Pat Burnell Award took to the podium to describe their work to the audience. The finalists were:
- Precious Akhuemokhan, King’s College London: “Non-volatile Excipient effect on Inhaled Drug Product Performance”
- Yingshan Qiu, The University of Hong Kong: “Inhalable mRNA dry powder formulation with PEGylated KL4 peptide delivery system”
- Filipa Guerreiro, University of Algarve: “In vitro behaviour of konjac glucomannan microparticles aimed at pulmonary tuberculosis therapy”
- Nancy Hertel, Kiel University: “Can a combination of magnesium stearate and fines tune the inhalable fraction of a mannitol carrier based interactive blend?”
- Jesse Xu, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research: “Incorporating Chemotherapeutic Drug into a Personalisable Silicone Airway Stent for the Treatment of Lung Cancer and Tracheobronchomalacia”
The next evening, Jesse Xu was named the winner of the Pat Burnell award at the beginning of a gala dinner to celebrate DDL’s 30th anniversary. Poster awards were announced at the same time, with the best industrial poster award going to Jasdip Koner of Aston Particle Technologies for his poster on “Extending the Capability of High Dose DPI Formulation Using a New Blending Technology.” Best academic poster went to Vivian Walter Barron of the University of Leeds for a poster titled, “A Study of Intermolecular Interactions within Solid State of pMDI particles.”
In 2017, DDL introduced the Emerging Scientist Award “to recognize and promote individuals within inhalation science who have achieved significant scientific accomplishment or innovation during the early stages of their career.” Following the Pat Burnell session, DDL committee member Ben Forbes announced that the winner of the 2019 Emerging Scientist Award was Tony Zhou, Assistant Professor, Industrial and Physical Pharmacy, at Purdue University.
After reminiscing that his first international conference presentation took place at DDL in 2009 when he was a PhD candidate at Monash University, Zhou presented a talk explaining his work on various particle coating techniques for improved flowability of powders and for creating more homogenous particle surface characteristics. Zhou was also the 2017 winner of the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) Young Investigator Award.
