Who we are
Emerging Technologies.
Call for Nominations for the committee for this newly formed Focus Group
The strategies and manufacturing processes for production of dosage forms, medical devices and implants, are experiencing significant advancement. New materials and manufacturing techniques are emerging with potential to address the challenges associated with the manufacture of pharmaceutical systems that will teach new tricks to old drugs and on the development of new personalised medical devices and implants. Emerging technologies (e.g., 3D printing & bioprinting, microfluidics, and BioMEMS), have the potential to produce systems that were not possible to produce a few years ago. Techniques such as 3D printing have experienced a significant price reduction making possible its use in pharmacies or hospitals for multiple applications. Other techniques such as microfluidics and BioMEMS have the potential to be used for the preparation of medical devices or drug delivery systems that adapted to the requirements of each patient. Therefore, in this focus group, we are planning to bring together researchers working in emerging technologies, such as 3D Printing, Bioprinting, Microfluidics and BioMEMS, for the manufacturing of drug delivery systems, biosensors, medical devices, and implants.
• Established in March 2021 and aim to bring together scientists interested in the field of Emerging Technologies.
• Collaborates and coordinate with other relevant organisations active in the field, with a view to reviewing current “hot topics” in the field and establishing meetings, dialogue and scientific consensus.
• Provides continuing education for the membership through training symposia, focussed workshops/seminars and webinars.
• Provides support to Early Career Scientists and acts as a platform for bridging the gap between industry and academia.
Atheer Awad is a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). She also the Deputy Chair of the International Pharmaceutical 3D printing Initiative (Pharma3DPI). Dr Awad received her Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy at Applied Science Private University (Jordan) in 2015. She then pursued an MSc (2015-2016) and a PhD (2016-2021) in Pharmaceutics at UCL School of Pharmacy (UK), where her work focused on 3D printing dosage forms and medicated devices for special patient groups. Following that, she worked as a Research Fellow at the same institution as part of the INTERREG 2 Seas program, where her project focused on site-specific drug delivery using 3D printing.
Her research harnesses her expertise in digital health technologies, including 3D and 4D printing, and site-specific drug delivery towards application in personalised and transformative medicines. She has over 30 publications and received multiple awards and honours, including Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researcher (2022-2023), Forbes 30 Under 30 (2022), Stanford’s Top 2% Scientists (2022-2023), International Pharmaceutical Federation’s FIPWiSE Rising Star (2022), MIT Technology Reviews’s Innovator Under 35 (2021) and Expertscape’s World Expert in Printing (2021-2023). Moreover, her work received MDPI’s Journal of Clinical Medicine PhD Thesis and Pharmaceutics Best Paper Awards (2021).
