1st EAB Meeting, April 2012

1^st EAB Meeting. The first External Advisory Board Meeting was organized at 23^rd of April 2012 and participated all the SEEDRUG UPAT’s Consortium members and their teams,

Prof Ivano Bertini (Chair of the EAB) could not join the meeting due to health problems and was replaced by Prof Claudio Luchinat.

Industrial partners of the SEEDRUG project, members of the SME CBL Biopharmaceuticals Patras, (Prof K. Barlos & Prof D. Gatos) and spin-off company ELDRUG SA (Dr. Minos Matsoukas) with oral presentations and/or by taking part at the Round Table discussion.

UPAT’s authorities and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacy welcome addresses the participants.

SEEDRUG Coordinator opened the scientific part of the meeting and presented the work performed in each one of the SEEDRUG’s work packages already and the activity planned for the future (recruitment of the experienced researchers, progress on the research equipment acquisition, planned twinning & networking activities and dissemination activities).

All SEEDRUG consortium members provided an overview of their research plans through SEEDRUG project.

The members of the EAB commented on the progress made during the first 4 months of the project’s duration and on the future project’s plans. Specifically discussion included the following topics:

• networking activities that already performed or planned.
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•  future SEEDRUG’s research orientation, with a special focus on drug design efforts and the building of a national and an international network to ensure viability of the facility for the years after the end of the SEEDRUG project.
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•  the acquisition and installation at UPAT of modern research instrumentation, which may increase the institutional networking efforts
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•  new NMR-driven initiatives, such as Magnetic Resonance Diagnostics, through NMR metabolomics.
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•  SEEDRUG consortium efforts should be made on the direction of the construction of a viability plan for the SEEDRUG capacities (instrumentation plus personnel).

Industrial SEEDRUG partners (CBL Biopharmaceutical Patras, & ELDRUG SA) participated in the meeting suggesting means and actions towards the establishment of new links between SEEDRUG and industrial partners (through service and preparation of new products).