J Pharm Pharmaceut Sci (www.ualberta.ca/~csps) 6(3):363
The President's Message: Year End
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As the year 2003 draws to an end I would like to take this opportunity to extend my warmest wishes to all members of CSPS and thank members of the Executive for their untiring efforts to make our society meet its goals, which above all is the fostering of excellence in pharmaceutical sciences.
The year has been eventful and CSPS continued to grow. Our main event of the year, as always, has been the annual scientific meeting, which was held in Montreal. This year we held the meeting approximately 2 weeks earlier than usual. This was to allow our meeting and the annual meeting of the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) to be held at the same time at the same venue. Since there is some overlap in membership, both organizations felt it was important to provide an opportunity for our members to mingle, to attend each other's sessions since many of the issues we face are common to both organizations.
The annual meeting was a success due, not in small measure, to the outstanding quality of the scientific program, to the participation of a large number of exhibitors and to the corporate support provided by a number of companies across the country.
This year we have been able to introduce two new awards to recognize excellence in pharmaceutical research. One of these awards funded by GlaxoSmithKline is the GSK Early Career Award, which recognizes the outstanding research achievements of a young scientist within the first 7 years following his/her graduation with a PhD degree. The other award is the Antoine A. Noujaim Award of Excellence for the best poster presentation by a graduate student. We have long term financial support for both of these awards and we hope to award them in 2004 again to worthy young scientists. Our next annual meeting to be held in June 2004 in Vancouver will see yet another new award sponsored by Gattefosse Canada for the best poster on research in the role of lipids in drug delivery.In September the Calibration Validation Group (CVG) and TPD held a joint international meeting in Toronto. At the invitation of CVG we co-sponsored one of the discussion groups dealing with the topic of process analytical technologies. At our next annual meeting in Vancouver CVG will co-organize one of our half day symposia. These collaborations with CVG represent another effort on the part of CSPS to strengthen its ties with another organization with whom we share a common interest.
September has seen the election of 3 new members to the executive, Micheline Piquette-Miller from the University of Toronto, David Dolphin from the University of British Columbia and from QLT and Lakshmi Kotra from the University of Toronto. I welcome them to the executive, they bring new ideas, new vigor and a lot of enthusiasm to the service of CSPS. Election of new members also means having to say good-bye to old friends. With the end of 2003 Ian McGilveray will complete his term on the executive and I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge his willingness to serve the society since 1998 and his vision and wisdom on which we could count throughout the years.
Last, but not least, as my term comes to an end, I would like to wish much success to the in-coming president Gordon McKay. Gord has served on the executive for several years and he is also chair of the scientific organizing committee for the 2004 annual meeting. I hope members of the executive and our membership at large will be as supportive of Gord as they have been of me. It is an immensely rewarding and satisfying experience to see CSPS fulfill its mandate as the pre-eminent scientific society in the area of pharmaceutical research in Canada. Much work remains to be done, much growth to happen, new directions to take. I have no doubt the new executive under Gord's presidency will meet all the challenges ahead of a young society such as CSPS.
Elizabeth B. Vadas, Ph.D.
Published by the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Copyright © 1998 by the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~csps
