The Faculty of Pharmacy, UiTM, once again proudly organized and hosted an auspicious event that took place between 28th and 29th September 2021. The Virtual Joint Symposium of the International Research Network Initiative (IRNI) and the 8th International Postgraduate Conference on Pharmaceutical Sciences (IPoPS2021) was co-organized with the School of Pharmacy, International Medical University (IMU) Malaysia and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science (TUS) Japan. This event was successfully conducted with the participation from the IMU and TUS, as well as the partnering universities, namely Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) Indonesia, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) United Kingdom, Mahidol University (MU) Thailand, Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management (GITAM) India, and University of Santo Tomas (UST) Philippines.
The IRNI-IPoPS 2021 is the continuation of the previous editions of IRNI (established in 2020) and IPoPS (established in 2012). The symposium was intended to nurture future collaborations in grant acquisitions, joint publications, joint supervisions, staff/student exchanges and more. The 2-days event commenced with the opening speech by the deans from IMU, TUS and was finally officiated by the Dean of Faculty of Pharmacy, UiTM, Assoc. Prof. Dr Shariza Sahudin. The session continued with a plenary talk by Prof. Dr Takehisa Hanawa from TUS, followed by a series of other plenary and invited speakers’ sharing sessions from partnering universities. The other plenary speakers were Dr Lee Choy Sin (IMU), Prof. Dr Teh Lay Kek (UiTM) and Prof. Dr Mitsue Saito (Juntendo University, Japan). The invited speakers that presented were Dr Muhammad Insanu (ITB), Prof Dr Rahgu Raj Singh Thakur (QUB), Dr Sinoy Sugunan (GITAM), Mr Roy Martin B. Pajimna (UST) and Dr Pakatip Ruenraroengsak (MU).
Apart from driving future collaborations, the objective of IRNI-IPoPS 2021 was to provide a platform for academics, researchers, healthcare practitioners, industry professionals, and students to exchange and share their knowledge and expertise in fields related to life sciences, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, chemistry, and pharmacy practice. The event successfully achieved this objective through impactful oral and poster presentations given by more than 110 participants. In addition to that, accepted abstracts will be published in the Scopus-indexed Thai Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (TJPS).
Following the discussions, several potential collaborations could be initiated in the near future, such as in the area of community pharmacy, health technologies, medication safety, pharmacotherapy, and pharmacogenomics. Other shared interests are in the research of natural product-based and complementary & alternative medicines, especially in anticancer, neurodegenerative, inflammation and cardiovascular diseases.