A total of nine IMU School of Pharmacy (SoP) faculty members and two postgraduate students led by Prof Ong Chin Eng, Dean of the School, and Prof Mohd Zulkefeli Bin Mat Jusoh, Director of Quality IMU, participated in the 10th International Postgraduate Conference on Pharmaceutical Sciences (iPoPS 2024) at the Tokyo University of Science (TUS), Japan on 6-7 March 2024. This is a major conference which IMU SoP is co-organising with Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and TUS. This conference series was first launched in 2012 and it’s in its 10th edition where each of the co-host institutions took turns to organise.
For this 10th edition, IMU contributed
One plenary speaker (Prof Zul)
Three invited speakers (Prof Ong – photo on the left, Dr Suresh Shanmugham, Dr Jithendra Panneerselvam)
Five oral/poster presenters of various topics.
The conference has served as a platform to not only discuss and present challenges, ideas and innovation in the field of pharmaceutical sciences but also stimulate a culture of collaborative innovation, promoting open forms of collaboration among scientists from Japan, Malaysia and other countries.
The IMU team concluded the conference with a haul of 2 awards during the closing ceremony of iPoPS 2024 on 7 March.
Awards Won by the IMU Team
Dr Cheong Siew Lee
(first from right)
Best Poster Award for her work entitled ‘In silico pharmacokinetic and molecular docking studies of Labdane Diterpenes of Alpinia Genus against butyrylcholinesterase, a therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease’.
Ng Xiao Ying
Prof Zul’s PhD student
(first from left)
Best Oral Presenter award for her work entitled ‘Arginine-tryptophan peptides enhancing antibacterial and anticancer effects of ruthenium(II) polypyridyl photosensitisers’.
The IMU team also had the privilege of meeting with the 10th iPoPS advisor, Prof Shin Aoki, together with UiTM team on 8 March to discuss various matters of research collaboration between TUS, IMU and also UiTM. The discussion included planning for future iPoPS conferences, research collaborations and student mobility programmes.
A visit to Prof Shin Aoki’s laboratories was arranged at the end of the meeting. The team was impressed by the state-of-the-art equipment and facilities as well as the many great projects carried out by Prof Shin Aoki’s postgraduate students.
After the meeting with Prof Shin Aoki, the IMU team proceeded to visit the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Teikyo Heisei University, Nakano Campus in Tokyo.
The team met the Dean Prof Kamei Miwako and Prof Satoshi Takamatsu to discuss collaborative opportunities including student mobility programmes – IMU Bachelor of Pharmacy elective, semester 7 research and joint project, as well as the Pharmaceutical Chemistry (PC) internship placement. The meeting ended with a tour of the teaching facilities, research laboratories as well as the rooftop botanical garden.
In a nutshell, this visit to Japan was successful and has paved the ways for further academic and research collaboration between IMU, TUS and the Teikyo Heisei University.
On 9 March, the IMU team met up with our Pharmaceutical Chemistry alumna Asuka Tobuse (PC218) at downtown Asakusa, Tokyo, for lunch. Asuka is currently doing her Master’s degree by research at the University of Tokyo. She is a MEXT scholar where her study is supported by the prestigious Japanese Government Monbukagakusho (MEXT) Scholarships. She is working in the areas of vaccine science and adjuvant technology.
