FinPharmaNet is a collaboration of Drug Research Doctoral Programmes from the University of Turku, University of Helsinki and University of Eastern Finland. There were also representatives from the Universities of Jyväskylä, Oulu, Tampere and Åbo Akademi, as well as  from the industry.

This year’s meeting was held in Kuopio on June 12-13. The meeting consisted of interesting presentations from the field of drug research and career path presentations from the angle of PhD’s working in the industry and academia. For doctoral researchers there were two presentation sessions. Our groups doctoral researcher Edla held an oral presentation on the development of [¹¹C]phosgene synthesis. Although the meeting was very busy there was also some time left for networking among other doctoral researchers.

International Symposium on Radiopharmaceutical Sciences 2023 was organized in Honolulu from the 22nd to the 26th of May. Five days full of interesting posters, inspiring presentations and wonderful discussions with new people. We started our conference week with presymposium workshops. In the evening there was the opening ceremony and a welcome reception that really kicked the conference week going.

On Tuesday we had the opportunity to just focus on listening the presentations and exploring the results from the posters but on Wednesday it was our groups time to shine. Anna, Thomas and Edla had their poster sessions on Wednesday evening. More information about their posters can be found here. Friday was also an interesting day since Noora had her presentation about [¹⁸F]FPATPP and Simo presented his poster: The synthesis of [¹¹C]phosgene and its use in the synthesis of [2-¹¹C]thymine in the last rapid-fire session. From the rapid-fire session Simo continued to his poster session.

Even though the week was busy, our group had time to explore the island. We visited the Manoa falls, hiked the Diamond Head and enjoyed the many beaches of Hawaii. We also participated a dinner organized by Synthra and met with the SRS ThinkTank.

What a week! =)