Keynote speakers
In order of which they appear in the program.
Distinguished Professor Gregory Peterson
Keynote Speaker
University of Tasmania
Distinguished Professor Gregory Peterson
BPharm(Hons), PhD, MBA, FPS, FSHP, FACP, CredPharm(MMR), GAICD
Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy, University of Tasmania
Chair, Human Research Ethics Committee, University of Tasmania
Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy, University of Canberra
Community Pharmacist, Pharmacy Owner and Credentialled Medicines Review Pharmacist
Greg is a practising pharmacist who has held a personal Chair at the University of Tasmania since 2000. He is also co-owner of two Hobart suburban community pharmacies, focused on professional services. He works one day in community pharmacy, and performs 3-4 home medicine reviews, each week. He is completing training in pharmacist prescribing. He previously worked as a senior clinical hospital pharmacist in Victoria. Greg has led many state and national projects directed at improving patient outcomes, particularly relating to medication use, in community, hospital and aged care sectors. He has successfully supervised over 60 PhD students, received competitive research funding of over $70million as a Chief Investigator, and has 700 published peer-reviewed papers. He has taught pharmacy, medical and paramedicine students – at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Greg is a current Board Director of (i) Primary Health Tasmania (Tasmania’s Primary Health Network) (Deputy Chair) and (ii) Cancer Council Tasmania (Chair). He is a founding and the longest-serving member of Tasmania’s Medication Access and Advisory Committee, governing medication use and approvals in all the state’s public hospitals.
Putting the case for all-round consistency and slow innovation
The presenter admits he is somewhat contrarian, just one of his many eccentric traits. He was the first Australian pharmacist to complete a PhD in clinical pharmacy, but then worked as a hospital pharmacist for several years to develop his practical skills.
In this lecture, he will tackle and largely argue against the conference theme of ‘Innovation with Impact’, and most probably fail. The presenter is not the best or most innovative researcher, lecturer or practitioner, but has tried to juggle all these roles simultaneously and competently throughout his career. In defending his obvious shortcomings, he will deliver a case for the need for reliable all-rounders, in addition to innovators, in pharmacy academia and practice.
He will postulate that it is the academic all-rounders (or generalists) who link research with real-word practice, and have the greatest impact in improving the care of patients. The consistent all-rounders possess a diverse skill set that allows them to easily pivot between different demands. They can speak multiple “languages” within an organisation or system, effectively bridging the gap between hyper-specialised academic units and the practice setting.
The presenter will argue that the importance of competent and committed generalists has also never been so critical to the health care system, with the ageing and growing complexity of our multi-morbid patients, and many relatively simple clinical issues with significant ramifications falling between the cracks.
In what could become a rambling presentation, as might be expected for a generalist, the speaker will argue for the importance of more researchers and lecturers being in part-time practice, suggest that not all pharmacists are innovators (or indeed all-rounders) or the same in any other way and some professional services (e.g. prescribing) should consequently not be delivered by all pharmacists, vent frustrations over not being able to achieve team-based primary health care in Australia (completely uninnovative, but the “holy grail”), and discuss the “threat” of artificial intelligence to the profession of pharmacy.
In an attempt to add academic credibility, the presenter will include coverage of some recent research projects, illustrating a generalist mindset and lack of brilliance in any one area - including the use of large datasets from real-word practice to improve health outcomes for patients, through to pharmaceutical stability studies with immediate practical application. The only common and over-arching theme is that of attempting to help people to achieve better outcomes, whether they be patients, students or less experienced academics or pharmacists, or health-related organisations.
Paul Sinclair AM
PSA Lecturer
International Pharmaceutical Federation
Paul Sinclair AM
Paul is a Sydney-based pharmacist who has had a wide-ranging career in pharmacy ownership, professional representation, policy and regulation, not-for-profit organisations and local government.
Paul is currently the President of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) and has been heading the FIP Board since 2023. FIP is the global federation of national pharmacy associations, representing over five million pharmacists, pharmacy educators and pharmaceutical scientists.
Paul has been a strong advocate for the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice and the provision of professional services delivered by pharmacists. He was at the forefront of advocacy, development and implementation of pharmacist-delivered vaccination services in New South Wales (NSW).
In 2019, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours list for his significant contribution to his community, the pharmacy profession and local government.
Before being elected President of FIP, Paul was the chair of the Board of Pharmaceutical Practice and the Community Pharmacy Section. Nationally, he served as the National Vice President and NSW president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the chair of the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacy, and was a member of the NSW Pharmacy Council. Beyond Paul’s pharmacy governance involvement, he was also a board member for Asthma Australia and the Asthma Foundation of Queensland/NSW. Paul was the founding chair of the Kids of Macarthur Health Foundation, chair of the Myrtle Cottage Group, and a Councillor and mayor of the Campbelltown City Council, NSW.
Future-ready pharmacy: Innovation, education and equitable access to emerging medicines
FIP President Mr Paul Sinclair AM will discuss the role of innovation, technology, and pharmaceutical science in addressing global healthcare challenges. FIP’s vision is a world where everyone has access to safe, affordable, and effective medicines. While scientific advances are creating unprecedented opportunities, inequitable access, affordability, and workforce knowledge gaps remain significant barriers.
Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) illustrate these challenges. As a rapidly evolving therapeutic field, ATMPs are transforming pharmacology and medicines development. ATMPs are highly complex therapies requiring robust systems to ensure safety, quality, traceability, and optimal patient outcomes. Pharmacists play a critical role across the entire pathway, from procurement and storage to preparation, dispensing, and administration, while ensuring regulatory compliance.
However, ATMPs are increasingly moving beyond specialist hospital settings into primary care. As community pharmacies become key access points for these therapies, workforce development must extend beyond hospital practice. Although foundational science is increasingly included in undergraduate pharmacy curricula, much of the existing workforce lacks access to continuing professional development (CPD) needed to keep pace with advances in molecular science.
Limiting education to specialist settings risks widening inequities and constraining the broader vision of accessible pharmaceutical care. Recognising this need, the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists has called for the rapid development of education and training programmes to build competencies across the full spectrum of ATMPs. Understanding the types and levels of CPD required is essential to maintaining workforce competence.
Using ATMPs as one example of emerging innovation, this presentation will explore the education and training needs of the global pharmacy workforce and consider implications for curricula, CPD, and professional development. Building pharmacists’ capabilities in advanced therapies and medication management is essential to strengthening multidisciplinary care and preparing a future-ready workforce. A coordinated systems approach can help translate scientific innovation into equitable patient access through community pharmacy, supporting universal health coverage and advancing FIP’s global vision.
Professor Charlotte Conn
APSA Lecturer
RMIT University
Professor Charlotte Conn
Charlotte Conn is a Professor of Biophysical Chemistry and the current Associate Dean (Industry and Alumni Partnerships) within the School of Science at RMIT. Her research interests focus on the development and structural characterisation of advanced lipid-based nanomaterials using high-throughput experimentation, advancing our understanding of the interactions of these materials with a range of cell-types, and the application of these materials in the delivery of protein, peptide and RNA-based therapeutics. She currently sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for mRNA Victoria, the Scientific Advisory Board for ABITEC Corp., the Australian Synchrotron BRIGHT Scientific Advisory Committee, the Program Advisory Committee for the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering and the jury for the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science prize, Australia and New Zealand. She is committed to research translation and works in partnership with industry to facilitate commercialisation of novel lipid-based drug delivery technology. In 2019 she was the recipient of the RMIT Research Award for Research Excellence (Technology) and the Australian Synchrotron Research Award. Charlotte is passionate about diversity and inclusion in science research and travelled to Antarctica in 2019 as part of the Homeward Bound global leadership program for women in STEMM.
Lipid Nanoparticles in Drug and Vaccine Delivery: Internal Nanostructure, Biological Interactions and Safe Nanomedicine Design
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have emerged as powerful platforms for therapeutic delivery, exemplified by the global deployment of LNP-based mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Within this broader class, lyotropic liquid crystalline nanoparticles (LLCNPs), including cubosomes, hexosomes and related non-lamellar structures, offer unique opportunities for drug delivery owing to their complex internal nanostructures. Understanding how these physicochemical and structural features influence biological interactions is central to nanotoxicology and the rational design of safe and effective nanomedicines.
We systematically investigated how the internal mesophase of LLCNPs affects cellular interactions and uptake pathways. Comparative confocal microscopy and flow cytometry studies on LNPs with distinct internal structures revealed that non-lamellar LLCNPs exhibit enhanced cellular interactions relative to liposomes. Cubosomes, in particular, exhibited uptake via direct membrane fusion, bypassing conventional endocytic pathways that often limit cytosolic delivery. For the first time, membrane fusion with mammalian plasma and endosomal membranes was visualised at the nanoscale, revealing how cubosomes can deliver cargo directly into the cytosol.
In this talk, I will illustrate the translational implications of these mechanistic insights through three case studies. First, I will discuss LNPs for mRNA delivery, focusing on how ionisable lipid chemistry influences nanoparticle structure, stability, and transfection efficiency. The performance of mRNA-LNPs loaded within a polymer microneedle array and the impact on cold chain storage requirements will be described. Second, I will summarise the design and evaluation of LLCNPs for treating bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, highlighting how nanoparticle structure and uptake pathways shape antimicrobial efficacy and biodistribution. Third, I will present LNP-based strategies for ocular disease, where tuning nanostructure and surface properties enables controlled delivery to ocular tissues while maintaining biocompatibility. Beyond advancing drug delivery applications, these studies provide mechanistic insights into how nanoscale structural features modulate biological responses, contributing to broader understanding of nanoparticle–cell interactions relevant to nanotoxicology, biodistribution, and safe nanomaterial design.