The BioUpdate Foundation has been using the Novartis Foundation for many of its courses for a number of years and has always found it very satisfactory from the point of view of its ideal location in Portland Place in central London, with its facilities for the conduct of the courses, accommodation and cuisine.

We thought that we should inform you that, sadly, we will not be able to use the  Novartis for a while as a result of various changes.

The Novartis website carries the following statement:

“Towards the end of 2006, the Trustees of the Novartis Foundation were informed that the support for the Foundation would cease at the end of February 2008. The Trustees considered various options for the future and, after much deliberation, favoured a merger with the Academy of Medical Sciences.

The Academy and the Novartis Foundation merged on 31 July 2008, prior to the dissolution of the Foundation later this year. As a result of this merger the Academy has taken over 41 Portland Place and will be overseeing the current hospitality business until 31 December 2008.

The Academy plans to continue the legacy of the Novartis Foundation by establishing its headquarters at Portland Place and providing a centre of excellence for the research community for biomedical science and healthcare.

A major refurbishment will take place during 2009 and the premises are due to reopen in 2010”.

The BioUpdate Foundation hopes that it may then be possible to use the Portland Place building and facilities for its courses, once again.

Currently, BioUpdate Courses, which still include accommodation, take place at the Regardz Berghotel at Amersfoort in the Netherlands. Amersfoort itself is a short train journey from Schiphol airport.

Dormancy, diapause, rest and quiescence are terms that describe a state of (temporarily) lowered metabolic activity or ‘hypometabolic state’. Dormancy is a state of suspended animation of life functions and is found in many species, ranging from bears to mice and frogs, from fish to buds and seeds and from crustaceans to yeast and bacteria. It is an adaptation to survive future unfavourable conditions for prolonged periods of time.
Dormancy and stress responses are closely linked. Many organisms become dormant before they are exposed to stress conditions. The timing may depend on developmental phase (e.g. sexual versus asexual), seasonal rhythms, environmental cues and food supply, among others. Common denominators appear to be a controlled reduction of metabolic activity, arrest of the cell cycle and the initiation of protective mechanisms.
Studies of dormancy may ultimately result in improved methods for the long- term biopreservation and storage of cells, tissues, organs and organisms.

Because of the vastness of the subject and its acknowledged importance to agriculture and horticulture, our first ever post-experience course on DORMANCY will be limited to plants. It is planned to address the following topics:

· Definitions, classification and nomenclature
· Regulation and control of post-harvest environments
· Treatments to induce dormancy and/or germination
· Genetic, physical and physiological aspects
· Predictive laboratory testing
· Critique of significant patent literature, mainly relating to ‘improvements’

Pharmaceutical Freeze-Drying
Among the diverse offerings of the BioUpdate Foundation, the course on Pharmaceutical Freeze-Drying takes pride of place. It was first held in 1992 in the Netherlands and has since then been mounted annually in several European countries, and even in the U.S.A., with varying success. The Foundation has succeeded in attracting a faithful following, mainly from Benelux and Scandinavian countries. The remarkable feature, at least to us, the Course Organisers, is the almost total absence of U.K. interest. Can it really be that the U.K. pharmaceutical industry is on top of the subject? We do not believe that to be the case.

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Nature Materials 5, 632-635 (2006)
Organization and mobility of water in amorphous and crystalline trehalose
DUNCAN KILBURN, SAM TOWNROW, VINCENT MEUNIER, ROBERT RICHARDSON, ASHRAF ALAM and JOB UBBINK.

The disaccharide trehalose is accumulated by micro organisms, such as yeasts, and multicellular organisms, such as tardigrades1, 2, when conditions of extreme drought occur. In this way these organisms can withstand dehydration through the formation of an intracellular carbohydrate glass, which, with its high viscosity and hydrogen-bonding interactions3, 4, stabilizes and protects the integrity of complex biological structures and molecules. This property of trehalose can also be harnessed in the stabilization of liposomes5, proteins6 and in the preservation of red blood cells7, but the underlying mechanism of bioprotection is not yet fully understood. Here we use positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy to probe the free volume of trehalose matrices; specifically, we develop a molecular picture of the organization and mobility of water in both amorphous and crystalline states. Whereas in amorphous matrices, water increases the average intermolecular hole size, in the crystalline dihydrate it is organized as a confined one-dimensional fluid in channels of fixed diameter that allow activated diffusion of water in and out of the crystallites. We present direct real-time evidence of water molecules unloading reversibly from these channels, thereby acting as both a sink and a source of water in low-moisture systems. We postulate that this behaviour may provide the overall stability required to keep organisms viable through dehydration conditions.

As was the case for the slowly frozen people, this publication was followed by internet press releases, three of them emanating from the Nestle Company.
Here is an example for those who might be interested.

A press release by a commercial company, although not necessarily of great scientific significance, can fulfil a purpose, because of its PR value. But a promotional press release, uploaded by the Royal Society of Chemistry, will cause raised eyebrows:
View Here.

It describes the same Nestle trehalose magic ? 2006 version - but in hyped-up language, hardly worthy of a Learned Society. We were there eight years ago and witnessed the debunking of trehalose magic and now, sadly, it needs debunking yet again. Who will cast the first stone?

“I enjoyed the Amorph 2006 meeting, its strengths were the format and venue which made it a very friendly meeting with opportunities to meet everyone. As was said at the meeting, the students were very impressive and highly professional.”

“I enjoyed discussion time very much.. I think it better if there should have been more space or time for poster presentations.”

“The Möller Centre was a very comfortable and nice place for the meeting.”

“Thank you for your handling of this conference. It was a good experience for me for the first time to participate in an international conference.”

“I would like to thank you for the bursary that I was awarded. Please extend my acknowledgement to the entire organizing committee.”

“The event was important and relevant to me because I’m working with gelatin in the amorphous state, concepts such as enthalpy relaxation (molecular motion), physical aging and “water” content were familiar for me. Unfortunately, there were few food sciences presentations but I could profit from some fundamental knowledge shown in pharmaceutical presentations.”

“Most presentations were of a good quality, but I think it is not a good manners to read the entire slide to the public, even when the content is interesting. The time keeping for presentations was a bit hard to manage for session leaders but they always were on time. Congratulations!!”

“I think Cambridge city, specially the Moller centre, were suitable places to mount the Amorph 2006 seminar. I was very satisfied with my room., resources available, food, internet, etc. I would like to thank you as well for the trip to the city which was lovely.”

“There were some very interesting presentations that could have used more time to be thoroughly presented (Molecular dynamic simulations come to mind). One other thing that could be improved is regaining the focus on the effect of water on stability.”

“I was slightly surprised that besides Pfizer, no other major pharmaceutical companies were represented - yet so many of them are located in the South East of the UK; also that Cadburys, United Biscuits and Mars were not there. (Editor’s note: Just goes to show the state of knowledge and awareness).”