BackKarin Kogermann is an Associate Professor and Senior Researcher at the University of Tartu who is working in the area of physical pharmacy. She was awarded with the L´Oreal Baltic fellowship “For Woman in Science” in 2018.
After waking up in the morning, I often wonder if it really is morning already. It seems that it was just an evening of planning the next days’ experiments, finalizing next day´s presentation or writing the last lines on a scientific paper. Indeed, finding an appropriate balance between different assignments may be difficult and one needs to decide and prioritize the activities. Over recent months, I have been writing several research publications for which we and our collaboration partners have collected data for some time now. In parallel with writing scientific papers, other relevant duties were performed such as managing the research project, supervising the students, teaching the Physical Pharmacy course, oral presentations at several national and international conferences and writing new funding applications etc. Therefore, finding time to finalize the planned scientific publications has been a challenge.
Despite the challenges, we were able to publish several research publications. We were able to use novel methods, namely ultraviolet (UV) imaging and bacterial bioreporters for monitoring antibacterial drug release from electrospun nanofiber and microfiber matrices. These interesting approaches were developed for the purpose to improve the characterisation of electrospun materials as drug delivery systems. And just recently, we also published a research paper where we tested the efficacy of different techniques for the sterilisation and disinfections of electrospun drug-loaded fibers. This information enabled to get one step closer to making the developed electrospun materials available for the market and for clinical use (e.g. wound healing purposes).
It is great that science and practice go hand in hand. Research publications broaden our understanding and lead to the next scientific discoveries. Also, these help to give real life examples to students at University courses as well as to other researchers at scientific conferences. Hence it is a great feeling that we can share our knowledge and get acknowledged by the scientific community. Furthermore, we may use this new knowledge while moving towards clinically relevant novel drug products.
Read more in Pharmaceutics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31546922 and in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2019.118450
Proofreading of this article was funded by the European Regional Development Fund through Estonian Research Council.
