We are pleased to announce that Professor Joseph Nicolazzo has been elected as the new Vice President / President-Elect of IBBS.
Joe is Professor and Director of the Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on understanding how neurodegenerative diseases alter the expression and function of drug transporters at the blood-brain barrier and in microglia, and how these changes affect CNS drug access and disease progression.
He has been an active member of IBBS since 2006, regularly attending IBBS-supported conferences and chairing key events, including CVB 2017 in Melbourne. He will also serve as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Barriers of the CNS in 2026 and 2028, respectively. In addition, he contributes to the field as an Editorial Board Member of Fluids and Barriers of the CNS.
Joe brings valuable leadership experience to the IBBS presidential team. He was President of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association (2020-2023), is an Executive Committee Member of the International Pharmaceutical Federation Board of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and is the Associate Dean (International) at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University.
In his own words, Joe foresees his leadership role at IBBS as follows:
“My vision is (i) to increase diversity in geographical and scientific expertise of our membership so as to further advance translation of our critical research findings, (ii) to streamline our communications, marketing and events, and (iii) to identify additional funding streams so as to increase the support that we provide to our trainees and conference organisers, future-proofing our society and the success of the next generation of brain barrier scientists.”
Along with our past-presidents, I look forward to working together with Joe to keep IBBS a vivid and welcoming community keeping brain barriers research at high levels of excellence and working towards meaningful advancements in the years to come!
Britta Engelhardt