October 25-30, 2026
Calabria, Italy
Conference Organization
Chair
Samiul Amin
University of Miami, USA
- Professor of Practice
- Director Undergraduate Program-Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering
- Director MS Program in Product Design
- Director Engineering Corporate Affiliate Program (ECAP)
- Editor-Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science-Cosmetics and Formulation
- Editor-Surfactants and Detergents
- Chair-Society of Cosmetic Chemists (SCC) Education Advisory Committee
Organizing Advisory Committee
Paolo Arosio, Professor ETHZ, Switzerland
Hanna Jankevics Jones, Manager Biotech, Malvern Panalytical, UK
Tarik Khan, CMC Expert, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Switzerland
Gustavo Luengo, Science Fellow, L'Oreal, France
Prithwiraj Maitra, SVP R&D, Abbvie/Allergan Aesthetics USA
Mike Marlowe, Director CMC R&D Boehringer Ingelheim, USA
Gerardo Palazzo, Professor, University of Bari, Italy
Frank Scheffold, Professor, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Anna Stradner, Professor, Lund University, Sweden
Shahid Uddin, Senior Director CMC, Immunocore, UK
About This Conference
Protein, Peptide and Exosome based products are becoming increasingly widespread across multiple industrial sectors - Biotherapeutics, Foods, and Cosmetics. Developing stable formulations with these biological complex fluids comes with its own set of challenges as complex specific and non-specific interactions both protein-protein or protein/peptide with surfactants/polymers/emulsifiers, etc. can lead to self-association, irreversible aggregate formation, and other manifestations that can negatively impact physicochemical properties and delivery. These in turn lead to issues in formulation storage stability, viscosity challenges, food texture and sensory, skin delivery, and associated issues in manufacturing and injectability.
Similar to other complex fluids, these biological complex fluids also exhibit rich interfacial and surface properties leading to structuring and interactions with air/water and solid/water interfaces. Understanding and establishing the structure-property relationships in such systems and understanding interactions in complex formulation mixtures is therefore key to designing stable new protein/peptide-based products for biopharma, foods and cosmetics.
This meeting, the fourth in this ECI series, will focus on bringing together a wide range of multi-disciplinary groups from academia and industry with a view to discussing key challenges, recent developments, key insights and future trends in understanding protein aggregation, rheology and interfacial properties with a specific focus on formulations and products encountered in the Biotherapeutics, Foods & Cosmetics industrial sectors. It is expected that this will lead to significant cross-industry learning and potential new cross-industry collaborations. Some of the key areas of focus for the meeting will be:
- Protein-Protein Interactions
- Protein/Peptide Aggregation/Self Assembly-Thermodynamics, Kinetics & Interactions
- Protein/Peptide Interactions with excipients, surfactants, polymers
- Protein Rheology & Micro-rheology in Bulk
- Protein Structuring & Rheology at Surfaces and Interfaces
- Formulation Design with Proteins/Peptides/Exosomes in Biotherapeutics, Foods and Cosmetics.
- Effective delivery of Skin peptides/Exosomes- Devices and Formulation Vehicles
- Challenges with Plant Protein based Food formulations
- AI/ML to accelerate Protein and Peptide Based Product design
- New Characterization Techniques