2025 PharmSci 360 to Showcase Essential AI Integration and Emerging Technologies

*Full transcript available below

The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists annual meeting, 2025 PharmSci 360, to be held in San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 9–12, will spotlight the latest innovations driving the bio/pharmaceutical industry. Mei He, PhD, Chair, 2025 PharmSci 360 Scientific Programming Committee, and associate professor at the University of Florida's College of Pharmacy, provides an exclusive overview of this year’s focus and the transformative influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced technologies in an interview with the Pharmaceutical Technology® Group.

What are the key trends shaping the 2025 annual meeting?

This year’s conference brings together leading researchers to discuss trending topics, including basic research discovery, formulation, drug delivery, analytics, manufacturing, and the clinical-to-translational research pipeline, Dr. He emphasizes. She notes that more than 800 abstracts for posters and over 200 oral presentations have been submitted, reflecting rapid advances in the industry.

A central theme this year is the integration of AI into all aspects of bio/pharmaceutical research. “You will find a lot [of] interesting topics in this year’s annual meeting…we have a lot of spotlights for the scientists to present in [the] meeting,” Dr. He notes.

AI-powered analytics and manufacturing processes are set to take center stage, along with emerging technologies, such as spatial transcriptomics and AI-designed drugs in therapeutic development.

The event will host opening and closing plenary speeches from renowned scientists, fostering high-level discourse on research philosophy, scientific trends, and future directions, she adds. The conference is further expanding engagement with hot-topic sessions and spotlight speakers, encouraging greater inclusivity and participation from top experts. With AI and gene therapy trends at the forefront, the 2025 meeting offers an essential platform for scientists aiming to stay ahead in bio/pharmaceutical innovation, Dr. He asserts.

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About the speaker

Mei He, PhD, Chair, 2025 PharmSci 360 Scientific Programming Committee and Associate Professor, University of Florida College of Pharmacy

Dr. He is a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, and chair of the American Association of Extracellular Vesicles scientific program. She is also an editorial board advisor for the journals Pharmaceutics and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC’s) Lab on Chip. Dr. He’s research innovation has led to more than 20 pending and issued patents, of which most have been licensed and launched as products on the market by multiple companies. Dr. He received the National Institutes of Health’s Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award and the RSC’s Lab on Chip Emerging Investigator.

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Hi everyone. I'm associate professor from the University of Florida, College of Pharmacy, and serve as the chair of the certificate program of the AAPs and especially for this year, AAPs 2025, annual meeting in San Antonio. My research expertise focused on the drug delivery, formulation, the gene therapy and theoretical development, especially, we use the latest modality of the actual cellular vesicles for gene therapy treatment.

This is a great question, and well, this year especially, we have quite a few hot topics in the APS meeting. And every session that we have mainly focused on the six of the same we have the basic research discovery and the formulation drug delivery by analytics and the manufacturing and the clinical size, translational research and with all those different theme and we can see the AI Artificial Intelligence actually plug into the each application very tightly from this year, and they catch up the latest development. And using artificial intelligence, and using the AI approach to develop for each application, and especially their hot topic, is from the translational research session, and also from the formulation drug delivery session, and even in the manufacturing session, we also have the AI plug in to develop the artificial intelligence, and they enhance the manufacturing process. So all those could be very interesting and cutting edge.

This year, we have more than 800 abstract submission and for poster. And we have more than 200 of the submission for the simplest and we also have the hot topics and the rapid fair. And all those sessions are catch up the change in the frontier of the pharma industry and research developments, and especially for the submission trending using the new techniques, and some techniques like artificial intelligence and also the spatial transcriptomics And the gene therapy and AI designed drug so all they use the into therapeutic development, which are the trending right now? So if you want to catch up the frontier of the former development and know what's new of the technology, definitely, you will find a lot interesting topic in this year annual meeting

for today of the top scientists, and we have a lot of spotlights for the scientists to present in APS meeting, and especially for the opening plenary speech, and also for the closing plenary speech, we have those top scientists to present in the to catch up their philosophy and also the research development and also share their experience and the perspectives and during those opening remarks. And we also have hot topics that we are going to develop this hot topics and the spotlight speakers and more and more in the future of the APS annual meeting, which actually have much more engagement of the speakers compared to the past few years. And this also will open the submission for the hot topics and also spotlight speakers, and we want to be more inclusive to accept the more top scientists to be engaged in our meeting.