The Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) EU meeting which concluded in Galway today was heralded by all those involved as an outstanding success. The conference attendees numbering around 750 were excited by an innovative scientific programme, the calibre of expertise which it attracted highlighting Galway and Ireland as a region of critical mass in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
The conference, which was held for the first time in Ireland, was hosted by the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB). The NFB was established with funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under the Strategic Research Cluster Programme (SRC) to create a critical mass of biomaterials research in Ireland. .
The conference focused a broad range of scientific topics throughout the four days with plenary speakers including James Fawcett, Chair of the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair; Helen M. Blau, Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine; Randall Moon, Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington; and Mark Ferguson, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Renovo, a leading biopharmaceutical product company in the discovery and development of drugs to enhance tissue regeneration.
In total, there were over 300 podium presentations and almost 350 poster presentations from leading international research laboratories, industry and clinical institutes focused on tissue engineering. Almost 60% of the abstracts submitted were from senior researchers, increasing the scientific quality associated with the event. The highlight of the scientific programme was the conference debate which explored the contentious motion that ‘Active biomolecules are more important than scaffold materials in tissue engineering products’. The debate, chaired by Professor David Williams, attracted great interest from the delegates. In addition, there were 39 Keynote Lectures given by key opinion leaders across the globe. These lectures offered an opportunity for delegates to hear of all the recent developments across broad range topics in the field. The introduction of ‘industry day’ at TERMIS-EU 2010 attracted many delegates from leading and emerging medical device companies, venture capitalists and governmental support agencies from the international business community.
According to Professor Abhay Pandit, the success of the TERMIS EU 2010 conference has put Ireland on the world stage and has consolidated the critical mass of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine research established in Ireland with strategic governmental funding such as the SFI funded Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) programme. NFB has established partnerships with leading academic institutions, research laboratories, hospitals and companies both in Ireland and around the world aiming to support the translation of biomaterials from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside. Currently, there are 46 research staff at NFB making it one of the largest biomaterial groups in the EU.
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