June 2010 NUI Galway First in Ireland to Host EU Tissue Engineering Conference

The Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) EU meeting to be held in Ireland for the first time will be hosted by the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB) at NUI Galway. The event will take place from 13-17 June in the Radisson Blu Hotel. TERMIS – EU meeting is the premier tissue engineering conference in Europe where scientists from the fields of biomaterials, scaffolds, stem cells and cell biologists come together in a combined forum. Some of the plenary speakers for the conference include: James Fawcett, Chairman of the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair; Helen M. Blau, Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine; Randall Moon, Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington; and Hans-Dieter Volk, Director of the Institute of Medical Immunology and the Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies. Speaking about the upcoming event, Professor Abhay Pandit, TERMIS-EU 2010 Chair and Director of the NFB at NUI Galway, explained: "The Conference will offer delegates innovative and stimulating topics with a well-balanced programme of plenary speakers, invited symposia, oral presentations, rapid-fire sessions, poster sessions, a debate on the topic This House Believes that Active Biomolecules are more Important than Scaffold Materials in Tissue Engineering Products and educational workshops. In addition, there will be Student and Young Investigator Section activities that will stimulate and engage the next generation of researchers. The social programme will provide a taste of what Galway and the West of Ireland has to offer." In excess of 700 delegates are already registered to attend this high-profile meeting which will have a large focus on Irish researchers including principal investigators, postdoctoral researchers and students from Irish laboratories. The attraction of large groups of world-renowned researchers to Ireland to attend this conference will enhance the international visibility of Ireland, and more specifically Galway, to the global research and global high-tech business communities. TERMIS-EU will stimulate capacity-building in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, an important area of research in which Ireland is an emerging force. The NFB was set-up with funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to establish a critical mass of biomaterials activity in Ireland. 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. The group continues to grow and currently there are 6 Principal Investigators, 7 Post Doctoral Researchers, 26 Post Graduate Researchers, 2 clinical interns and 4 research support staff making it one of the largest biomaterial groups in the EU. For more information or to register visit http://www.termis.org/eu2010/. -Ends-