May 2016 CÚRAM Researchers Scoop Five Awards At 2016 World Biomaterials Congress

Five young researchers from CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices, based at NUI Galway were honoured for their work, receiving four Merit awards and a Trainee Award at the 10^th World Biomaterials Congress in Montreal, Canada last week.

Students recognised at the congress included Paolo Contessotto who received the WBC 2016 Université Laval Trainee Award for his poster titled ‘Design of a protease and ROS responsive biomaterial approach to target drug delivery in inflamed tissue microenvironment’, and Marc A Fernandez-Yagüe, Diana Gaspar, Dilip Thomas and Catalina Vallejo Giraldo who all received WBC 2016 Merit awards for research in biomaterials used in tendon regeneration, the formation of microvascular networks and coating of neuroelectrodes. Dr Aitor Larranaga, postdoctoral researcher with CÚRAM, was also represented in the Biomaterials Journal section.

CÚRAM also received the ‘Best Image in Biomaterials’ award at the Congress for an image used in a paper published in Biomaterials, one of the top academic journals in the field with an Impact Factor of 8.557. The Impact Factor of a journal is a measure reflecting the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. The image was selected for the Biomaterials 2015 Top Images poster which will be featured on the journal homepage where all the manuscripts with the winning images will be highlighted.

Congratulating all of the researchers involved, Professor Abhay Pandit, Scientific Director of CÚRAM and member of the WBC International Advisory Committee said: “The event is an incredibly important opportunity for all of us working in the field. Everyone attending the event is working on clinical problems with the common goal of finding solutions and providing benefit to patients worldwide. It’s a tremendous opportunity for students and researchers as well as industry and regulatory bodies to come together and connect with colleagues and experts from all over the world. I’d like to congratulate each of our researchers on their success.”

The World Biomaterials Congress is the largest gathering of Biomaterial Researchers charting the future of the field. With over 1,200 oral presentations, 2,400 poster presentations and 3,500 abstracts submitted by over 60 countries WBC2016 was one of the largest World Biomaterials Congress to-date.

CÚRAM is a Science Foundation Ireland centre for research in medical devices, bringing together experts from Ireland’s leading universities and research institutes. Academic partners, led by NUI Galway, include University College Dublin, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, University of Limerick, The Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and Molecular Medicine Ireland.

Over 200 renowned experts in biomaterials, drug delivery, cell therapy, glycoscience and device design are working on blue sky research and industry projects associated with CÚRAM, which aims to radically improve the quality of life for patients with chronic illness by developing the next generation of smart, implantable medical devices.

ENDS