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How many volunteers were present at the Congress? : |
400 |
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Delegates from which countries presented in the congress? : |
Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Canada, Belgium |
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Were the delegates of any other organizations present in the congress? : |
No |
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If yes, please write the names of the organizations in the box : |
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What were the responses to your talking points? Were specific questions or concerns raised? : |
I got positive feedbacks about my research. The comments were mostly constructive. My presentation was related to different disciplines so could attract different scientists from several fields. Researchers specially early-stage investigators who were interested in medical microbiology and immunology approached me and gave comments. |
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If you met staff members, please list their full names & positions. : |
Marcus Textor, Scientific Chair |
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Please inform us if there are any follow up actions we need to talk with the members of the congress : |
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Your experiences about the travel processes(Providing ticket, accommodation,...) : |
All the arrangements were great. In Switzerland everything is on time and all the scientific events were held based on the conference schedule. |
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Please give a briefing of your own observations and outcomes of the congress: : |
The scope of the conference covered a wide range of research fields and the participants were from different disciplines. Biological interfaces are where synthetic/natural materials and biological systems interact with each other. This is one of the most innovative and expanding areas of science and technology. One the high-technology techniques that was presented in the conference was "3-D tissue printing". The technique can be used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and drug development in pharmaceutical industry. 3D tissue models are used as biologically relevant systems for preclinical compound screening and disease research. They help to identify potential toxic liabilities in an early phase of the drug discovery process and enable the reduction of animal experiments. Scaffold-free spheroids are going to be a new standard for preclinical in vitro testing. Microtissues produced with patient derived cells reflect the tissue heterogeneity and are potential suitable tools for drug development towards personalized medicine. Scaffold-based tissue models could be used as tool to investigate possible strategies for regenerative medicine. I have taken the information with me to share with my colleagues and students. Another presentation that attracted my attention was portable diagnostics using a combination of simple tools such as paper based platforms and bacteriophage-based detection. Paper-based devices, which have been proven to be a versatile platform for culture of mammalian or bacteria cells and detection of bacteria in resource limited environment. Another interesting talk was given by Dr. David Grainger on translational barriers to antimicrobial medical technologies. Increasing placements of medical devices now available for clinical implant use, often in aging populations and increasingly in developing countries, are a significant health care issue due to enhanced infection incidence intrinsically related to implanted medical devices. These devices are also implanted against a background of increasing bacterial antibiotic-resistance. Improvements in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of these device-associated infections will remain priority targets both for clinicians and the translational research community charged with addressing these challenges with innovation. Diverse approaches have been historically used to counter device-related infection, including antibiotic lavages, locally tethered or released antimicrobials, device coatings, local electric fields and current applications, and newer approaches targeting bacterial adhesion mechanisms, communication pathways, and virulence factors. Combination medical devices provide new innovative opportunities using local antibiotic formulations released from established classes of implants
This conference had a special format: it aimed to build bridges between the relevant research fields, between basic medical science and engineering, between scientific discovery, innovation and technology, and between senior scientists and young researchers. Both internationally highly renowned and young scientists from academia, industry and clinics presented their latest, often unpublished scientific findings and technological breakthroughs. All speakers began their talks with a general introduction that does not require specialized knowledge to follow. The focus of this conference was education across the many fields of relevance to biological surfaces and was particularly targeted at young researchers.
A full day was dedicated to translating science to clinics and to markets. Success stories of start-ups, corporate ventures and early-stage business ideas were presented, as well as insides of how to get innovation to clinics. Sessions topics of the 3-day conference program include surfaces & interfaces and its
applications in Engineering Smart Surfaces / Bioinspired Responsive Interfaces, Smart (Drug) Delivery Systems, New Antibacterial Interface and Detection Strategies, Novel Interfacial Concepts in Bioanalytics & Diagnostics, 3D Cell Culture/Engineered Tissue Models, Biotribology, Progress in Biointerface Characterization and Imaging Methodologies, Translating science to clinics and to markets. Amazingly all the scientific sessions started on time! |