The 28th Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB) took place in Athens, Greece, from September 4 to 8. After many exciting locations, the conference was hosted for the first time in Greece. It was chaired by Maria Chatzinikolaidou and organized by the local committee of the Hellenic Society for Biomaterials.
Another “first” in the history of ESB conferences was the record number of abstract submissions and the participation of more than 1000 scientists. The attractive scientific program of the ESB 2017 covered many different aspects of biomaterials research, from tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, to disease diagnosis and treatment, as well as biointerfaces and biofabrication, clustering around the main theme of the meeting “Translational activities for exploiting research on Biomaterials”.
With 8 plenary lectures, 20 keynote lectures and a total of 340 oral presentations, the meeting provided a great forum to exchange recent findings and ideas in biomaterials research. To name a few of the many excellent talks in this conference, Nicholas A. Peppas talked about “intelligent biomaterials” for various biomedical applications, Antonios G. Mikos presented a talk on 3D constructs for bone and cartilage tissue engineering. Dietmar W. Hutmacher, the recipient of the ESB International Award 2017, described pre-clinical models for bone tissue engineering and the translation of tissue engineering concepts to cancer research to generate humanized mouse models. The ESB George Winter Award for 2017 was given to John Jansen, who talked about biomaterials for dental implants and wound healing.
The Megaron Athens International Conference Centre provided an excellent venue for five-to-seven parallel sessions, yet bringing together the participants during the breaks in the foyer, allowing great networking opportunities. Attendees could also exchange ideas during the Welcome Reception and enjoy the jazz recital at the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens.
This intense program of the ESB 2017 brought together not only recent highlights from different aspects of biomaterials research but also numerous opportunities for the attendees to get to know each other, communicate their research and establish new collaborations. We are now all looking forward to meeting again for the ESB 2018, which will be taking place in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
