NUIG Investigator awarded new SFI Prize in Regenerative Medicine
Several of the world’s top biomedical scientists descended on Galway earlier this month to participate in the Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) EU 2010 Meeting. NUIG was selected by the society on a competitive basis to host this year’s five day event which attracted over 700 delegates. Previously held in London, Rotterdam, Porto and Korea, TERMIS meetings provide the major international discussion forum for researchers with a common interest in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The clinical treatments of diseases affecting our aging population including Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and age-related macular degeneration, stand to improve from the latest developments in this space, in addition to treatments for spinal cord and burns injuries.
The TERMIS EU Meeting 2010 was right at home in Galway as NUIG is the home of the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB) and the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI), both funded through major SFI awards. Dr. Wenxin Wang of the NFB was selected by an expert panel for the award of the inaugural SFI Prize in Regenerative Medicine at the opening ceremony in recognition of his contributions to the field at an early stage in his career, demonstrating that Ireland certainly packs a punch in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Dr. Wang began his career at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and the University of Nottingham before taking up the post of Lecturer in Functional Biomaterials at the NFB, and his research focuses on improving delivery systems for therapies including pharmaceutical drugs and gene therapies.
The theme of this year’s meeting was ‘At the Crossroads: Development and Translation’ in recognition of the importance of the efficient and safe transition of basic scientific discoveries from ‘bench to bedside’, a timely topic for both the patient and the economy.
The speaker line-up proved to be a veritable ‘who’s who’ in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and included several high-profile international experts including Dr. Randall Moon, Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington and Professor James Fawcett, Chairman of the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair. Leading industry representatives also gave their perspective including Dr. Peter Johnson of Entegrion and Professor Mark Ferguson of Renovo. The outcomes of TERMIS 2010 are due to be published in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.
An event of this scale and significance took almost a year in the making and is the result the planning and coordination of the local organising committee and NUIG, with the support of sponsors including SFI, Failte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, The Automation Partnership, Biomat.net and L’Oreal. Commenting on the success of this year’s event, Professor Abhay Pandit, Chair of the local organising committee, said ‘there was a tremendous response from both the national and international community’. The next meeting will be hosted by the University of Granada, Spain in 2011.
