The 29th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Biomaterials will take place this year in Maastricht from September 9–13. cBITE will be fully represented so come and have a look at our posters or listen to our presentations! See you there!

On the 31st of May at 16:00, Eelco Fennema will defend his thesis entitled "An analysis of trauma and its solutions in bone tissue engineering". The defense is open to the public and will be held at the "Aula" of the Minderbroedersberg 4-6 in Maastricht.

MosaCell is an initiative to support research on patient-derived cells for disease modeling and therapy at the MUMC+. At this second annual symposium the theme is “Meet the Neighbours”. We will have four lectures from scientists in the greater Maastricht region. Similar to last year, we will organize a workshop entitled "Mindmapping MosaCell" and we ask the question: Which science and technology is hidden amongst us? By the end of the day we hope that you will have met your new collaboration partners!

For more information about times, programme, UM location and registration, click HERE.

On the 13th of April at 16:00, Nick Beijer will defend his thesis entitled "Topographically enhanced cell culture systems to induce and monitor mechanobiology", making him the first cBITE PhD student graduating in Maastricht! The defense is open to the public and will be held at the "Aula" of the Minderbroedersberg 4-6 in Maastricht.

Prof. Doris Heinrich, from the Leiden Institute of Physics will be giving a seminar at MERLN entitled: “Functionalised Surfaces and 3D Scaffolds for Controlled Cell Adhesion, Migration and Tissue Engineering”. The seminar will start at 12:30 at the MERLN office (UNS40, C3.577). For more information about Prof. Heinrich check out the Leiden University and Fraunhofer websites.

Prof. Wolfgang Wagner, from the Stem Cell Biology and Cellular Engineering division at RWTH Aachen University Medical School will be giving a seminar at MERLN entitled: “Does soft really matter? The impact of substrate elasticity and topography on differentiation of mesenchymal stromal cells and induced pluripotent stem cells”. The seminar will start at 15:00 at the MERLN office (UNS40, C3.577). For more information check out the abstract and his biography.

Prof. Bert van der Horst, from the department of Molecular Biology at Erasmus MC will be giving a seminar at MERLN entitled: “Good times, bad times… Impact of the circadian clock on health and disease”. The seminar will start at 14:00 at the MERLN office (UNS40, C3.577). For more information check out the abstract and biography.

MERLN is organizing the next quarterly MosaCell meeting. The meeting will take place in the MERLN office from 12:00 till 13:30. Invited speakers are Hans de Munter, CEO at Neuroplast BV who will talk about "Autologous stem cells in a preclinical model of traumatic spinal cord injury", and Claudia Bosma, coordinator at Biobank MUMC+, who will discuss "ISO norms and quality management systems". See you there!

In his presentation entitled “Discovery of Bio-instructive Materials” Prof. Morgan Alexander from Nottingham University will discuss a high throughput screening approach to discover new bio-instructive materials from large chemical libraries. The seminar will start at 11:00 at the MERLN office (UNS40, C3.577). For more information check out the abstract and his biography.

MosaCell is an initiative to support research on patient-derived cells for disease modeling and therapy at the MUMC+. At the symposium there will be lectures from four internationally renowned keynote speakers, pitch presentations of MUMC+ researchers, a team-based workshop on developing a research/business case and a photo-microscopy contest.