ESAO - Liver Support Working Group

TRM Awards 2008: Funding for up to 20 awards and research groups

The Translational Centre for Regenerative Medicine (TRM) Leipzig, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education and the Free State of Saxony, is charged with the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies as well as preclinical models in regenerative medicine.
For its new funding period that starts in 2009, researchers are invited to apply for awards to pursue research from bench-to-bedside.

Funding is available for up to twenty awards and research groups in the four research areas of the centre:
* Tissue Engineering and Materials Science (TEMAT)
* Cell Therapies for Repair und Replacement (CELLT)
* Regulatory Molecules and Delivery Systems (REMOD)
* Imaging, Modelling and Monitoring Regeneration (IMONIT)

Goal orientation with clearly defined milestones will be an inherent task in all approaches. While applicants are asked to apply with clear therapeutic or diagnostic concepts from all four research areas above, applications within the following subjects are particularly encouraged:

* Scaffolds for stem cell differentiation
* Novel bioreactor technologies
* Innovative drug-delivery systems
* Target molecules for regenerative medicine and transplantation
* Angiogenesis
* Reprogramming stem cells (iPC)
* In vitro organ development
* Aspects in Xenotransplantation
* New microscopic and imaging technologies

Apoptosis Chip

             

Floor Wolbers from the Lab-on-a-Chip group of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology developed a special microfluidic chip for monitoring the effect of medication on cancer cells. The new technique can already be applied in a clinical setting. At present, the process is monitored using an optical microscope, for high-throughput screening, electronics can be added to the chip. Using multiple chambers for cell culture, fast comparison will be possible.

More information via  http://www.mesaplus.utwente.nl/news/floor_wolbers.doc/ .

Low-cost submicron fabrication technique for manufacturing human spare parts

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tampere University of Technology and Nanofoot Finland Oy have developed a direct-write three-dimensional forming method of biomaterials. The methodology enables fabrication of nano and micrometer scale structures that can be used as parts of tissue engineering scaffolds. The project is funded by the BioneXt Tampere Research Programme.

More information is available via the  VTT webpage .

       

   

This blog has been nominated for the Medical Weblog Awards (Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog)...

The third annual Medical Weblog Awards! These awards are designed to honor the very best in the medical blogosphere, and to highlight the diverse world of medical blogs.

The categories for this year's awards will be:
- Best Medical Weblog
- Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2006)
- Best Literary Medical Weblog
- Best Clinical Sciences Weblog
- Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog
- Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog
- Best Patient's Blog (a new category this year)

The Blog of the ESAO Liver Support Working Group has been nominated for the category "Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog". Other nominees can be found here.

Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE)

Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is an online journal publishing visualized (video-based) biological research studies. This publication aims to solve some of the most difficult problems in the contemporary life science research:

    * low transparency and reproducibility of biological experiments
    * time-consuming learning of experimental techniques

Example: Human ES cells: starting culture from frozen cells 

As every practicing biology researcher knows, it takes days, weeks or sometimes months and years to learn and apply new experimental techniques. It is especially difficult to reproduce newly published studies describing the most advanced state-of-the-art techniques. Thus, a major part of the Ph.D. and post-doctoral training in life sciences is devoted to learning laboratory techniques and procedures. It is a never-stopping process for experimental scientists since methodologies in this fast-growing field undergo significant changes every few years (e.g. genomics and proteomics, most recently). Economically, time- and resource-consuming process of training and retraining in techniques and procedures represents a bottleneck for scientific research and drug discovery.
Video-based visualization of biological techniques and procedures provide an effective solution to the problem described.

Check out JoVE and submit your research videos. . .

Princeton University Art of Science Competition

The winners of the 2005 Art of Science Exhibition at Princeton University  have now been announced. Fifty five works out of more than 200 entries that were submitted are now available online. "The Princeton University Art of Science Competition is a celebration of the aesthetics of research and the ways in which science and engineering inform art and vise versa. Now in its second year, the competition is open to all members of the Princeton University community.

                        

The Basic Science Committee (BSC) of ESOT

The Basic Science Committee of ESOT has been founded in 2004 with the strong support of the ESOT Council. BSC wants to contribute to the advancement, communication, education and support of basic science activities in Transplantation. A network of European Laboratories of Excellence has been established to:
- Increase communication
- Encourage the application for ESOT grants
- Provide travel funding to support the exchange of specific techniques
- To encourage the submission of basic science abstracts to the biannual
ESOT Meeting

ESOT Basic Science Committee Travel Awards

The Basic Science Committee of ESOT was founded in 2004 with strong support of the ESOT council. The specific aim of the BSC is to support basic science in transplantation within ESOT by enhancing communication, and education and by rasing the profile and quality of basic science at ESOT meetings.

One of the key strategies of the BSC is to establish a Europe-wide Basic Science Network in Transplantation where inclusion is dependent on the laboratory/group having five basic science publications in peer-reviewed journals during the previous four years. Details of these laboratories together with selected publications, areas of research interests and specific research tecniques and tools available are available as a link on the ESOT web-site.

In support of one of the BSC strategies, ESOT has made available a number of small Travel Grants (€500 per applicant) to support the travel of individuals wishing to visit a European laboratory outside their own country that can offer a specific technique or expertise. Applications for funding should be made to the members of the ESOT Basic Sciences Committee via the ESOT Secretariat.

Arbios Appoints Dr. Philip Rosenthal and Dr. Robert S. Brown, Jr. to Its Scientific Advisory Board

Arbios Systems Inc., a biomedical device company developing proprietary liver assist devices for the treatment of liver failure, announced today that the Company has appointed Drs. Robert S. Brown, Jr., M.P.H. and Philip Rosenthal, to its Scientific Advisory Board.
Press release here

Foundation for Liver Research opened new laboratory

The Foundation for Liver Research opened a new research laboratory on the fourth floor of the Institute of Hepatology at University College London. The new floor and its facilities were made possible by a donation of one million pounds to the charity from the Paul Getty III Foundation.
The Foundation for Liver Research (formerly the Liver Research Trust, it was renamed in 2001) was established in 1973. It is a single unit charity meaning that the majority of funds it raises go to support one research unit – in this case, the Institute of Hepatology – although increasingly the Foundation is taking a wider national role in relation to issues of research funding and provision of specialist liver services. The Institute of Hepatology was established in 1996 in a purpose-designed building within the main biomedical campus of University College London.