University Of Ulster

Final year NIBEC PhD student Mrs. Lindsay McManus, who is supervised by Dr Adrian Boyd, was a prizewinner at this year’s 24^th Annual European Society of Biomaterials conference (ESB2011) that was hosted by the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials in Galway and Co-hosted by University of Ulster with Professor Brian Meenan as the Conference Co-Chair.

The conference is designed at bringing together local, national and international post-graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and world experts for the opportunity to present their research in a friendly and encouraging environment.  The main objective of the conference is to encourage progression in the fields of biomaterials in all its aspects, including research, teaching and clinical applications. 

This year’s conference was held in the Convention Centre in Dublin, Ireland on 4^th-8^th September 2011. Submissions to the conference are encouraged from any area of research involving biomaterials, tissue regeneration, nanotechnology and material science, etc, with the overall theme of the event being “The Cycle of Biomaterials - Back to our Roots”.   

Lindsay won the overall prize for “Best UK Oral Presentation” sponsored by The UK Society for Biomaterials (UKSB).  Her talk was entitled “Comparative analysis of the osteogenic potential of human mesenchymal stem cells and human primary osteoblasts using Raman spectroscopy”.   There were over 10 presentations given from students at Ulster on a range of topics from fabrication of biomaterials to the control and characterisation of cell differentiation.

Lindsay also won the overall prize for “Best Poster Presentation” sponsored by The UK Society for Biomaterials (UKSB).  Her talk was entitled “Characterisation of the osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells” which she presented at the annual conference that was held at the University of Greenwich in July 2011.

Linsay, who is based at NIBEC, within the Engineering Research Institute is just back from Brazil after competing in the Young Persons’ Lecture Competition, following a win in the IOM3 - Materials Ireland Irish heat which secured her visit to Brazil in September 2011.