Annual Meeting 2015

Conference review

This year's annual meeting of the DGBM was hosted by Prof. Bernstein in Freiburg from 12-14 November 2015. The conference was preceded by a workshop on "Implant-Tissue Interaction" (see workshop review).

As in previous years, the organizers were pleased with the large number of registrations: 274 participants were registered. In addition to four key note lectures and four overview lectures, participants were able to learn about research developments from 70 presentations and 86 posters. For the first time, the President of the European Biomaterials Society (ESB), Prof. Matteo Santin (Brighton, UK), spoke at a national meeting. In addition to a welcome address, he reported on his research topic "Extracellular matrix analogues for tissue regeneration". The other key note speakers were Prof. Marc Bohner (Bettlach (CH), "Bone in micropores - change of paradigm in the design of bone graft substitutes"), Prof. Jürgen Rühe (Freiburg, "Tailormade biointerfaces through surface-attached polymer networks") and - as a special highlight - Prof. Andreas Nerlich (Munich), who gave the participants a very interesting insight into "Life and death in ancient Egypt - paleo pathology tells about mummies, molecules and medicines". The overview lectures were given by Prof. Thomas Lenarz (MHH, Hannover, "Challenges in the field of biomaterials from a clinical point of view") and Dr. Katrin Sternberg (Aesculap AG, Tuttlingen, "Challenges in the field of biomaterials from a technological/industrial point of view") as a start to the Young Scientist Forum. In addition, there were contributions from Prof. Rainer Gadow, Stuttgart ("Novel bioceramics for intelligent neuroimplantation") and Prof. Marc Thielen, Freiburg ("Inspirations from nature for innovative materials").

The social evening in the German Petershofkeller was once again a great success. The good idea of organizing a wine tasting before the gala dinner certainly contributed to this. Accordingly, the atmosphere was relaxed afterwards, so that after the meal, the dance leg was also swung.

Workshop summary "Implant-tissue interaction", 11.11.2015

The basis for the analysis of these complex interactions of a biomaterial with tissues in vivo is the histological examination of the tissue-biomaterial interface. 25 interested colleagues attended an additional workshop the day before, which had addressed this topic. First, the participants heard two lectures on the basics of bone and cartilage composition. Dr. Sebastian Höchel gave a lecture on the anatomy of bone and cartilage. PD Dr. Elisabeth Eppler gave a lecture on the histology of bone and cartilage. Both lecturers came from the Department of Biomedicine, Department of Anatomy of the University of Basel, AG Prof. Dr.med. Magdalena Müller-Gerbl. After these interesting overview lectures, Prof. Anke Bernstein showed numerous practical examples of the assessment of histologies of human implants and the evaluation of the mechanical load capacity of the tissue/implant interface. Subsequently, Mrs. Messner (Walter Messner GmbH) and Dr. Stolze (LLS ROWIAK LaserLabSolutions GmbH) presented different preparation techniques for hard tissue with and without implant. Then the workshop participants were able to deepen their knowledge of preparation techniques, histology / image analysis and biomechanics at three different stations. Here, Prof. Bernstein's team was supported by the laboratory of the ZMK of the University of Freiburg and Mrs. Schneider (Heraeus Kulzer company). Many fruitful discussions took place. Also some open questions could be clarified. All in all, the workshop was a complete success.