University of Memphis FedEx Institute hosts Biomaterials Conference

Last week the University of Memphis and University of Tennessee Health Science Center, together with Vanderbilt University and University of Kentucky hosted Biomaterials Day 2016 at the FedEx Institute on the UofM campus. The day-long event focused on biomaterials and the world of academia, industry, and entrepreneurship after graduation.

The event was organized and supported by the Society for Biomaterials, Student Section at the University of Memphis, and Topher Gehrmann, the President-elect of the society and a biomedical engineering graduate student in the Tissue Template Engineering and Regeneration Laboratory at the University of Memphis.

Over 100 people attended the event.

A keynote was delivered by Dr. John Rose, the principal scientist in biomaterials in advanced surgical devices from Smith and Nephew. Dr. Rose is an experienced biomaterials research scientist in Memphis who studies biomaterials interfacing with the human body. Dr. Rose has published papers on a wide variety of materials and their degrading and wearing characteristics ranging from non-degradables, biodegradables, bone cement, and other polymer biomaterials.

Following the keynote, the day went on to include research presentations about tissue engineering, fabrication methods, and simulation and modeling host response. There were also several panels that discussed alternative career paths, empowering women in engineering, and working in industry and academia. There were two dedicated areas for student poster presentation as well, and a STEM education workshop sponsored by Wright Medical that was open to the public and offered teaching methods and practices for STEM education at all levels from primary school all the way to collegiate and post-collegiate students/employees.

“I really enjoyed Biomaterials day. It was a great opportunity to feel your research is paying off and be proud of it, and also learn what everyone else is working on. The panels were really intuitive and meeting people from other schools was a lot of fun, especially to see how the same research goal can be approached from different perspectives," said Chris Alexander, Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student, University of Memphis.