The Engineering of Healing: From Molecular Mediation to Tissue Constructs

The 2009 Gordon Research Conference on Biomaterials: Biocompatibility and Tissue Engineering will be held July 19 through July 24, 2009 at the Holderness School, Plymouth, New Hampshire. This conference program brings together a diverse group of academic and industrial speakers and discussion leaders comprised of senior and junior thought-leaders who are notable for the novelty and quality of their work.

The theme of the 2009 conference will be The Engineering of Healing: From Molecular Mediation to Tissue Constructs, which focuses particular emphasis on molecular mediation, cellular signaling, and tissue assemblies for the design, characterization, and implementation of therapeutic applications. The 2009 program also adheres stridently to the GRC directive of holding vigorous formal and informal discussions between prominent investigators in biomaterials and tissue engineering, junior attendees of the conference, and researchers from underrepresented groups, i.e. women, minorities and persons with disabilities. The tone of the conference program will be set on Sunday evening with a session entitled Masters of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering that features two talks by two well-established and highly influential thought leaders in biomaterials and wound healing, respectively. From here, the program builds in hierarchical complexity from surfaces to whole organs through to the Wednesday evening session. The list of invited speakers ends Thursday morning with a session on the all-important biomaterials topic of Mediating Inflammation and Infection. There are three poster sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons (~20 poster each) organized on Topical themes. The final session Thursday evening will be devoted to the six 15-minute mini-talks selected from the posters presented at the three afternoon sessions.