8th Annual Meeting

Wednesday, May 22, 2002, Geneva
Centre Médical Universitaire

Welcome to Geneva A warm welcome in a city traditionally as open to the whole world as it is to its own country. Our General Meetings are still mostly attended by our members, and there is a long way to go to become a really international event. We may not need it, after all. It should first be, and it is, a mean to pull together once in the year all the people working with or simply interested in the constantly changing world of biomaterials.

A world which is now more and more challenged by the next methods of treating diseased or lost tissues : tissue engineering, and tissue regeneration. Our small community of biomaterials people in Switzerland is already facing this new trend, and we will soon have to include it in our thinking, and possibly in our research as well, if this is not done already.

There are certainly more prestigious biomaterials congresses in Europe and in the world, where the recognition by the worldwide communities can more easily be achieved – but there was the need to bring together, once a year, all the specialists from Switzerland, for a short and less costly meeting, where the youngest researchers are not afraid to present their work, and where the more experienced professionals will have a chance to meet and discuss with their fellows in a friendly atmosphere. These were the goals of this 8th General Meeting. Your presence tells us we were right to accept to organize it, your interest and your intellectual satisfaction will be our reward.

We wish you all a warm welcome in Geneva, and a real pleasure in meeting the members of our slowly but constantly growing Society.

View the abstracts

The local organizing committee
Prof Jean-Marc Meyer, Faculty of Medicine, Geneva
Prof Pierre Descouts, Faculty of Sciences, Geneva
Dr Björn-Owe Aronsson, GAP Biomedical, Geneva
Dr Serge Bouillaguet, School of Dentistry, Geneva
Dr Maria Cattani-Lorente, School of Dentistry, Geneva