Invited speakers

Zhanfeng

Professor Zhanfeng Cui is the Donald Pollock Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Oxford and the founding Director of the Oxford Centre for Tissue Engineering and Bioprocessing. His current research interests include bioreactor technology for tissue culture and stem cell expansion, cryopreservation of stem cells and engineered tissue, tissue engineering monitoring and stem cells for drug and toxicology testing.

Kenny

Professor Kenny Dalgarno is Sir James Woodeson Professor of Manufacturing Engineering at Newcastle University. For the past decade he has been researching in the area of additive manufacture, with applications in rapid prototyping and manufacturing; polymer engineering; and with an increasing emphasis on applications in biomedical engineering, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine, with work supported by the EPSRC, the European Commission, Arthritis Research UK, the Carbon Trust, and industry.

Cosimo

Professor Cosimo De Bari is Professor of Translational Medicine at the University of Aberdeen, where he heads the Regenerative Medicine Group in the Musculoskeletal Research Programme. His current research interests include (i) the development of stem cell-based tissue engineering products for cartilage and bone repair; (ii) the study of the stem cell niches in the joint in health and diseases such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis; (iii) the investigation of the developmental ontogeny of mesenchymal stem cells.

Majlinda Professor Majlinda Lako is Professor of Stem Cell Science at Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University. Her group’s research is particularly focused on (i) the understanding of self- renewal in human pluripotent stem cells; (ii) generation of functional and transplantable blood, corneal and retinal cells from human pluripotent stem cells and (iii) clinical translations of basic biology studies to treat corneal and retinal blindness
Fergal Professor Fergal J. O'Brien is Professor of Bioengineering & Regenerative Medicine, Deputy Director of Research and Head of Tissue Engineering Research Group in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. His research focuses on bone mechano-biology and osteoporosis and the development of novel collagen-based scaffolds for tissue engineering with applications in bone, cartilage, cardiovascular, respiratory, neural and corneal regeneration. A major focus is the use of these scaffolds as therapeutic bioactive platforms for the delivery of stem cells & growth factors or as gene-activated matrices to promote enhanced tissue repair.
Michael Dr. Michael Raghunath is Associate Professor at both departments of Bioengineering (Faculty of Engineering) and Biochemistry (Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine) at National University of Singapore. His research which spans the field of extracellular matrix biology and pathobiochemistry, skin biology and wound repair is mainly focused on i) macromolecular crowding and stem cell platform ii) scar wars and self-vascularisation of biomaterials, iii) biological crosslinking: toward a tissue glue and iv) epigenetics in regenerative medicine.