RCSI won five out of eight awards on offer at the 16th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of the Royal Academy of Medicine (RAMI) in Ireland, which took place on 22-23 January in Malahide Castle.

The conference aims to promote bioengineering by bringing together the clinical, engineering and scientific communities and aims to provide a platform for both new and advanced researchers.

First year PhD students Erica Tierney and Amos Matsiko won prizes in the poster category for talks entitled, ‘Osteoinductive smart scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration’ and ‘Characterisation of 3D collagen-based matrices for cell-mediated chondrogenesis’. Final year PhD student Ciara Murphy won a prize in the best student oral presentation category for her talk, ‘Larger pores increase osteogenesis in tissue engineered collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds’.

RCSI also won the two most coveted awards at the meeting. Dr John Gleeson won the RAMI bronze medal for best overall paper at the meeting entitled, ‘In vivo comparison of novel collagen-based composite scaffolds for bone tissue repair in a rabbit radius model’ and Prof. Clive Lee was awarded the RAMI silver medal for presenting the Samuel Haughton keynote lecture entitled ‘Anatomists and Geometers'.

In addition, PhD student Grainne Cunniffe was a finalist in the Engineers Ireland, Biomedical Research Medal competition which was also held at the conference.

Professor Cathal Kelly, Registrar/CEO, congratulated each of the winners and said: “This is an outstanding achievement for RCSI. These awards not only recognise the individuals’ achievements in bioengineering, but also highlight the excellent work that is carried out within the College.”