The Tissue Engineering Research Group (TERG), a cross departmental research group at RCSI that includes Anatomy, Molecular Cellular Therapeutics (MCT), Chemistry and the School of Pharmacy in addition to clinical departments in orthopaedics and ophthalmology, have reinforced their status as leaders in their field by presenting a series of studies and winning a number of significant awards at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (Bioengineering in Ireland), which was held in Salthill Hotel, Galway, from 22-23 January.

This year's Bioengineering in Ireland conference was the largest ever with over 250 interdisciplinary attendees presenting over 180 papers and thus greater competition than ever for these awards. 

Claire Brougham, a PhD student in Professor Fergal O'Brien's team, won the highly prestigious Engineers Ireland Biomedical Research Medal, awarded annually to a PhD student deemed to be making the greatest contribution to the field of biomedical engineering research as evidenced by the submission of a research paper and delivery of a presentation summarising their work. Brougham's paper, entitled 'Dynamic stimulation allows development of a functional tissue engineered heart valve', was selected as the winning presentation from 24 initial submissions and four finalists by a panel of eight interdisciplinary judges. This research involved a placement in Prof. Dr Med. Stefan Jockenhoevel's laboratory in RWTH Aachen. Another TERG PhD student, Tomas Gonzalez-Fernandez, was also selected as one of the four finalists.

Fionnuala O'Gorman, a student within Dr Cathal Kearney's TERG team, was awarded the prize for best oral presentation in the Gene/Drug Delivery category. Fionnuala's talk was entitled ‘On-demand delivery of pDNA-nanoparticles from polymer based delivery systems’.

Alan Ryan from Prof. O'Brien's team, was awarded the prize for best oral presentation in the Tissue Engineering of Vascular Networks and Nerves category. Alan's talk was entitled ‘Biofabrication of physiologically relevant vascular grafts using natural polymers and a custom vascular bioreactor’.

Finally, William Whyte, a PhD student within Dr Garry Duffy's team, was awarded the prize for best poster/oral presentation in the Early Stage Research category. William's work, which was entitled 'Sustained release of targeted cardiac therapy with a replenishable, implantable reservoir', was carried out in collaboration with Dr Ellen Roche while at the Harvard Biodesign Lab, headed by Prof. Conor Walsh.

Congratulations to all the prize winners and the entire TERG team for continually setting the highest standards of research in the field of bioengineering.