New links
May 2000:
-
East of England Innovation Relay Centre: http://www.stjohns.co.uk/eeirc
often has items of interest in biomaterials, devices, and is also still
willing to advise on potential partners for EC proposals
-
UK Biomaterials Partnership: http://www.biomaterials-partnership.org.uk
is a DTI-funded resource for researchers and companies in the UK
biomaterials scene
-
New Indian biomaterials site, courtesy of Majeti N. V.
Ravi Kumar, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Chemistry,
University of Roorkee India, can be found at www.members.tripod.com/~mnvrk
-
For more information on Nano2000 Conference in Sendai,
Japan, go to http://koho.imr.tohoku.ac.jp/NANO-2000/index.html.
This is one of the foremost international conferences on nanotechnology.
-
For
a superb networking site for biomaterials and bioengineering, go to www.biomat.net,
managed from the Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica Biomaterials
Laboratory at the University of Porto, Portugal. Biomat.net is sponsoring a
number of meetings later this year, including the 10th International
Conference on Biomedical Engineering, ICBME Biomedical Engineering in the
New Millennium: Integration and Breakthroughs 6-9 December 2000, Mandarin
Hotel, Singapore; the 2nd European Cells & Materials Meeting 25-28 June
2000, Davos, Switzerland, organised by the AO Research Institute; Advanced
Course on Biomaterial-Cells Interactions, 12-14th June 2000, Porto,
Portugal; and the 2nd Japan-Australia Cardiovascular Bioengineering
Symposium (JACBS), 30 May - 1 June 2000, Sydney, Australia. Further
information can be found on Biomat.net.
BMEnet www.bmenet.org is the site of
the Biomedical Engineering Network
-
www.tissue-engineering.de
is a Germany-based site with information and resources to do with tissue
engineering, including conferences, links, companies, jobs and scientific
papers reviews.
-
The latest developments on medical device industry can
be found on Medical Device Link www.devicelink.com
- The
AO-ASIF foundation in Davos Switzerland, pioneers in the use of materials
for bone fracture fixation, have a useful web-site dealing with relevant
topics, as well as announcing events. Go to http://www.ao-asif.ch
New links Oct 99:
- There are new draft guidelines for reporting on Brite-EuRam projects. All project
co-ordinators and consortium partners should already be aware of these. If not, these
Guidelines for Reporting can be found and downloaded from the following address:
http://www.cordis.lu/brite-euram/src/guidlin.htm
Sintea, a co-ordinator of one of the projects in the European Biomaterials Network,
BE-7119 (new methods of joining ceramic and metal components), has established a new
web-site. To view this, go to:
http://www.sinteacompositi.it
- The European Society for Regulatory Affairs, ESRA, has a very useful links page for all
kinds of regulatory information. To view the site, go to:
http://www.ESRA.org
Hot-Links April 1999:
- New Tissue & Cell Engineering Society launched in UK! www.nottingham.ac.uk/pharmacy/tissue-eng/TCES
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, National Centre for Scientific Research
‘Demokritos’, Greece – partner in European Biomaterials Network project
BE-3621 ‘MODELS’ (new drug delivery methods) http://macedonia.nrcps.aridane-t.gr
- Swiss Foundation for Research in Microtechnology – runs training
courses in microtechnology including biomedical engineering and molecular biotechnology www.fsrm.ch
- Information on the External Advisory Groups for the Fifth Framework
Programme can be found at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg12/fp5/eag.html
- The European Science Foundation approves scientific programme into
complex polymer structures. Further information can be obtained from www.esf.org
- Details of the Official Launch Conference for FP5 from http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg12/fp5/conference.html
- Keep abreast of FP5 through Cordis: www.cordis.lu/fifth/home.html
- Do you need advice on intellectual property issues that arise as a result
of innovation? The EU has established a help-desk to assist: www.cordis.lu/innovation/home.html
- Want to know what’s happening at the IBME, University of Toronto,
one of North America’s foremost research centres for biomaterials and biomechanical
engineering? This may be even more relevant now that Canada and the EC have signed an
agreement to allow Canadian participants in FP5 projects. Go to www.ibme.toronto.edu
- Keep in touch with the European Parliament at http://www.europarl.eu.int and the Economic and
Social Committee at http://www.esc.eu.int, both
bodies that review medical progress, ethical and legal issues, consumer impacts of many
new developments.
- Do you still need to find ecu rates? Use the following html to get these:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg02/xecum.htm
- For euro rates, go to http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg19/inforeuro/en/catalog.htm,
which provides an alphabetic way into the country of your choice. Do not ask for the
monthly euro spreadsheet to be downloaded – it takes over 5 minutes and has all
conceivable countries on it. It does however provide a basis for betting on which will be
the country with the largest number of national currency to the euro.
- If you need a hotel in Brussels, use http://www.hotels-belgium.com
- Note that the Metropole in de Brouckere has a single room rate of 10,000
BEF but if you specify you will be attending an EC/EU meeting when you book and bring your
invitation to show at the check-in, the rate is reduced to 5,000 BEF per night - Hotel
"METROPOLE", Place de Brouckere 31, B-1000 Brussels, tel.: +32.2.217 2300, fax:
+32.2.218 0220. There are cheaper hotels (e.g. the Ibis at 3,600 BEF per night) but these
are generally less convenient for the EC premises.
- Materials Science Department at the University of Essen www.ikb.uni-essen.de/wtech/index.htm
If you are interested in automation in manufacture, and in some of the
developments in rapid prototyping, see the ESPRIT-IiM site www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/ima42.htm
- If you want to find out some of the developments in the USA, try: The
Centre for Bioactive Materials and Tissue Engineering at
http://bioeng.seas.upenn.edu/bmtlab/index.htm
and http://bioeng.seas.upenn.edu/bmtlab/ducheyne.htm
- For the Innovation Relay Centre Network site, go to http://www.cordis.lu/irc/home.html
- A good general facility is http://www.medscape.com,
the freely-available area of Medline
- For dental materials, try http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/intres/health/dental.html
- A useful site for artificial organs is http://www.artificial-organs.de/
- A site that also contains further links for tissue engineering is http://www.ukrv.de/ch/rheuma/TissueWeb.html
- If you are interested in information on toxicity of different substances,
try http://atsdrl.atsdr.cdc.gov:8080/cx.html
With thanks to Dr Thomas Groth of GKSS Forschungszentrum Geesthacht GmbH,
co-ordinator of a project in the European Biomaterials Network.
The international science journal Science has a web-site for young scientists,
Science’s Next Wave. The site offers material of special interest to R&D people
in the early parts of their careers. Recently, Science’s Next Wave mounted two
special issues. Please consult these (as well as the general site) for useful information.
The biomaterials special issue can be found at: http://intl.nextwave.org/cgi/content/full/1998/06/01/3
The regulatory affairs issue is at: http://intl.nextwave.org/cgi/content/full/1998/04/17/32
The general site for Next Wave, including subscription information, is at http://www.nextwave.org
  
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