Delegates have attended the first virtual LifETIME CDT Student Day event bringing together academics, industry partners and LifETIME students.
The event began with a welcome from Ivan Wall, Professor of Regenerative Medicine, Cell & Gene Therapy Bioprocessing at Aston University who gave an informative overview of the LifETIME CDT along with an introduction to the event programme.
The first session had an array of industry presentations, including cell preservation technologies from Sanj Kumar at Atelerix; ending the use of animals in biomedical research by Alpesh Patel from Animal Free Research UK; medical research tools and technologies by Michael Jones from Cell Guidance Systems; peptide hydrogel and bioink manufacturing by Chris Allan from Biogelx; and solutions for aortic and peripheral vascular disease by Niall Paterson from Terumo Aortic.
The audience then heard about the NC3RS’ CRACK IT challenges and how to get involved from Anthony Holmes, Director of Science and Technology at NC3RS. The session concluded with an overview of funding opportunities available at Innovate UK by Michael Kipping, Innovation Lead – Biomedical Catalyst, Health Sector Team at Innovate UK.
The second session featured short project updates from the 2019 cohort who work across University of Glasgow, University of Birmingham, Aston University, National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI) and Trinity College Dublin.
The event was then closed by Liam Grover, Professor of Biomaterials Science and Director of the Healthcare Technologies Institute at the University of Birmingham, who summarised the plethora of talks and encouraged collaborative discussions amongst industry partners and academics.