As with many other conferences, the 29th annual meeting of the NBTE took place on Thursday 26st and Friday 27nd November 2020 in an ONLINE FORMAT due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The program and abstract book can be downloaded from the link below

Besides high-quality oral presentation given by young researchers from various Dutch institutes, we had an exciting contribution from our evening speaker, Prof.Dr. Anna Herland from Karolinska Institute & Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. She gave a very interesting talk about in vitro neural models and hybrid bioelectrical systems.

This year, we also had a focus session entitled "Battle of the Matrix" where two speakers defended their preference for natural / synthetic materials. Prof.dr. Janette Burgess (University Medical Center Groningen) represented natural matrices and Dr. Matt Baker (MERLN institute, Maastricht University) picked-up the challenge and stated why synthetic equals superior. They engaged into a fierce and exciting debate.

On the Friday morning we connected with the Belgium Society for Tissue Engineering and Prof. Dr. Liesbet Geris opened the day with a plenary lecture.

Unfortuntately, the Corporate Lunch Event was be canceled this year and hopefully the representatives of Dutch companies will share their experience with young researchers next year. More information can be found here.

This year, we also introduced the Best Scientific Photo Award. The award winner was given the opportunity to pitch the science behind the picture. Eligible pictures were original, non-photoshopped images.

Traditionally, the conference the award was handed out for best oral presentation. This year the best poster and best conference chair was not available.