8th SWISS EXPERIMENTAL SURGERY SYMPOSIUM (SESS 2012)
Geneva, 19-20 January, 2012
MESSAGE FROM THE ORGANISERS
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is our pleasure to welcome you in Geneva for the 8TH Swiss Experimental Surgery Symposium which is supported by both the School of Medicine of the University of Geneva and the Geneva University Hospital. We would also like to thank the wide panel of experts who will contribute to making this event a ‘state-of-the-art’ symposium.
This biannual meeting is organised alternately in Bern, or Fribourg, and Geneva. We now have the pleasure to host it for the 4th time in Geneva, with the topic:
The Symposium will address current ‘hot’ topics in fields ranging from material science and biology of stem cells to regenerative medicine. Many opinion leaders feel that there is a future for both transplantation and alternative methods to re-create organs, e.g. tissue engineering. Such application may, on the one hand, address scaffolds to be used with or without growth factors to attract the right cell type when used in vivo, and, on the other, specific progenitor cell injection to repair a damaged organ. In vitro systems are very valuable to test cell material interactions. However, animal models are also required to test the viability of the concept for specific in vivo applications. In our era of ethics and animal concerns, alternative testing methods, and especially imaging methods to follow cells or tissue-engineered constructs non-invasively in a live animal, are of major importance, thereby supporting the 3R principles.
A Hands-on Workshop on Thursday, 19 January, will take place in the afternoon at the Centre Médical Universitaire (CMU). It will give the participants the opportunity to follow 9 workshop stations where new techniques focusing on the topics of the meeting will be demonstrated.
The Symposium on Friday, 20 January will take place in the Auditoire Marcel Jenny of Geneva University Hospital. The programme features the following sessions: Genetic Animal Models; in silico, in vitro and Surgical Animal Models for Organogenesis; Translational Animal Models for Organogenesis, and Clinical Implementation in Organogenesis. A highlight will be the basic science lecture which will focus on the state-of-the-art of transplantation and possible future alternatives for organogenesis.
We believe it is of utmost importance to teach young researchers, whether medical or veterinary doctors, biologists or engineers in this rapidly expanding field, so that they may acquire the necessary competence. The poster session will give them the opportunity to show their on-going research work. Finally, the human networking aspect of such a meeting, with the exchange of ideas and knowledge, is equally important, not only between scientists but also with our industrial partners whom we thank for their support.
We look forward to welcoming you in Geneva for an interesting and challenging symposium.
 Beat H. Walpoth, MD Cardiovascular Research, HUG |
 Paolo Meda, MD Cell Physiology and Metabolism, CMU |
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