23 Nov 2011
Rideal Travel Bursar Serena Marshall reports on the Bacteriosafe Conference Meeting and Biology Day, 21-23 June 2011, Advena Europa Hotel, Mainz Germany:
The title of my oral presentation was 'Measuring the stability of responsive nanocapsules in a gel'. This presentation introduced the use of Nanoparticle Tracking analysis to detect and visualise nanocapsules moving under Brownian motion, the stabilization of nanocapsules at different temperatures using biomimical components, the use of a gelatin or chitosan gel to stabilize and deliver the nanocapsules, and the introduction of a simplified pig skin model. I learnt from the presentation of this work, that I need to explore other ideas through my research and increase my literature reading, additionally, for example, I could explore investigating encapsulating different antimicrobials into my nanocapsules.
The main presenters at the conference were researchers from: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research; Germany, University of Siegen; Germany, University of Bath; UK, Blond McIndoe Research foundation; UK, Dublin City University, Ireland, ASTRAL, Lappeenranta university of technology, Finland, and University Medical Centre; Germany.
Major topics covered included bacterial toxicity, model development, animal models and development of dressings, as well as future scale up discussions of a project.
This conference allowed me to meet international researchers completing work similar to my own. Many of the people met came from different backgrounds, for example relevant industrial researchers eg Centexbel, Hartmann, or medical research centres. New collaborations were forged with:
- Dr Justin Sharpe from the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, based in the UK, who has offered guidance on the use of animal models for wound repair and the opportunity to collaborate on some pig skin based research.
- Dr Julia Karbach from Mainz University dental hospital, based in Germany, who is interested in the application of responsive hydrogels on titanium discs for teeth implants.
The information gathered at this conference will be shared with the research group members who did not attend, and this will direct the forward progress made with our research, with regards to biological techniques, discussions of other protocols of design and diversification of new ideas. My group members will additionally benefit from my attendance; as I have returned with refreshed ideas on how we should proceed with our research, and new enthusiasm which will be relayed to them.
This conference was invaluable for my research and continued development, and I appreciate the funding provided by SCI and the Sir Eric Rideal travel grant.
Serena Marshall
Bath University
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