Introduction to the 31^st Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB 2021)

The 31^st Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB 2021) took place virtually from September 5 to 9, 2021. This was the second time this event was organized in Porto, Portugal, and this edition accommodated the 43^rd Annual Congress of the Iberian Society for Biomechanics and Biomaterials (SIBB).

The motto of our conference was “Futuring Biomaterials”, as a challenge to our community to explore biomaterials in conjunction with advanced technologies, such as nanotechnology, biofabrication, microfluidics and bioimaging to develop the clinical combination products and functionalities of the future.

These conferences, which first took place in Strasbourg (France) in 1977, are held annually and are interspersed every 4 years by the World Biomaterials Congress. The ESB conferences aim to bring together researchers, clinicians and companies for the presentation and discussion of the most recent advances in the areas of science and engineering of biomaterials, in terms of both more fundamental research, and clinical and industrial research. It is intended that this multidisciplinary environment can promote scientific and technological knowledge for innovation in health.

At the beginning of this adventure, we had planned to host the ESB 2021 conference in Porto, as a live and lively event. However, the COVID19 pandemic drastically altered our plans. Despite the ongoing pandemic, the support of our community was massive. We received 795 abstracts and 39 proposals for symposia. This allowed us to prepare an exciting program, really aligned with our motto! Overall, we had 975 registered participants, from 48 countries, including 15 from outside Europe, proving the truly international character of the event.

Based on the evaluation scores of our panel of reviewers (all abstracts were reviewed by 3 reviewers) and subsequent assessment by the editorial team of Biomaterials Science (the official journal of the ESB), the highest ranked works that fully fitted the journal scope were invited to submit a paper to the journal. This themed collection includes the manuscripts accepted after the regular process of peer review and illustrates the high level of the research discussed during the meeting. It includes several research papers covering the highlighted topics of our conference. Among the articles accepted, we can call attention to the work by Carvalho et al. who report a combinatorial assessment of lung cancer biomarkers via microfluidics-assisted liquid biopsy (https://doi.org/10.1039/D2BM00044J). Benecke et al. describe the development of electrospun, biomimetic tympanic membrane implants with tunable mechanical and oscillatory properties for myringoplasty (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM01815A). A cell-laden alginate/pluronic-based bioink doped with BaTiO₃ piezoelectric nanoparticles was investigated by Paci et al. to promote skeletal myogenesis (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM01853A). Fritschen et al. investigated resin materials in transparent digital light processing printing for application in cell culture and organs-on-a-chip (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM01794B). Boda et al. proposed dual keratinocyte-attachment and anti-inflammatory coatings for soft tissue sealing around transmucosal oral implants (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM01649K). A review by Delaey et al. entitled “Tissue engineered scaffolds for corneal endothelial regeneration: a material's perspective” (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM02023D) and another by Pucci et al. entitled “Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic hyperthermia: recent advancements, molecular effects, and future directions in the omics era” (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1BM01963E) are also included in this themed issue.

These publications demonstrate both the progress, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the future of our field. Additionally, they also highlight the importance of networking and of interdisciplinary teams in the success of our research. Enjoy reading!

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