2012 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA on October 24-27, 2012

Emory University, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

1238568 Jo The BMES Annual Fall Meeting is a high quality, multidisciplinary scientific event conducted by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). This year's meeting is co-hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia from October 24-27, 2012. This year's theme is "Integrating Academics, Industry, and Translation: From Discovery to Implementation." The main program consists of a total of 15 parallel technical Program Tracks providing over 800 oral presentations and an additional 1,600+ in poster presentations. The meeting will also feature two one-day workshops, 9 plenary lectures by distinguished academic, translational and industry leaders, two special symposia, numerous research presentations and a variety of special sessions. This meeting also offers career opportunities through its "Meet the Faculty" session and a career fair where industry can meet with students. The two pre-conference workshops will deal with important contemporary issues in BME: "Coulter College", which focuses on technology transfer and commercialization; and COACH, which offers professional development for post-doctorates. A record 3,500+ attendees are anticipated for the 2012 meeting. The potential record attendance is based upon the number of abstracts received for the 2011 meeting (i.e., 2,448, which is a 12% increase over that of 2010). A Program booklet will provide program details to the participants of the conference. All technical presentations will be one-page, peer-reviewed abstracts, which will be compiled in CD format and distributed to all registrants. Copies of the CD will also be provided to all co-sponsoring societies. Currently, the CD is envisioned to serve as the only technical proceedings of the meeting due to the large number of high-quality abstracts accepted. The 2012 meeting currently has sponsorship commitments from three major sponsors, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, Clemson University and Medtronic. Intellectual Merit: This conference is an extremely high-quality scientific, intellectually stimulating, and interdisciplinary meeting. It is the premiere conference for the BME field and brings together different BME communities in academics, translation and industry, including cell and molecular engineering, tissue engineering, through a searchable CD containing the proceedings and through the conference and society web sites. It also is co-sponsored by several prestigious BME-related societies. In addition to more than 2,400 oral and poster presentations, and two pre-conference workshops, at least nine distinguished speakers of high intellectual merit with international reputations for BME excellence are chosen by the BMES Awards Committee to give talks. These plenary lectures and the intellectual content of the meeting will provide important cross-fertilization of ideas, concepts, tools, and approaches, and will highlight the importance of BME as the intersection of Biology, Medicine, and Engineering. Broader Impact: In addition to the direct impact this conference will have on the mainstream BME community, the primary aim of this meeting is to serve as the facilitator of important cross-fertilizations between the life sciences and engineering technologies and the facilitator of this integration in the multi-disciplinary approach to the practice of BME. This specific aim heavily targets the undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral trainees and junior faculty communities for their essential role in the future advancement of the BME sciences and practices and it is expected that 60% of the attendees will be students. The funding from the NSF will be useful to encourage and reward students, especially from underrepresented groups, while a portion of it will also help to bring the distinguished BME related leaders to the meeting. In order to successfully accomplish this specific aim, participation from biomedical engineers, engineers from other disciplines, cell and molecular biologists, biochemists, biophysicists, and other scientists, including clinical researchers, physicians, and members of the industrial communities, is actively promoted and encouraged. In this manner, this conference will have a much broader impact than if it were to be attended by only the BME community. This will also provide a broad impact for the current state of the discipline as well as for the future, since students will benefit by participation in the meeting and through the material presented by the plenary speakers and workshops. Subsequently, another primary aim of this meeting is to make the high-quality scientific information presented at the meeting readily available to multiple societies and to the public at large.