Day one: First Townhall meeting RegMed XB successful!

This is the report of day one, please find day two here.

Last Thursday 11 and Friday 12 March 2021, RegMed XB’s first online Townhall Event took place instead of the planned Annual Meeting. A diverse and interesting program was offered over these two days, ranging from showcasing the scientific progress in the RegMed XB Moonshots, the abilities of industrial partners to very relevant hot topic sessions.

On Thursday, over 130 participants joined the virtual meeting, where the Director of the Dutch Heart Foundation, Floris Italianer, started the Cardiovascular Moonshot session by stressing the importance of this research for patients. Pieter Doevedans, Moonshot leader of the Cardio Moonshot and Selma Kaffka, (both UMCU), continued by showing the impressive progess made over the last year and what 2021 could bring.

The next Moonshot was introduced by Tom Oostrom, Director of the Dutch Kidney Foundation. He envisioned a world without dialysis and what that would mean for patients. Ton Rabelink (LUMC), Moonshot Leader of the Kidney Moonshot, and Fjodor Yousef Yengej (UMCU) discussed the impact of the kidney disease on society and progress made in the moonshot.

The morning continued with two presentations of industrial partners, Marco Stijnen from the LifeTec Group and Paul Vulto from Mimetas. They showcased their company’s work and capabilities in view of regenerative medicine.

The last scientific contributions of the day were the Hot Topic Sessions. Marije Koning (LUMC), Peter Carmeliet and Sebastien Dumas (both VIB/KU Leuven) discussed the intriguing research challenges on vascularization in relation to regeneration of tissues.

The other Hot Topic Session covered transplantation immunology, which was addressed by Lonneke Gaykema (LUMC) and Frans Claas (UAntwerpen). They discussed the importance of understanding immunology with respect of building new tissues and transplantation. This is of primordial importance with regards to successfully using new tissues in patients.

After the scientific session, participants had the opportunity to meet up with each other in a virtual world where they could interact with eachother and discuss with presenters.