On the 17th of November 2006 Euroscicon hosted a conference entitled ‘Tissue Engineering Today, Not Tomorrow’ at the MI Centre in London. The conference covered some of the key issues in tissue engineering including the use of embryonic and mesenchymal stem cells, the development of new generations of biomaterials and scaffolds, and the use of methods which will allow the implantation of tissue engineered constructs without evoking an immune response. The conference was chaired by Professor Anne Dickinson from the University of Newcastle and was opened by Dame Julia Polak from Imperial College, London. Dame Polak presented an overview of the major issues in regenerative medicine, from the choice of cells and scaffolds through to methods of scale-up, the choices for cell delivery and the requirements of pre-clinical and clinical phase applications.   more »

This Euroscicon meeting provided an ideal forum for bench scientists to catch up with the commercial companies slant on technologies such as multiplex cytokine analysis, cytokine secretion assays and intracellular staining and to hear colleagues discuss the application of these techniques in areas such as tuberculosis in humans and cattle, HIV, autoimmunity and dendritic cell biology. The day started with two talks on detection of cytokines in tuberculosis (TB). The first was by Dr Ian Durrant from Oxford - he presented his work on the introduction of the first ELISPOT assay to diagnose human TB. ELISPOT assays are a good for this particular type of diagnosis as they are in the order of 2 logs more sensitive thank ELISA or FACS analysis, with cytokine release being detected at the single cell level.   more »