The China-EU Neuroscaffolds Project Final Meeting & 2016 Suzhou Symposium on Material-Cell Interfaces were held on May 30-31th, 2016 at Huihu Mansion in Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District.

The meeting was chaired by European coordinator, Prof. Vincent Torre of Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Advanzati (SISSA), and Chinese coordinator, Prof. CHENG Guosheng of Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINANO). Prof. DAI Jianwu of Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. ZHANG Zhijun and Associate, Prof. LI Xiaoran both from SINANO, Prof. CHEN Yong of Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Dr. Fernando Brandi of Consiglio Nazionaledelle Ricerche (CNR), Dr. Anna Rocchi of Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), MatildeForni of Lund University and Francesco Paolo UlloaSeverino of SISSA attended the meeting and discussed the research progress on Material-Cell Interfaces.

China-European teams focused on the development of a new generation of three dimensional scaffolds for the repair of lesions of nervous system. These scaffolds were based on techniques and tools of rapid prototyping and consisted in design, fabrication and production of novel tissue-engineering neuroscaffolds, namely three-dimensional graphene foam, electrospunnanofibers and PEG hydrogel.By in vitro and in vivo, an optimized structure-functionality relationship of neuroscaffoldshas was systematically analyzedand revealed.

The cooperative teams investigated and characterized short and long-term effects of these scaffolds of the morphology, structure, size, surface modification of neurons and neuronal stem cells grown on them. And also, the teams investigated the effect of controllable release of growth factors on adhesion, self-renewal and differentiation of mature neurons and neural stem cells cultivated on the specific neuroscaffolds, both in vitro and in vivo.Manipulation and construction of networks of differentiated neurons have also been investigated and the researchers improved the scaffold biocompatibility. They had also analyzed the possibility to apply direct electrical stimulation to neurons grown in these scaffolds and have analyzed its short and long term effects.

Prof. Vincent Torre announced the opening of China-EU Project Final Meeting. (Image by SINANO)

Prof. CHEN Yong summarize the research on fast prototyping of biocompatible 3D scaffolds and integration of nanoscale topographic features.(Image by SINANO)

Fernando Brandi gave a report on 3D multichannel conduits and superhydrophobic scaffolds.(Image by SINANO)

MatildeForni had a talk on the scaffolds for the repair of the peripheral nerve.(Image by SINANO)

 Prof. CHENG Guosheng and Prof. DAI Jianwu took closing remarks on the final meeting.(Image by SINANO)