Tuesday, 22 November 2011 | World Trade Center | Rotterdam


 

Clemens van Blitterswijk

Scientific Director, MIRA - Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine

Keynote: Building Complex Tissue

Prof. Dr Clemens A. van Blitterswijk (1957, Den Haag) graduated as cell biologist at Leiden University in 1982. He defended his PhD thesis in 1985 at the same university, on artificial ceramic middle ear implants, for which he was awarded the Jean Leray award, the Marie Parijs award and the Klein award in the following years. He continued his research on bone and cartilage replacement primarily, with extensions to cartilage and skin substitutions.

Today most of his research deals with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Prof. van Blitterswijk has authored and co-authored ca. 224 scientific papers (peer reviewed, Pubmed), guided 45 PhD students as promotor or co-promotor, is inventor of numerous patents and frequently acts as invited speaker or chairman at international conferences.

For his more recent work he received the George Winter award of the European society for Biomaterials and was appointed Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering by the international liaison committee.

He acts and has acted on numerous advisory organs relating directly to life- and material sciences or to the economic applications thereof and held positions such as chairman of the Dutch society for Biomaterials and treasurer of the European Society for Biomaterials.

Current functions comprise:

  • Chairman of the Netherlands Forum for Regenerative Medicine

  • Council Member of the European Chapter of TERMIS (Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society)

  • Chairman of TeRM (Translational Regenerative Medicine, SmartMix)

  • Member of the Advisory Board of the Netherlands Technology Foundation

  • Member of the Netherlands Academy for Technology and Innovation.

During his career Prof. van Blitterswijk has co-founded multiple biomedical companies and held several functions in these organisations. He acted as CEO of IsoTis (a public life sciences company in the Netherlands) from 1996 to 2002. In his career he raised over 140 Million Euros in funding through equity and/or grants. Resulting from his work 10 implant technologies were brought into clinical evaluation in humans.

Today Prof. Van Blitterswijk has an appointment at Twente University in the Netherlands where, as Professor of Tissue Regeneration, he heads a team of PhD students active in the field of tissue engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Recently he has accepted the function of scientific director of the Institute of Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine.
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