Ana Paula Pêgo elected President of the European Society of Biomaterials

Researcher Ana Paula Pêgo was recently unanimously elected President of the European Society of Biomaterials (ESB). Over the next two years, the objective is to give greater visibility to the area of biomaterials, which, in recent times, has allowed for a great development in medicine and a significant improvement in the quality of life of human beings.

In the 31st edition of the ESB Conference, which took place from September 5th to 9th, the new elected members of the Council were revealed at the Society's General Assembly and, later, they chose the President of the Society. Ana Paula Pêgo, who has been ESB Secretary since 2017, has now been elected President and does not hide her enthusiasm for this new challenge: “I will be able to develop some of my ideas to make our members increasingly involved in the ESB and, at the same time, strengthen the area of biomaterials”.

In particular, stresses the i3S researcher, “I want to ensure that our more junior members see the importance of being networked and the advantages it has. I would also like to continue the work we have been doing with a view to increasing diversity in our society at all levels, including the representation of some European countries which are still lacking diversity”.

“The first congress I attended in my professional life was the annual meeting of the European Biomaterials Society (ESB), which took place in The Hague in 1998. I became a member of the society in 1999. This is my main scientific family. It’s where I always discussed my results and my doubts, I shared my progress, failures and successes. Being elected to the Council in 2015 was already very important to me, because it allowed me to give back to the Society the much I had already received”, underlines Ana Paula Pêgo.

For the i3S, the fact that the leader of the “NanoBiomaterials for Targeted Therapies” group will be President of ESB

Researcher Cristina Barrias and leader of the i3S group “Bioengineered 3D Microenvironments” was also elected to the ESB Council, and will be responsible for the interaction with the Society’s scientific journal – “Biomaterials Science”, which is part of the Royal Chemistry Society’s publications group.