TERMIS

Rogério Pirraco - Chair TERMIS-SYIS EU
Rogério graduated (BSc) in Applied Biology at the University of Minho (Portugal) in 2005. Currently, he is a PhD student in Professor Rui L. Reis Lab, the 3B's Research Group - Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics. His PhD research work is related with co-cultures of cells for Tissue Engineering purposes, stem cell culture and cell sheet engineering using thermally responsive surfaces, being that the latter subject is developed at Professor Teruo Okano laboratory in Tokyo, Japan. Rogério Pirraco was also a part of the organizing committee of the European chapter meeting of TERMIS-EU 2008, held in Oporto, Portugal.

Paul Geutjes - Vice-Chair TERMIS-SYIS EU
Paul works on Urogenital Tissue Engineering at the Urology Department of the Radboud University Medical Centre, The Netherlands. Although he almost finished his PhD, he already works as a postdoctoral research fellow in the EuroSTEC project, which is an integrated project (15 partners) on 'Soft Tissue Engineering for Congenital birth defects in children'. He also works in a company with clean room facilities to start-up a production line for collagen-based scaffolds (NWO Casimir project). His work consists on seeding and culture of primary cells on collagen scaffolds (bioreactor) and evaluate in preclinical models, aiming to improve current strategies for urogenital reconstructions.

Catarina M. Alves - Immediate Past Chair TERMIS-SYIS EU
Catarina graduated (BSc) in Applied Biology at the University of Minho (Portugal) in 2000. Currently, she is a PhD student in Dr. Rui L. Reis Lab, the 3B's Research Group - Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics. Her PhD research work is related to the role of protein interactions with natural origin biomaterials on determining the correspondent host responses. In 2005 she became involved in the S & YI Section of TERMIS, participating since then in the organization of different activities.

Dennis Link - Treasurer TERMIS-SYIS EU
Dennis completed his PhD at the Periodontology & Biomaterials Department of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands in cooperation with the Bioengineering Department of the Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. His research was focused on the biological properties of polymeric microparticles incorporated in calcium phosphate cement.
Currently, he is a post-doctoral fellow at the 3B's Research Group of the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal where he is working on natural derived polymers and dynamic stem cell culturing as well as the implementation of these constructs in animal models.