PhD candidates Josephine Shum, Axel Norberg and Gretel Major.
“Congratulations” has been a common cry in the Christchurch Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering (CReaTE) research group this November. Three of the group's PhD candidates have won best presentation or poster competitions.
Josephine Shum participated in the Bioengineering at Otago Showcase 2020, winning the Ernest Rutherford prize for the best rapid-fire oral presentation, which was open to eligible PhD students across all Otago campuses who submitted an abstract. The showcase was a blended-platform event inviting in-person participation from Otago staff and students from Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington, as well as virtual participation over Zoom.
Shum's wining presentation was about her research in the development of a pre-clinical sheep knee finite element model to optimise the design of additive manufactured orthopaedic implants.
Axel Norberg participated in the Materials@UC 2020 conference hosted by the University of Canterbury. The conference theme this year was aptly titled “Overcoming Challenges in Research”, acknowledging the wide-ranging impact of covid-19 in 2020.
Norberg's presentation “Heparin and Hemoglobin: a breathtaking combination for tissue oxygenation” was judged best with a biological theme by a PhD student.
And Gretel Major won the best research-student poster at the Health Research Society of Canterbury's Poster Expo 2020. The Society's annual event is a key component of the networking calendar for Canterbury researchers.
Major's poster detailed her investigations into next generation adipose tissue grafts for clinical reconstruction in breast cancer.
CReaTE research staff also fared well at networking events this month. Dr Gabriella Lindberg and Dr Cesar Alcala won best presentation and best poster prizes by early- and mid-career researchers at the Bioengineering at Otago Showcase 2020.