Dear Subscriber, We are pleased to present the Spring 2022 news updates from the European Society of Biomechanics. In this newsletter, we summarized the main activities of the ESB from beginning of 2022, embedding also a message of Peace in this terrible period. As usual, all members are welcome to actively contribute information to this newsletter and to the ESB website in general. Let me know of anything of general interest, scientific articles, advertisements, upcoming meetings or particular items of discussion.
Michele Conti, Chair of the Publication Committee
From the President
Dear ESB members,
ESB2022, Porto, on-site. Three words that make an excellent combination! Indeed, it was with great happiness that we could decide recently to have the upcoming ESB Conference in Porto in person. The local organisers will do everything it takes to make it a safe event, and it is looking great. As a matter of fact, the venue is already having many events since the beginning of March, some of them even larger than ESB2022. I’m looking forward to attending presentations in person. The large number of abstracts is telling me that you, ESB members, are looking forward to ESB 2022, too!
For me, the meeting in Porto will mark the end of my second term as ESB Council member. Also Markus Heller has completed two terms, and both of us must step down. Mark Thompson, who served on the Council for 6 years, decided to step down as well. Enrico Dall’Ara and Dieter Pahr have completed their first term, and stand for re-election. Hence, a total of five Council seats are up for election. This could be an opportunity for you to nominate yourself and help shape the future of the ESB. The details on how to do this can be found in the call for Council Nominations that you have received a few days ago. I would encourage women in particular to apply because gender equality is considered an important aspect of the ESB and of the Council composition.
Unfortunately, the positive news about the on-site meeting is overcast by the horrendous news coming from Ukraine. The invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine and the astonishing devastations and killings taking place are horrible; the enormous suffering it is causing is beyond imagination. What are the consequences for ESB? At first sight, these consequences appear limited, yet, for us as a scientific organization there are questions to be answered. Can we start/continue scientific collaborations with Russian academics? What does this war and the imposed sanctions mean to our Russian ESB members? Can we, in line with support to fleeing Ukranian scientists, also offer research positions to fleeing Russian scientists? In answering these question I believe we have to distinguish between the political structure in Russia and the Russian individuals. From a scientific perspective, it is hard to realize that close to 200 (rectors of) Russian universities are supporting the war. But the statements of the Russian regime, and those of Russian universities, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the people in the street, nor of the academics working in those universities. Indeed, some have spoken out against the invasion and are calling for peace. That is difficult and not without risk, but this counter voice exists. That is why I have contacted our Russian members and sent them a message of peace and informed them that we have not forgotten about them. For now this is the least we can and must do.
Best regards, take good care of yourself, and of each other.
Harry van Lenthe, ESB President
Meeting News
edited by Enrico Dall’Ara, Chair of the Meetings and External Affairs Committee and Dieter Pahr, Chair of the Meetings WebPortal Committee
Next ESB Congresses
27th Congress of the ESB (ESBiomech2022) in Porto
A message from the local Organizing committee of Porto 2022:
Come to the first onsite ESB congress since 2019!
We are pleased to announce that the ESB 2022 congress will take place as an exclusively onsite event in the city of Porto between 26 – 29 June 2022 at the Alfandega congress center, a historical and impressive venue directly in the city center. All traditional ESB sessions and activities will be organized to their full extent – a rich scientific programme, interactive and mentoring sessions, students activities, exhibition, and networking events. As organizers, we will ensure a safe environment by respecting the health recommendations of the Portuguese authorities.
In total, more than 800 abstracts have been submitted. 33 Perspective talks contributions have been selected and the list of Perspective talks speakers including their lecture titles is available here: https://esbiomech2022.org/perspective-talks/ .
3 keynote speakers have confirmed their participation: Ellen Kuhl, Amir Zadpoor, and Massimo Sartori. The details regarding their lectures can be found here: https://esbiomech2022.org/keynote-speakers/ .
The scientific programme will be organized in 8 parallel streams during 3 full conference days (27-29 June), Pre-courses will take place on 26 June. All scientific sessions will be concluded with a Q&A.
Due to a high number of submissions, a large poster area is planned this year with special time slots dedicated exclusively to Poster presentations viewing and accompanying events in the Poster area to allow maximum space for discussions there.
More student events will take place during the conference: Meet your PI networking session, a Scientific quiz, and a social event Student night exclusively organized for students. Follow the updates here: https://esbiomech2022.org/student-events/
More exciting accompanying events are planned this year: Pre-courses (https://esbiomech2022.org/pre-courses/) , Mentoring session Women in Biomechanics apéro (https://esbiomech2022.org/women-in-biomechanics/ ) and the International Symposium on Research and Entrepreneurship (https://esbiomech2022.org/international-symposium-research-and-entrepreneurship/ with its own interesting programme.
Alfandega congress center offers a large exhibition space where all coffee breaks and lunches will be served. Potential sponsors and companies who are interested in participating are more than welcome to reach out to us. More information is available here: https://esbiomech2022.org/meet-the-sponsors-exhibitors/
Acceptance letters have already been sent to the authors, while instructions for the presentation will be sent soon. Registration will open shortly, stay tuned! https://esbiomech2022.org/registration/ Early registration: 16 May 2022
We look forward to welcoming you in Porto!
The ESBiomech2022 Organizers
Future Congresses
ESBiomech2023 Save the date
In 2023 the 28th Congress of ESB will be held in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The congress will take place at the MECC Convention Center, situated just outside the city center, from 9-12 July 2023. ESBiomech2023 will be jointly organized by three renowned universities in close proximity to each other: Eindhoven University of Technology, KU Leuven, and the University of Liege.
ESBiomech2024
In 2024 the 29th Congress of the ESB will be held in Edinburgh, UK. More details will be provided in future communications.
Endorsed meetings by the ESB
6th Virtual Physiological Human Summer School. 23-27 May 2022. Barcelona, Spain
https://www.vph-institute.org/events/6th-vph-summer-school.html
ESB members will pay the same reduced registration fees as VPHi members.
ESB Awards
The ESB celebrates the achievements of its members with a range of awards that will be presented again at the annual congress in Porto later this year. At this point, the deadlines for all awards have passed and after screening over 130 submissions for quality and eligibility across the Travel, Student, Clinical Biomechanics, and Best Thesis Awards by the chair of the Awards Committee, these are now scrutinized by the respective award committees.
We look very much forward to the Student and Clinical Biomechanics Award Sessions in which each will see 4 finalists competing for the top positions while the S.M. Perren Award and the Best Thesis Award sessions promise again to be further highlights of our congress showcasing the excellent work of our members.
We hope that the prospect of that, together with a substantial amount of travel awards we will grant in 2022, will ensure that a fantastic crowd will be celebrating excellent Biomechanics research again in person, in Porto in June 2022. Do join us!
Markus Heller, Vice President of the ESB and Chair of the Awards Committee
ESB Education and Student Committee
ESB webinar series
On 30 March 2022, we hosted an ESB webinar on OpenFoam (https://www.openfoam.com/) a free, open source CFD software with a large user base across most areas of engineering and science. The webinar presented a summary of OpenFOAM, including the advantages and disadvantages in comparison to other softwares and exploring the possibilities of OpenFOAM from a biomechanical perspective.
Mark in your calendar! Next ESB webinar on “Research Tools for: Collecting, Writing, Publishing and Disseminating your Research” will be on Tuesday, 31st of May and will be conducted by Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim. In this webinar, Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim will introduce the “Research Tools” box, a collection of tools to enable researchers to collect, organize, analyze, visualize and publicize research outputs.
The webinar seeks to serve the following objectives:
- To discover how to more efficiently use the tools that are available through the Net.
- To help students who seek to reduce the search time by expanding the knowledge of researchers to more effectively use the “tools” that are available through the Net.
- To evaluate the types of literature that researchers will encounter.
- To convert the information of the search for a written document.
- To help researchers learn how to search and analyze the right journal to submit.
- To improve their publication’s visibility and impact
The recordings of all webinars can be seen by subscribing to the ESB You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ESBiomech
ESB mobility award
A new call for the ESB Mobility award is open! The ESB Mobility Grant aims to provide ESB members with financial assistance to carry out collaborative research in a foreign country as part of their PhD or postdoctoral research. More information can be found at https://esbiomech.org/student-section/esb-mobility-award/
Social activities at the annual ESB congress
We are super excited to meet everyone in Porto! Check out the following student activities that we are planning and organizing to ensure you make the most out of Porto 2022 (https://esbiomech2022.org/student-events/):
Meet the PI: Experts of your field meet you and your colleagues in small groups for 30 – 50 min to discuss and advice on research and an academic career. Make sure to register if you are interested to join.
Pre-courses: The pre-courses will take place on Sunday, 26th June 2022 and will focus on topics such as artificial intelligence, big data & machine learning, experimental biomechanics, imaging and visualization. Registration is needed.
Start-up competition: Researchers developing biomechanics solutions will have the opportunity to present their ideas to the general public, experts and prospective investors in a dedicated space for pitches.
Student evening: The student networking event will take place on Sunday, 26th June and it is included in the registration fee. Please make sure you register for the event during the registration process. Details of the event are still a surprise, but we can already tell you that the student committee is preparing a fun break-the-ice activity to start the evening!
Conference quiz: Join and participate in our scientific quiz during the conference to meet and discuss with other PhD students. Reply to as many questions as possible regarding PhD students’ posters by having a chat with him or her to get the correct answer. The quickest will receive a surprise!
Women in Biomechanics apero: Join our apero on Monday 27th of June at 6 pm if you are interested in discussing how diversity and inclusivity can be improved in academia, and more specifically in biomechanics. You will have the opportunity to hear the testimonies of inspiring women from our field, followed by informal discussions and exchange on initiatives that could be launched within the ESB. Everyone is welcome! Keep yourself posted via https://esbiomech2022.org/student-events/!
Social networks
Don’t forget to check our social networks where we post the latest news and job offers:
- Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ESBiomech/)
- Facebook students (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ESBiomech.Students/),
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4257919)
- Twitter (https://twitter.com/ESBiomech)
Do you know of a repository, software or conference interesting for the ESB community? Let us know! Contact us (https://esbiomech.org/student-section/) if you have any job to be advertised.
Aurélie Carlier, Chair of ESB Education and Student Committee
Scientific Communications News
CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR ESB-ENDORSED RESEARCH TOPICS IN FRONTIERS OF BIONENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY.
Given the corporate membership of Frontiers of Bioengineering and Biotechnology (see Corporate Partner Section), we will be able to accommodate ESB-endorsed research topics in which ESB members will benefit a 10%reduction on the publication fees.
Interested to propose a research Topic? Contact the science communication Committee.
This will be an open call, but a first round of suggestions is invited before May 15th, 2022. Please send a short description of the Research Topics indicating key contributors. We will communicate selected topics towards the end of June, 2022. Our first research topic will feature a top selection of papers from the ESB2022 Porto conference. Stay tuned for more!
ESB JOURNAL CLUB
On March 8th, 2022 ,we hosted the very first ESB journal club – featuring 4 parallel sessions with presentations by Djordje Slijepcevic, Eleonora Montagnan, Seyed Ali Elahi and Alexandra Tits.
Missed this event? No worries! Check out the links to the Journal Club Pitches and Sessions.
Playlist Journal Club (Pitches) —> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZMn4tzTavRWwDf9-cMwWy2QCX0Y7qgu
Playlist Journal Club (Sessions) > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZMn4tzTavSr8uWFRGPhFQ4J5zYxuUpn
We are planning to repeat the journal club in fall. Stay alert for more communication!
OPEN CALL FOR PHD SCIENCE COMMUNICATION VIDEOS
To enhance science communication, ESB would like to leverage making available video pitch presentation (3 mins) of defended PhDs. In these videos, the candidate is given the opportunity to communicate the thesis work to the broader public, to present his work in layman’s terms and to focuss on the impact of the work to society.
Interested to share your PhD work with the ESB community? – Participate!
Send your video (in mp4) by email to ilse.jonkers@kuleuven.be, together with the proof of PhD acceptance and agreement by your supervisor.
After screening of the video content, the pitch will be made available on the ESB Youtube channel.
Ilse Jonkers, Chair of the ESB Scientific Communications
Treasurer’s report
As the deadline for the early registration to the 2022 ESB Congress in Porto is approaching, it is important to make sure that your ESB membership is up to date. You can verify the status of your membership payment through your Member Area on the ESB webpage. Payments can be done either via Paypal or by bank transfer. If you have chosen the latter, take into account that our records are not immediately updated, and there might be a significant delay in the validation of the payment. Hence, should you need an urgent validation, feel free to send an email to the Treasurer (treasurer[at]esbiomech[dot]org). You can also request to switch from bank transfer to Paypal payment modality. Thank you for supporting the ESB!
Jérôme Noailly, Treasurer of the ESB
Diversity-Inclusion and Membership News
Women in Biomechanics apero at the annual meeting in Porto: Join our apero on Monday 27th of June at 6 pm if you are interested in discussing how diversity and inclusivity can be improved in academia, and more specifically in biomechanics. You will have the opportunity to hear the testimonies of inspiring women from our field, followed by informal discussions and exchange on initiatives that could be launched within the ESB. Everyone is welcome!
Biomechanics and Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. We’re delighted to announce that the biomechanics section of the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology is a new ESB Corporate Member. As part of this partnership, ESB members can benefit from an exclusive 10% discount on the article processing charges when submitting articles to an article collection proposed and led by an ESB member. Please see also the Scientific Communication newsletter section for details on proposals for new article collections.
Mark Thompson, Chair of the Diversity-Inclusion and Membership Committee
ESB National Chapters & External Affairs News
edited by Mark Thompson, Chair of the Membership Committee and Enrico Dall’Ara, Chair of the Meetings and External Affairs Committee
ESB National Chapters
Italian ESB Chapter. The executive board of the Italian Chapter has published in December 2021 the annual newsletter with the description of the prizes and recognitions awarded by Italian students and researchers during the last international meetings. In the next months, the ESB-ITA chapter will propose the following initiatives: -> Annual ESB-ITA congress, 6-7 October 2022, Massa (Italy). The congress will be focused on “Biomechanics in Clinic” -> The ESB-ITA website will be enriched with a section dedicated to the affiliated research groups and related research topic areas, complemented by a map showing the locations
Moreover, the ESB-ITA chapter will promote the 2nd Advanced International School on “Experiments, Modeling and Simulation in Biomechanics & Mechanobiology”, which will be held on 20-24 February 2023 in Rome (Italy). The School aims at delivering an Advanced Training Program in Biomechanics and Mechanobiology merging complementary bits of knowledge from different scientific & clinical fields. Lecturers will be renowned internal scientists offering a broad context of scientific meeting. PhD students affiliated to ESB will have a fee discount. School details will be released in Spring. The Organizers: University of Rome “Campus Bio-Medico”, Alessio Gizzi, Daniele Bianchi; University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Michele Marino, Giuseppe Vairo.
Dr Diana Massai, on behalf of the Italian chapter of the ESB
Spanish ESB Chapter. A few updates from the Spanish ESB chapter: The 10th meeting of the CAP-ESB was held at the University of Granada, on 25-26 October 2021 (more info in Spanish can be found here). The 11th Meeting of the Spanish Chapter of the European Society of Biomechanics will take place in Zaragoza, Spain on 24th-25th October 2022 and it will be organized by the University of Zaragoza.
Dr Alejandro Yánez Santana, on behalf of the Spanish chapter of the ESB
Austrian ESB Chapter. The Austrian ESB chapter is currently planning a conference-type event that will take place in the late summer/early fall, stay tuned!
Prof Christian Hellmich, on behalf of the Austrian chapter of the ESB
Corporate News
Simpleware Synopsys – we have a new release (T-2022.03) that includes updates to our AS Ortho tool for shoulders, and other changes that should be of interest for ESB members. There is a recent blogs on patient specific modelling for predicting total knee outcomes and on-demand content includes webinars on building a 3D medical device ecosystem at Yale and the In Silico workflow from 4D CT to FEA
New Corporate Member BoB Biomechanics is collaborating with Xsens/Movella to deliver the Xsens/BoB Bundle containing everything required for motion data collection and biomechanical analysis.BoB is a world-leading, fully featured biomechanical analysis suite combining a human musculoskeletal model with an easy to use, intuitive interface. BoB can read MVNX files and data can be streamed in real time from MVN Analyze/Plus and MVN Analyze/Pro.
Further information about BoB can be seen in the recent Xsens/BoB webinar which is available on-line at: https://www.xsens.com/watch-webinar/bob-biomechanics-webinar
and on our webpage: https://www.bob-biomechanics.com/xsens-bundle/
If you require any further information about the Xsens/BoB Bundle or have any questions please feel free to contact us at:
Materialise. Ever wish you could reduce the amount of tedious administrative work involved in creating datasets? With this in mind, our team has been hard at work creating a plug-in that will help you keep your focus on the research, rather than admin.
We are pleased to introduce a new plug-in that will work exclusively with Mimics Research 24 — the AI Assistant Plug-in.
You’ll be able to:
- Reduce overheads and increase efficiency
- Utilize your AI model in Mimics
- Postprocess and evaluate your application
You can learn more about it here.
