The symposium was opened by Gabriel Capellá, Head of Research and Innovation in the Generalitat’s Department of Health, and Jordi Alberch, vice-rector of the UB, and the first keynote speaker was former IBEC director Josep A. Planell with his entertaining presentation ‘Everything you wanted to know about IBEC’s history that nobody told you before’. Later in the day, Josep was presented with a goodbye gift, and both Capellá and Alberch and SAB president Jean Louis Coatrieux thanked him for his dedication at the helm of the institute for the past seven years.
Other keynote speakers this year were IBEC’s George Altankov, new SAB members Jocelyne Troccaz and Bernat Soria, and Albert van den Berg from the University of Twente. Themis Toumanidou of the Biomechanics and Mechanobiology group won the prize for Best Flash Presentation, and Zaida Álvarez from the Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group won Best Poster.
