Editorial: Biomaterials at PacRim9

Abstract

The First Pacific Rim Conference on Ceramic and Glass Technology (PacRim1) took place in Hawaii, USA, in 1993. Since then, the PacRim conferences have been held almost every 2 years in different countries around the Pacific Ocean and are strongly supported by the ceramics societies of the Pacific Rim countries. Over the years, PacRim conferences have established themselves as important international meetings in the ceramics field. 15 years after PacRim2, the PacRim conference, as PacRim9, returned to Cairns, Australia, on July10–14, 2011 and provided researchers around the world an excellent forum for presenting the latest results and for discussing the advancement of ceramics science and engineering. There were 23 symposia at PacRim9, with the Biomaterials Symposium being organized by us and our colleagues: Prof. Mike Swain of University of Sydney, Australia; Prof. Besim Ben-Nissan of University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Prof. Toshihiro Kasuga of Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan; and Prof. Mike K. A. Khor of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. We had an excellent response to our call for papers and the Biomaterials Symposium was the second most popular Symposium in terms of number of abstracts submitted. The Symposium nominated Prof. Paul Ducheyne of University of Pennsylvania, USA, as a conference plenary speaker and invited Prof. Serena Best of University of Cambridge, UK, as the Symposium keynote speaker. After carefully considering each submitted abstract, we chose to have 46 oral presentations (including keynote and invited talks) which were organized into 9 sessions spanning 3 days, with each session being started by an invited talk, and 28 poster presentations for the Symposium. The presentations in the Symposium covered a wide range of topics in the biomaterials field: bioceramics in orthopaedics and dentistry, bioactive coatings and interfaces, nanoceramics for biomedical applications, bioceramics in drug delivery applications, bioactive glasses and glass-ceramics, bioceramic-polymer composites, tissue engineering scaffolds and biomimetic materials. The presentations and discussions stimulated the exchange of information and ideas and facilitated potential international collaborations. After PacRim9, on the basis of the relevance and novelty of research results presented at the Symposium and the significance of the topics, potential contributors were invited to write a research or review paper for the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine Special Issue for the PacRim9 Biomaterials Symposium. Having gone through the normal peer-review process of the Journal, 13 papers are accepted and included in this Special Issue, including two review papers, covering a wide range of biomaterials in medicine, namely, bioactive glasses, hydroxyapatite and calcium phosphates, calcium sulphate, functional nanoceramics, iron-encapsulated silica microspheres, polymer-bioceramic composites, advanced coatings with drug delivery function as well as different fabrication methods involving sol-gel techniques, plasma spraying and electrospinning for a variety of applications. As Guest Editors of this Special Issue, we thank all authors for preparing and revising the manuscripts for A. R. Boccaccini (&) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Biomaterials, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Cauerstr. 6, 91058 Erlangen, Germany e-mail: aldo.boccaccini@ww.uni-erlangen.de URL: http://www.biomat.techfak.uni-erlangen.org/