Review Bioinspired 2018

The fourth Euro Bio-inspired Materials 2018 took place in Potsdam, Germany from 18 – 22 March, 2018. With more than 150 delegates from 21 countries, it was once again a very successful conference by bringing together the Bio-inspired community.

Amongst the participants were numerous students and young researchers who met for an intensive exchange of science and networking during four days, between the oral sessions and also during the very lively poster sessions every evening until 11pm.

The concept of this conference with no parallel sessions allowed all participants to attend every talk. It offered a series of themed morning and evening sessions, with excellent and inspiring invited talks given by:

• Optoregulated biomaterials
  Prof. Aránzazu del Campo Bécares, INM Leibniz Institute for New Material, Saarbrücken (Germany)
• Biomimetic Nanoparticles and their Self-Organization
  Prof. Nicholas A. Kotov, The Kotov Lab, University of Michigan (USA)
• Imaging crystallite orientation patterns in biological and bio-inspired materials
  Prof. Helga Lichtenegger, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria)
• Plants and Plant Materials in Motion
  Dr. Michaela Eder, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam (Germany)

In a special session, Wednesday afternoon Tomas Brage from the Lund University (Sweden) , reported about “Gender in Research and Innovation” and Corinna Bath from the Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany) about „How to avoid bias in artefacts? Approaches to technology design and innovation“.

Furthermore, selected posters were presented in 5 minute flash presentations on Monday and Thursday evening subsequent before the poster discussions. A prize was awarded by the Springer publishing house to the best three following posters:

1. The seed dispersal unit in Avena sterilis: A hygroscopic-driven actuator
   Tom Lindtner, J. Kneipp, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Germany); R. Elbaum, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot (Israel)
2. The versatile usage of wrinkled surfaces
   Bernhard Alexander Glatz, A. Fery, Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (Germany)
3. Biomineralization of Materials made of Engineered Spider Silk Proteins
   Vanessa Wicklein, J. Hardy, K. Schacht, T. Scheibel, University of Bayreuth (Germany)

We would like to thank all the keynote speakers, authors and participants for making this an outstanding conference.

The 5^th Bio-inspired will be taking place end of March, 2020 in Bavaria. We are looking forward to seeing you again!

Conference Chairs

• Prof. Joachim Bill, Universität Stuttgart (Germany)
• Prof. Peter Fratzl, Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Potsdam (Germany)
• Prof. Thomas Scheibel, Universität Bayreuth (Germany)

The 5^th Bioinspired Materials will be held from 16 – 19 March 2020 in the Irsee Monastery Swabian Conference and Educational Centre.

Conference Organiation
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde e.V.
c/o INVENTUM GmbH
Alexia Ploetz
Marie-Curie-Straße 11-13
D-53757 Sankt Augustin
T +49 (0) 151 2122 7448
E-Mail: bio-inspired@dgm.de
https://bioinspired2018.dgm.de