Following the success of 6 previous International Conferences on the Development of Biomedical Engineering (BME) in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, International University (IU) of Vietnam National Universities in Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), organized the 7th one (BME7) in HCM City from June 27-29, 2018. The BME7 was presided by Prof. Huynh Thanh Dat, President of VNU-HCM and Dr. Ho Nhat Quang, Vice Rector of IU. Prof. Vo Van Toi, Chair of the BME Department of IU and Prof. Le Hoai Quoc, President of Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) were the Conference General Chair and Dr. Le Quoc Trung, a BME IU faculty, was the Conference Local Chair. Prof. Huynh Thanh Dat gave an opening speech, recommendations and best wishes.
The theme of BME7 was Translational Health Science and Technology for Developing Countries. This Conference featured 202 papers, including 145 oral talks and 57 posters, of about 500 authors and co-authors from 19 countries including Australia, Canada, China, Czech, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. Besides Vietnam, 3 countries had the most contributors were United Kingdom, Korea and United States. Fifteen distinguished Keynote Speakers gave their talks either in plenary sessions for the general public or in parallel sessions in in-depth specific topics. They were:
(1) Prof. Jeff Bulte, Professor of Radiology, Oncology, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA; (2) Professor Nigel Culkin, Professor of Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Development, Fellow and Past-President of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), University of Hertfordshire, UK; (3) Prof. Guillaume Haiat, Senior Research Director, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris, France; (4) Prof. Sunderesh S. Heragu, Professor and Head of School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Donald and Cathey Humphreys Chair, Oklahoma State University, USA; (5) Prof. Beom-Jin Lee, Dean of College of Pharmacy, Ajou University, Head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Development Agency, Korean Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Associations, Korea; (6) Prof. Yung-cang Li, Professor of School of Engineering, RMIT University, Australia; (7) Prof. Paul Milgram, Professor of University of Toronto, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, Toronto, Canada; (8) Prof. Nam-Trung Nguyen, Professor and Director of Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia; (9) Prof. Ruth Nussinov, Professor and Senior Principal Investigator of National Cancer Institute and Tel Aviv University, Israel; (10) Prof. Wellington Pham, Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, USA; (11) Prof. Evan Y. Snyder, Professor of Stanford Burnham Prebys (SBP) Medical Discovery Institute, Director of Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Director of Stem Cell Research Center, Stanford Children’s Health Research Center, USA; (12) Prof. Masahiro Takei, Professor and Vice Dean of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Medical System Engineering, Chiba University, Japan; (13) Prof. Alex Vitkin, Professor of Medical Biophysics and Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Canada; (14) Prof. Cui Wen, Distinguished Professor of School of Engineering, RMIT University, Australia; (15) Prof. Ping Xue, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, China.
Furthermore, 15 Invited Speakers gave their talks or tutorial lectures in the parallel sessions including: Medical Instrumentations and Entrepreneurship, Biomaterials and 3D Printing, Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery Systems, Biophotonics, Biomechanics, Translational Health Science and Technology for Developing Countries, Recent computational and experimental advances in molecular medicine, Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering, Lap-on-a-chip & Point of care technologies, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Public Health: Cancer Therapy and Reconstructive surgery, and Advanced Technologies in Sleep Diagnosis and Sleep Medicine.
Delegations from different parts of the world participated to the BME 7
In addition to these activities, a memorable event at the BME7 was the Award Ceremony of the Keylab to Prof. Ruth Nussinov, Professor and Senior Principal Investigator of National Cancer Institute (US) and Tel Aviv University, Israel; and the Signing Ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between IU and Chung Hsing National University, Taiwan as well as the MOU between the Biomedical Engineering Departments of IU and of Gwanju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea.
MOU Signing Ceremony between BME-IU and Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, GIST. From left to right: Prof. Vo Van Toi Ph.D., Chair of Department of Biomedical Engineering, International University of Vietnam National Universities – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Prof. Raekil Park M.D. Ph.D., Chair of Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, GIST.
In addition, another noteworthy event at BME7 was the Vietnam-United Kingdom (VN-UK) Newton Workshop in the BME field under the auspice of Researcher Links workshop grant delivered by British Council. This is the second time we have the privilege to organize such a workshop to gather researchers from the UK and Vietnam together to determine the opportunities for long term collaboration. The mentors of the workshop included Prof. Le Hoai Quoc (SHTP) and Prof. Vo Van Toi (BME IU), Prof. Tony Cass (Imperial College London) and Prof. Nguyen T.K Thanh (University College London). The coordinators were Dr. Cecile Perrault – Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK and Dr. Huynh Chan Khon, Lecturer at BME-IU. The workshop aimed to establish Microfluidics, Nanomaterials, and Point-of-Care networks and stimulate collaborations on the R&D, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship between UK and Vietnam. It gathered 15 experts from 11 UK well-known institutions, more than 20 experts from different research, education and business institutions in Vietnam, and representatives of British Council. Eleven UK universities including: (1) University College London, (2) Imperial College London, (3) University of Sheffield, (4) Newcastle University, (5) Coventry University, (6) University of Brighton, (7) University of Oxford, (8) University of Cambridge, (9) Manchester Metropolitan University (10) University of Portsmouth and (11) Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam. Mr. Nguyen Minh Tuan, Head of Vietnam Ministry of Health’s Medical Equipment and Construction Department was the main invited speaker. The last day of the workshop was devoted to a round-table discussion among researchers. Several funding agencies in Vietnam and UK were introduced. Many collaborative projects were identified to pave the way for follow-up concrete research proposals to be submitted for funding.
Several BME companies exhibited their products during the conference. Other activities included a field trip to visit manufacturers in SHTP. A banquet and social events were also organized to introduce to the international guests Vietnamese culture.
The Proceedings of the conference will be published in the “IFMBE Proceedings Series” which is a book series, owned by the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) and published by Springer. The book series publishes the proceedings of all IFMBE conferences as printed books as well as electronic books on CD/DVD and Springer content platform link.springer.com. Every paper receives a DOI, and is fully citable and recognized by several indexing services. IFMBE Proceedings are indexed by ISI Proceedings (Thomson Reuters), Scopus, Scimago, and Google scholar.
The BME7 organizers would like to thank the following sponsors: VNU-HCM, IU, Office of Naval Research Global, VNPT, IFMBE, NAFOSTED, SHTP, Newton Fund, British Council, Korea United Pharm. Inc., CUBE DCM Korea, Vitech Development Co. Ltd., T&N Trading and Investment Co. Ltd., Tan Mai Thanh Medical and Instrument Co. Ltd., BCE Vietnam Co. Ltd., Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, Cao Thang International Eye Hospital, SISG Group, EST Co. JSC., PTK Co. Ltd. and many others. Appreciations also go to Prof. Nguyen T.K Thanh from UCL, UK for sponsoring the Best Poster Presentation Award.
More information on the BME7 can be found at: http://csc.hcmiu.edu.vn/bmeconf/bme2018/ .
Notes:
Vietnam National Universities in Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) is one of the two leading university networks in Vietnam reporting directly to the Prime Minister of the country. It was founded in January 1995 and currently has 7 university members and several research institutions for a total of more than 5,600 staff (including 2,600 teaching staff), and 55,000 full-time undergraduate, 9,500 Master and 680 PhD students. International University (IU) is a special member of VNU-HCM and it is the only university of the system that fosters a Biomedical Engineering Department.
International University (IU) of VNU-HCM was established in 2003 to be a platform to promote the reform of higher education in Vietnam. It is the first public university that teaches all courses in English. It has extensive collaborations with many universities in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. At IU there are more than 7,000 students, 250 faculty and 100 staff.
The Biomedical Engineering Department (BME) at IU was established in 2009. It offers the accredited degree of Engineer in Biomedical Engineering (an equivalent of the BS BME in the U.S.) and the accredited degree of Master in BME. Its activities concentrate on the Design and Applications of Medical Devices to satisfy the urgent need of the country. Other activities include Signal and Image Processing, Pharmaceutical Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. The Department promotes the close relationship between Education, Research and Entrepreneurship. Its motto is: High Quality, Sustainability and Usefulness. It has more than 300 undergraduate and graduate students and 17 faculty and staff. In December 2015 the BME IU undergraduate program was evaluated by the ASEAN University Network (AUN) and ranked as the best in Vietnam and 2nd best in ASEAN of all programs assessed by AUN.
Professor Vo Van Toi, Chair of the BME Department, obtained his Ph.D in Micro-Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland in 1983. From 1983-1984 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Health Science and Technology Division (HST), a joint program of Harvard-MIT (USA). From 1984 to 2009 he was a faculty of the School of Engineering at Tufts University. He was co-chair of the joint educational programs between the School of Engineering and School of Medicine, and between the School of Engineering and School of Dental Medicine. From 1991 to 1992 he was on sabbatical from Tufts to be a Research Professor at the Scheie Eye Research Institute of University of Pennsylvania (USA). From 1992 to 1994 he helped create and was the Vice-Director of the Eye Research Institute in Sion (Switzerland). He was instrumental in establishing the BME Department at Tufts in 2003. From 2004 to 2007 he was nominated by President G. Bush to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), a U.S. federal agency established by the U.S. Congress to bring the U.S. and Vietnam closer through educational exchanges related to science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and technology. From 2007 to 2009 he was on leave from Tufts to be the Executive Director of VEF. In 2009 he resigned from VEF and took an early retirement from Tufts to go back to Vietnam to establish and chair the BME Department at IU. His research interests include Design and Applications of Medical Devices, Mechanism of Human Visual System, Ophthalmology, and Telemedicine.
For more information, please contact:
Professor Vo Van Toi, Chair
Biomedical Engineering Department
International University – Vietnam National Universities
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Tel: (84-8) – 37 24 42 70 Ext. 3237
Website: www.hcmiu.edu.vn/bme
Email: vvtoi@hcmiu.edu.vn
