Chemmat’s Senior Lecturer, Dr Jenny Malmström was invited to speak in the biomaterial surfaces and interfaces session at the Pacific Rim Symposium of Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces. The conference was held at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort and Spa, Hawaii, from 2-6 December, 2018. Jenny spoke about work from her group functionalising proteins with iron particles as well as their efforts in using block copolymers to create functional biointerfaces. Her talk was received well, probably partly due to the open bar at the rear of the lecture hall!

Apart from the plenary lecture and few selected talks, Jenny mainly attended the ‘bio-session’, which was very relevant to her research area. Two of these bio-sessions were devoted to celebrating 35 years of NESAC/BIO and showcased high profile speakers who are or have been associated with this centre over the last 23 years. Highlights included talks by Sally McArthur (Swinburne, AUS), Tobias Weidner (Aarhus, DK), Buddy Ratner (Washington) and David Castner (Washington). The conference also included sessions on energy harvesting and storage, nanomaterials, plasma processing and thin films. There was one plenary lecture, given by Mauricio Terrones on defects in 2D metal dichalcogenides and their effects on the material properties.