Guest Editorial

First Latin American Congress for Artificial Organsand Biomaterials

The First Latin American Congress for ArtificialOrgans and Biomaterials was held from December10 to 13, 1998, in Minas Gerais, a state in the middleof Brazil. Belo Horizonte was the chosen city as thehost of this congress because of its historical andcultural relevance. Only 100 years old and number-ing over 2 million inhabitants, Belo Horizonte, thecapital of Minas Gerais, was recently considered bythe Population Crisis Committee of the United Na-tions as the top-ranking metropolis of Latin Americain terms of quality of life.

It was a great pleasure for us to organize this jointcongress because we could meet many importantpeople from different countries and share informa-tion from the most recent studies and research inartificial organs and biomaterials in Latin America.It was a dream for us to organize this first congress,which became a reality only because Prof. YukihikoNose had always encouraged us and because of thevaluable support of the International Society for Ar-tificial Organs (ISAO), the Financier for Studies andProjects (FINEP), the Foundation for Research Sup-port of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG), theadministration of the Federal University of MinasGerais (UFMG), and the Brazilian Institute of Bio-materials (IBB).

This congress provided the opportunity to concen-trate on two very proximal fields, artificial organsand biomaterials. Taking advantage of the occasionand with the objective to promote the research inthese two fields, we founded a new society, the LatinAmerican Society of Artificial Organs and Biomate-rials (SLABO).

The main goal of this congress was the incentive todisseminate the research and development of artifi-cial devices. This event brought together profession-als from the biological, technical, and commercial

areas, thus creating an opportunity for broad debateson current problems and future prospects throughlectures, seminars, panels, and courses.

We believe that this first congress was successfulbecause we had 107 papers presented (50 in bioma-terials, 28 in artificial organs, 11 in surgery, 10 indentistry prostheses, and 8 in other fields) with atotal of 419 attendants (110 Doctors, 45 Master’s,179 Undergraduates, 63 businessmen, and 22 politi-cians). In this special issue, we present some of thesepapers, trying to give to Artificial Organs’ readers anoverview of research areas in different Latin Ameri-can countries. The preparation of this issue was verydifficult because English is not the native languageof some authors. We are sure that the merit for fi-nalizing this Special Issue must be given to JoanneElser, the Artificial Organs Executive Editor.

We would like to invite all researchers to join ournext congress, which will be held in December 2000.To receive more information, please contact us.Also, additional information will be available in thisjournal in the near future.

Aron AndradeGuest Editor

Institute Dante Pazzanese of CardiologyDepartment of BioengineeringAv. Dr. Dante Pazzanese, 500Sao Paulo, Brazil, 04012–180

Marcos PinottiGuest Editor

Federal University of Minas GeraisDepartment of Mechanical Engineering

Av. Antonio Carlos, 6627Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil 31270-901

Artificial Organs24(3):167, Blackwell Science, Inc.© 2000 International Society for Artificial Organs

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