The Management Committee meeting for MyWAVE COST Action was held between 13 and 14 January 2020 at Lisbon.
This project, led by Dr Lourdes Farrugia from the Department of Physics brings together over 200 researchers from 31 different countries with the main aim to advance Electromagnetic Hyperthermic medical technologies.
Over 50 researchers attended the two-day meeting with very fruitful discussions on understanding the interaction of electromagnetic fields with different organs, optimisation techniques of the technology and also examples of successful translation of such medical devices from research bench to patient bedside.
Members of the Electromagnetics research group, led by Prof. Charles Sammut, are actively participating in this project and gave three presentations during this meeting.
Dr Iman Farhat gave a presentation on a new alternative method of characterising the interaction of biological tissues, showing the robustness of the method compared to other methods usually used for measurements of dielectric properties. This is part of an ongoing collaboration with Dr Raffaele Persico from University of Lecce, Italy.
The use of gold nanoparticles to optimise current hyperthermic technologies was discussed by Mr Julian Bonello and Mr Federico Rossi from University College London, UK. In this study they investigated gold nanoparticles of different sizes and configurations. Lastly, Ms Simona di Meo from University of Pavia reported on very interesting findings from a study conducted in Malta in collaboration with the Prof. Jean Calleja Agius and her team from the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. During this study different biological tissues obtained from both animal and humans were investigated, helping the community to achieve a consensus on best measurement practices.
These two studies featured results from an exchange visit funded by MyWAVE COST Action using one of the networking tools referred to as Short Term Scientific Mission.