www.swissbiomat.ch
A Personal Website on Biomaterials and Related Sciences

This personal website on biomaterials and related sciences has been created to offer freely to the reader some documented information through the following sections:
an Editorial, reflecting the ideas of the Editor, writer and webmaster, assuming the responsibility of the entire site,
a Main Article, which refers to the topics of the issue,
and three short features:
- Questions To... an actor in the field of biomaterials in Switzerland,
- A Company Profile, presenting the company related to that actor, and the
- "Pearl of the Web", a Web site selected for its particular richness in valuable information.

About the site
First things first, this is a personal website, and this means that I am the author of all the written content (except when duly mentioned otherwise). Having no commercial interest in any of the products or companies mentioned in this or the future issues, I feel free to express my personal thoughts, and to provide the thoughts and experience of others, about any product or company, keeping in mind that my chief objective is to provide the audience with information which is as unbiased and as fair towards the mentioned products or companies – as it is humanly possible. I have also created this site to keep me in close contact with the science of biomaterials, now that I am retired, and to try to remain both creative and useful to this audience.
The name of the site was simply chosen and established about 10 years ago as a possible site name for the Swiss Society for Biomaterials. It has never been used by this Society, which has created its own site under the name of ssb.biomaterials.com. Having maintained the name swissbiomat.ch for so long, I felt simply convenient to use it now for this online publication. However, I want to mention clearly here that it doesn't reflect the opinion or content of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials in any way, even if I keep a close personal contact with this Society.

About the Editorial
This the place where I express my personal opinion on specific subjects concerning biomaterials, tissue regeneration and tissue engineering, and science in general, and which are not always directly related to the main topic of the issue.
This is also the place where the overall content of the issue is shortly presented.

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About the Main Article
Each issue is devoted to a specific subject, which can be found at the top of the home page, just above the volume and issue numbers and the month of publication. This subject is then developed in the Main Article, which provides once again a personal view on that subject, as it is perceived through some personal experience or through a review of the most recent literature, from the widest possible sources.
For this first issue, the main topics is the changes in dental biomaterials. The introduction of new technologies, and a change in the expectation of the patients have drastically altered the traditional range of products. A study of these alterations has been the subject of a conference presented at the last annual meeting of the European Prosthodontics Association, last September 2003 in Geneva. The present article is directly based on that presentation.

About the Short Features
In each issue, three short features are presented: Question To…, A Company Profile, and the “Pearl of the Web”.
The Questions are addressed to a personality active in the field of biomaterials or of tissue engineering in Switzerland. They are intended to offer a personal view on some aspects of biomaterials research and / or industry. In the present issue, Dr Kurt Ruffieux, the head of the company Degradable Solutions AG, located in Zurich, will be the first to face those questions.
The Company Profile will offer a closer view of the company or institution where the person facing the questions is active. Degradable Solutions AG has received recently two awards, which distinguished some of the achievements of that company: being part of the “Top Ten” most innovative products presented at the International Dental Show (IDS) in Cologne in 2003, and the Swiss Technology Award 2004, both for the same product, called RootReplica. This profile will give an idea about the philosophy of the company and its main products.

The “Pearl of the Web” is a website selected by www.swissbiomat.ch for its particularly rich scientific and informative content, in the broad field of biomaterials and tissue regeneration and tissue engineering. The first site selected is www.biomat.net , well known already by many of those reading this editorial, but whose content is so rich and so generally useful that it deserved without hesitation to be mentioned before any others in this publication.

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About the Glossary
The readership of a website is by definition very broad, and some of the subjects treated in this publication may not necessarily be familiar to some readers. Some specific terms cited in the main article or in the short features, which could not be part of the basic vocabulary of the average reader, will be defined on the spot, and those definitions collected in the Glossary section. Thus, issue after issue, a growing glossary will then be constructed and permanently available.

About the Resources
The main article is based on many references, which have been found pertinent with the subject. These references, both from the written literature and from the web, will be collected in the Resources section, and grouped by subject or keywords, for further use. Here again, the richness will be in the accumulation of these references and their easy access.

Some outlook
Since all of this is mainly a one-man activity, the regularity of the publication dates cannot be guaranteed. A frequency of one issue every two months is the goal. However, the difficulties of some subjects may postpone the publishing date of one or an other issue. The next two main topics will be “Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering” and “Zirconia as a Biomaterial”.
A list of potentially interested persons is presently built, and all of those on that list will be personally informed by e-mail of the publishing date of the next issue. Efforts will also be made to get this site mentioned in specialized web portals and searching motors.
If you have been interested in this first issue, mention it to your colleagues and friends, and hopefully it will have its audience growing.

Acknowledgements
As already mentioned, this is mainly a one man operation. It would not have been possible, however, without the generous support of some instances, like the Committee for Informatics of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva, and mainly its President, Pr Antoine Geissbuhler. Thanks to his efforts, this site is now hosted by a server of the that Faculty, insuring safeguarding of the content and efficient availability to the web community. My former colleagues professors at the School of Dental Medicine, University of Geneva, have also gracefully granted their academic support to that enterprise. I am also very grateful to all the people who are giving me some of their time, either by answering my Questions To…, or by guiding me in the treacherous alleys and back alleys of constructing and maintaining a website. I would like also to thank the various companies and individuals who have, and will, let me mention or display some of their pictures or contents. I will duly mention the origin of those matters, but if, by misfortune, I may forget to cite properly one of those origins, I already apologize to those who may have been thus deprived of the proper recognition. This site having absolutely no commercial interest in any of the subjects, companies or products mentioned here, I hope to be forgiven for my mistakes.

You, The Reader, have the right to complain to me directly in case of dissatisfaction, as you have the possibility to let me know of your comments. You can always contact me at my e-mail address: Jean-Marc.Meyer@medecine.unige.ch , with the mention “swissbiomat” in the subject of your message.

I now hope that your pleasure in navigating across this site will be as big as mine in preparing it !

July 2004 Jean-Marc Meyer

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