With AABB come and gone, members of the organization who attended the conference reflected on their favorite sights and moments at AABB 19. This was the first time the AABB annual meeting was in San Antonio since 2001. 

Here are what they considered the coolest things they saw: 

Adrienne Mendoza, Vice President, Global Quality, BBG: 

“The cool thing I saw was diversity. Members from around the world converged to learn, collaborate, celebrate and address challenges. Young blood, cell therapy and clinical professionals were in strong representation. Many Spanish-language sessions were provided, and a number of speakers were from Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was the most diverse group I’ve seen. Bodes well for the future of the AABB.” 

Promise Trevino, Corporate Account Executive, QualTex: 

Canadian researchers have made an important advancement in creating synthetic antibodies, which could hold the key for the body to repair itself.

The team at the University of Toronto has been working for more than a decade on developing synthetic antibodies for broad applications. The study was published in the journal eLife.

“This is a cool idea to engineer antibodies to mimic key growth factors known as Wnt proteins,” said Scott Jones, Vice President, Scientific Affairs at BioBridge Global. “Wnt proteins regulate stem and progenitor cells. These proteins play a fundamental role in development and tissue repair.”