ESSKA awards
ESSKA has recognised research associates Brandon Ziegenfuss and Dr Jashint Maharaj with Basic Science Abstract awards. The award funds attendance at international conferences in order to present research.
What ESSKA is
ESSKA is the European Society for Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy, a professional society for surgeons and researchers working on sports injuries and keyhole joint surgery. Societies of this kind do three main things. They hold a scientific congress at which new research is presented and argued over, they run education for surgeons and trainees, and they support research through committees, grants and awards such as this one. Membership is international, and the congress is one of the places in Europe where work on the shoulder, knee and other joints is first put in front of an audience of peers.
What a basic science abstract is
An abstract is a short structured summary of a piece of research, usually a few hundred words, submitted to a meeting in advance and assessed by reviewers who decide whether it is accepted for presentation. Basic science, as distinct from clinical research, deals with the underlying mechanisms rather than with patients directly: the behaviour of tissue, the biology of healing, the mechanical strength of a repair tested in a laboratory. It is slower to reach the clinic than a clinical study, and it is often what makes a later clinical study worth doing at all.
Why it matters
Getting research in front of an international audience is a practical problem as much as an academic one: the cost of travelling to present is a real barrier for early-career researchers, and awards of this kind exist to remove it. Presenting at a meeting also means defending the work in front of people who will challenge it, which is a useful discipline.
Recent publication
Mr Ziegenfuss has also recently published in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery. The abstract is available via this link.
Photo credit: Ashish Gupta and Brandon Ziegenfuss.