The Biomechanics and Spine Research Group (BSRG) attended the 2024 Spine Society of Australia’s (SSA) 35th Annual Scientific Meeting held in Sydney April 5-7. 137 abstracts were submitted for consideration from over 20 countries, with 57 papers selected for podium presentations and 35 posters for display. The BSRG team had four Podium Presentations and a Top Ten poster and were honoured with winning two of the SSA meeting’s annual awards.
Maree Izatt won the ‘Best Paper Award for the best oral presentation at the meeting’ and Dr Lionel Rayward won the ‘Clayton Adam Award for the best paper presentation by a junior research scientist’. The Clayton Adam award was introduced by the Spine Society of Australia in 2018 when the QUT BSRG Team’s long-standing Research Director, Prof. Clayton Adam, aged 45, passed away due to cancer just prior to the 2018 meeting. It was a great tribute to him and his stellar contribution to the field of spine biomechanics and scoliosis research that the SSA Executive created this award in his honour, and the BSRG team are very proud to have won it again, now in its seventh year of being offered.
SSA Best Paper Award: Perception Matters: Severity of cosmetic deformity in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis cannot be subjectively assessed (Authors: Suresh S, Perera P, Stubbs A, Izatt MT, Labrom RD, Askin GN, Little JP)
SSA Clayton Adam Award: Engineering the perfect mattress: Investigating biomechanical advantages of tri-phasic foam behaviour on the average male (Authors: Rayward L, Kerr G, Pearcy M, Little JP)