Third annual PLS consortium meeting

On the 4th and 5th of October, the third consortium meeting of the international project “Perinatal Life Support (PLS)” was held in Aken, Germany. The PLS Advocate Advisory Board (AAB) and the PLS Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) were also present. The AAB got together for a co-creation session to gather the members’ perspectives, ideas and recommendations for the PLS system as a whole. The SAB met to discuss questions and provide recommendations to the PLS consortium. 

The PLS project aims to develop a Perinatal Life Support (PLS) system to increase the chances of survival for extremely premature born babies (born between 24-28 weeks). For these babies, the chances of survival increases with each day in the PLS system, which serves as a replacement for an incubator. During the consortium meeting in Aken, the developments and results obtained during the past half year of the project were presented and discussed with the consortium partners.

The AAB session was organized in a focus group form to get a general idea about the different opinions of the AAB members. The results of the session were summarized and will remain accessible for all researchers throughout the project, to continuously inform them about the AAB’s points to consider during development of the PLS system. The sessions aim to open the dialogue between the parents/experts and the scientists and will continue to be held throughout the duration of the project.  Topics that were discussed among the SAB were ethics, governance of the project and technical aspects of the device. Recommendations were communicated to the PLS consortium during a fruitful meeting. 

Together, the PLS partners provide joint medical, engineering, and mathematical expertise to develop and validate the Perinatal Life Support system using breakthrough simulation technologies. The interdisciplinary consortium will push the development of these technologies forward and combine them to establish the first ex vivo fetal maturation system for clinical use. This project, coordinated by the Eindhoven University of Technology brings together world-leading experts in obstetrics, neonatology, industrial design, mathematical modelling, ex vivo organ support, and non-invasive fetal monitoring.