Àngels López 
Application Deadline: 20/07/2018
Ref: RA2-SS
The nanodevices group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) is looking for Several Research Assistants are required to support research in the field of nano-micro and bio-robotics during the following months until end of the project or tasks assigned.
This week IBEC group leader Elena Martinez is in Toulouse for the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe, where she is taking part as a speaker.Elena, who heads IBEC’s Biomimetic systems for cell engineering group, was invited to take part in the ‘Growing mini-organs on a petri dish: myth or reality’ session by the ERC, which funds her COMIET project with a Consolidator grant. COMIET aims to engineer epithelial tissue models that mimic the physiological characteristics found in the human intestine. Around 40 of the ERC’s grantees have been invited to take part in the funding body’s sessions at ESOF this year.
Last week there was a lot of press coverage of the La Caixa PhD fellowships ceremony, which took place at the Caixaforum on 3rd July.
An IBEC project has won funding from the BBVA Foundation under its ‘Ayudas a Equipos de Investigación en Biomedicina’ funding programme.ICREA research professor Samuel Sánchez’s Smart Nano-Bio-Devices group will receive the support for three years to develop their project ‘MEDIROBOTS: Precision nanobotomy against tumors’.
The project will develop biocompatible robots driven by enzymes with applications as drug release systems whose progress in vitro and in vivo can be traced using advanced molecular imaging techniques such as super-resolution microscopy.
IBEC’s Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group has published a review of the state-of-the-art in biomaterials for skin healing that proposes a move towards more personalized, in situ therapies.Skin wound healing repairs and restore tissue through a complex process that involves different cells and signalling molecules that regulate cellular response and the remodelling of the extracellular matrix. Publishing in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, the article begins by summarizing recent advances in therapies for healing that combine biomolecule signals such as growth factors and cytokines with cells.
A ‘Results in Brief’ article about Elena Martinez’s ERC project COMIET has been published on the CORDIS website, the EC’s Community Research and Development Information Service.
Joan Montero, a senior researcher in IBEC’s Nanobioengineering group, appeared yesterday in an interview published by the SINC Agency in which he talks about his laboratory test – which is already being used in some hospitals in the United States – which is capable of predicting, in just 24 hours, if a drug will be able to kill a tumor.
Last month IBEC Director Josep Samitier was one of the panelists in a round table organised by the Cercle de Salut, an association devoted to improving the health system so that it may respond adequately to the challenges posed by society.In the discussion at the Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona (PRBB) entitled ‘L’excel·lència en la recerca, reptes immediats’, Josep and the other participants – ISGlobal director Antoni Plasencia and IrsiCaixa director Bonaventura Clotet – discussed the current situation of biomedical research in Catalonia. In particular, the hot topic under discussion was the impact that recent regulatory and administrative changes may have on its competitiveness.
IBEC’s Smart-Nano-Bio-Devices and Nanobioengineering groups have joined forces to solve the problem of random movement of micro- and nanomotors.Samuel Sanchez’s group has been forging ahead with its creation of self-propelling micro- and nanodevices in the last few years. These chemically powered ‘swimmers’ are self-propelled by catalytic reactions in fluids – which could be the fluids of our body, or water – and have a number of promising applications, such as targeted drug delivery, environmental remediation, or as pick-up and delivery agents in lab-on-a-chip devices.
An interview with IBEC director Josep Samitier in his capacity as the president of ACER appeared in the ‘Dominical’ supplement of the Diari de Girona last week.