Àngels López

Today, the tenth international Rare Disease Day, IBEC is taking part in an event at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu.

Organised by the Federación Española de Enfermedades Raras (FEDER), the Federació Catalana de Malalties Minoritàries (FECAMM) and the Plataforma de Malalties Minoritàries, and supported by GENCAT, CatSalut and the Parlament de Catalunya, the open conference will emphasize the importance of research in tackling rare diseases.

Josep Samitier will take part in a round table at the conference, during which he will present bioengineering applied to rare diseases.

On Friday last week MECHANO-CONTROL, the largest European project ever coordinated at IBEC, held its kick-off meeting at the institute.

Pere Roca-Cusachs’ project, which is funded by H2020’s FET Proactive programme, will focus on understanding and controlling how cells transmit and detect mechanical forces, with the aim of coming up with new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches for cancer and other diseases.

Saturday 11th February is the UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a chance for everyone to take a stand against gender inequality in research.

According to a study conducted in 14 countries, the probability for female students of graduating with a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and PhD in science-related field are 18%, 8% and 2% respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37%, 18% and 6% (UN).

At IBEC in 2016, female PhD students (38) outnumbered male (29), as did technicians (17 female and 11 male), but in other positions they lag behind.

Today the IBEC-managed Spanish Nanotechnology Platform, NanoMed Spain, co-hosted the fourth edition of Nano World Cancer Day 2017, a global initiative organized as part of World Cancer Day.

It’s the second year running that the platform has hosted the conference, which took place at Vall d’Hebron Instituto de Oncología (VHIO) and was opened by Josep Tabernero, Director of VHIO, and IBEC/NanoMed Spain’s Josep Samitier, who also gave a talk.