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Àngels López

Saber Vivir programme: Día de Riñon

nuria_rtveIBEC’s junior group leader Nuria Montserrat appeared on RTVE’s channel 1 programme Saber Vivir earlier this month, when they had an episode devoted to kidney disease and research.

In a brief interview filmed at IBEC, Nuria explained the two pillars of her current research: to create viable kidney cells in the lab that can be implanted in vivo, and to study the signals that are necessary to encourage the kidney to regenerate itself.

SAB members in town for hybrid materials conference

sitgesThis week some of IBEC’s Scientific Advisory Board members are visiting to take part in the Fourth International Conference on Multifunctional, Hybrid and Nanomaterials (Hybrid Materials 2015), which is taking part in Sitges until Friday.

Molly Stevens from Imperial College London and Samuel Stupp of Northwestern University, who is president of IBEC’s SAB, will both give featured talks at the international meeting, which attracts 900 participants from over 50 countries for its 306 oral presentations and over 970 poster presentations.

“I am (Dr) Robot”

timeoutmar2015The March edition of Time Out Barcelona (English version) features IBEC’s spin-off, Rob Surgical Systems, in an article about technology in Barcelona.

“Drugs on Demand”

Photopharmacologyc&i-1Pau Gorostiza and his work on photoswitchable peptides features in an article in the February edition of C&I Magazine, a monthly science and business magazine published by SCI.

Presentation of EIT Health Spain at the PCB

eitwebOn Tuesday March 10 the official presentation of EIT-Health Spain will be taking place at the PCB.

This local node of EIT-Health, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s “Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC)” for healthy living and active aging, is led by the University of Barcelona coordinated by IBEC Director Josep Samitier, Dr. Jordi Alberch, Vice President for Research, Innovation and Transfer at the UB, and Dr. Montserrat Vendrell, Director General of the PCB and BIOCAT.

The event will be attended by Secretary of State Carmen Vela, as well as other institutional representatives of the ministries involved: the Generalitat de Catalunya, Comunidad de Madrid and the Generalitat Valenciana.

A major step towards repairing the spinal cord

OECs_smResearchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia and their collaborators reveal that they’re a step closer to optimizing cells able to guide regeneration of the spine

The olfactory system is an area of the body that can renew itself, and it does this by using olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) to guide newly formed axons – long projections of nerve cells – towards the body’s central nervous system. Naturally, researchers have already tried transplanting OECs to the spine, to see if this ability also works to promote axonal regeneration in spinal cord injuries and neural diseases.

IBEC and Genomica create joint unit for research and development of diagnostic devices

SONY DSCIBEC and Genomica S.A.U. (Grupo Zeltia), the leading Spanish company in molecular diagnostics, announce the creation of a Joint Research Unit that will provide an operational framework for close interaction on various R&D activities related to healthcare.

The unit, which will be located at IBEC’s headquarters in Barcelona, will see researchers and industry technicians sharing a host of know-how and in-house capabilities to develop and bring to market point-of-care diagnostic products and other medical devices and technologies.

‘Fracking’ found in living tissues

IBEC_fracking tejidos webIn an article published in the journal Nature Materials, researchers at the IBEC and the UPC describe their discovery that ‘fracking’takes place in the body at a cellular level.

The work describes how hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’ – most commonly known as the controversial technique to extract gas and petroleum from shale rock layers – also plays an important role in the epithelial tissues that lining the internal and external surfaces of our bodies.

“Miniriñones de laboratorio”

montserrat_miniriñonesNew IBEC group leader Nuria Montserrat is featured in an article in El Mundo today.

The story discusses her ERC grant, the work she has been doing generating “mini-kidneys” from human pluripotent stem cells, and how she will continue this important line of research at IBEC.