Sarah Moreira 
IBEC and the Blood and Tissue Bank of Catalonia (BST) held a day to explore new collaborations in bioengineering and translational medicine. The meeting, held yesterday at IBEC, highlighted innovative projects, presented a joint PhD programme and strengthened the link between biomedical research and clinical applications.
Research led by IBEC has analysed the antimicrobial activity of human histones against various bacteria, both in solution and in biofilm. The results are very promising and open the door to finding new, more effective treatments, particularly against Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. This bacterium is mainly responsible for the development of chronic wounds and lung failure in patients with cystic fibrosis and other respiratory diseases.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has joined organisations from nine European countries in the Heidelberg Agreement to promote environmental sustainability in the funding of scientific research. The agreement discusses the adoption of practices that ensure environmentally sustainable research and how to move towards this model.
IBEC’s 17th Annual Symposium focused on ‘Bioengineering for Emergent and Advanced Therapies’, one of IBEC’s key application areas. Around 300 people attended the event, including local and international researchers. It was a multidisciplinary environment in which experts from other centres and the IBEC community itself had the opportunity to present their projects and share knowledge.
IBEC is one of the partners in the ambitious European project UNLOOC, a public-private collaboration involving 51 organisations from 10 countries with a budget of €68 million. The consortium aims to develop Organ-on-Chips technologies to reduce the use of animals in drug development and testing, and to improve the accuracy and personalisation of medical treatments.
Researchers from IBEC and ICFO demonstrate the ability of atomic sensors to non-destructively monitor, measure and optimize nuclear spin hyperpolarization of some clinically relevant molecules in real-time. These features, reported in PNAS, could enhance and reduce costs of quality controls used in clinical magnetic resonance imaging.
IBEC principal investigator Zaida Álvarez has received funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop stem cell-based models of the spinal cord. The project, coordinated by Northwestern University with the participation of IBEC and IDIBELL, will make it possible to study neurodegenerative diseases and develop new treatments for spinal cord injuries and other neurodegenerative pathologies.
The second IBEC-WCH Precision Medicine Conference took place last week in Chengdu, China. This is a partnership between the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the West China Hospital (WCH) of Sichuan University, which aims to strengthen scientific collaboration between the two countries.
A team of researchers led by IBEC and ICFO has developed and validated a novel photoelectrochemical electron spectroscopy technique to probe charge separation dynamics, a crucial step for photosynthesis, in photosynthetic complexes.
