Mechanobiology of intestinal organoids Xavier Trepat, IBEC Intestinal organoids capture essential features of the intestinal epithelium such as folding of the crypt, spatial compartmentalization of different cell types, and cellular movements from crypt to villus-like domains. Each of these processes and their coordination in time and space requires patterned physical forces that are currently unknown. ... Read more
The volitional brain in action: counterfactual error and the virtualization of memory Volitional motor control can be seen as the result of a gradual replacement of feedback by feedforward control. We have addressed this question from the perspective of an integrated architecture called the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) theory of mind and brain. DAC proposes ... Read more
Targeted drug delivery: fundamental aspects and translational applications Silvia Muro, IBEC The design of strategies to enable efficient and safe delivery of therapeutic agents to areas of the body requiring intervention is an active research field. Therapeutic targets are often confined to specific regions or tissues in the body, where access may require active transport ... Read more
Improving lung cancer management by reengineering tumor-associated fibroblasts Jordi Alcaraz, UB facultat de Medicina & IBEC Associated Researcher Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death due in part to subtoptimal patient responses to current therapies, which have been largely designed to targeting cancer cell abnormalities. However, there is a paradigm shift in cancer ... Read more
Breaking Paradigms: Delivering insulin orally Ester Caffarel, MIT Biologics have revolutionized disease treatment; however, their rapid degradation and poor absorption in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract generally limit their administration to parenteral routes. Devices for the oral delivery of biologics must aid in both localization and permeation to achieve systemic drug uptake. For this purpose, we ... Read more
Membraneless compartments based on intrinsically disordered proteins: from biology towards new protein materials Paolo Arosio, Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich In the last few years, discoveries in biology are revealing that a class of intrinsically disordered protein sequences plays an important role in the formation of cellular membraneless compartments by spontaneous liquid-liquid phase ... Read more
Diabetes, where are we? Anna Novials, PI of the group “Pathogenesis and Prevention of Diabetes” at IDIBAPS/Clinic Hospital of Barcelona and member of CIBERDEM network. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a group of chronic metabolic disorders all characterized by hyperglycemia. It occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the peripheral tissues ... Read more
Study on the of the interplay between glucose metabolism and SARS-CoV-2 infection exploiting human kidney organoids Núria Montserrat, group leader "Pluripotency for organ regeneration" at IBEC Severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection leads to a high risk of hospitalization and mortality in diabetic patients. SARS-CoV-2 binds to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, which is ... Read more
A new molecular dimension: exploiting Raman spectroscopy in Biomedicine Mónica Marro, ICFO, The Institute of Photonic Sciences Raman spectroscopy is a promising optical technique that enables the investigation of the molecular content of biological samples in a rapid, non-invasive, label-free and multiplexed approach. In the biomedical field, it is of special interest because the device ... Read more
Tissue Engineering in Microgravity Jessica Ilenburg, Gravitational Biotechnologist at Yuri gravity Tissue Engineering and regenerative medicine are two fast growing and fast moving research fields. With the invention of bioprinting and tissue chips two breakthrough innovations have been made and now research in microgravity (for example on the ISS) promises even more and faster progress. ... Read more