Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

Hybrid IBEC Seminar: Cesar Rodriguez-Emmenegger
2021-10-22 10:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Madrid)
Bio-inspired soft matter at the service of interactive biointerfaces and synthetic cells
Cesar Rodriguez-Emmenegger, Group Leader, DWI-Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials
Nature achieves unmatched functionality by the self-assembly of (macro)molecular building blocks in a hierarchical manner. All information necessary for the function is encoded at the molecular level. Unraveling such blueprints serves as a powerful paradigm in the bio-inspired synthesis of materials that can seamlessly interface with living matter or perform non-natural functions. In this talk, I will present a selection of research studies from my lab addressing the overarching task of developing bio-inspired interactive materials and their application in the biomedical field. Three themes will be considered. Firstly, I will present hydrophilic arborescent polymers, a new class of quasi-dendritic macromolecules in which the topology codes for extreme flexibility and enables a myriad of multivalent interactions. Secondly, I will present highlights of the antimicrobial Kill&Repel and Adaptive hemocompatible nanocoatings and our efforts in translating them to medical devices. The last part of the talk will focus on the development of Membrane Machines, tailor-made synthetic vesicles capable of recapitulating some fundamental biological properties and performing specific tasks. We take advantage of these systems to study how biological selectivity can emerge from the lateral organization of ligand in static and dynamic systems such as the bacterial divisome. We are also developing synthetic macrophage-mimetic microrobots capable of endocytosing bacteria and viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.
This seminar will be hybrid, using the GoToMeeting app and also at the Baobab meeting room located at Tower I, 11th floor. Very few people will be able to attend this seminar in person due to the capacity of the meeting room. If you wish to attend this seminar please write an email to ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis.. The seminar will also be available on streaming, by using the GoToMeeting app, available in this link.
More information about his research team here

IBEC Seminar: Cristina Mayor-Ruiz
2021-11-19 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Targeted protein degradation: genetic determinants and drug discovery opportunities
Cristina Mayor-Ruiz, IRBarcelona
Targeted protein degradation is a new therapeutic modality based on drugs that destabilize proteins by inducing their proximity to E3 ubiquitin ligases. Of particular interest are “molecular glue degraders”: compounds that can degrade otherwise unligandable proteins by orchestrating direct interactions between target and E3. However, their discovery has been serendipitous, thus hampering broad translational efforts. I will present a scalable target-agnostic strategy toward glue degrader discovery. This approach is based on differential chemical screening coupled to a multi-omics target deconvolution campaign. Collectively, our data outline a versatile and broadly applicable strategy to identify degraders and thus empower future drug discovery efforts.

This seminar will be held at Tower I, 11th floor Baobab room, there will be 30 avialable seats, the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis. If you wish to attend this seminar online, please write to ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu.
More information about Cristina Mayor-Ruiz’s research here
Cristina Mayor-Ruiz obtained her PhD in 2017 at the CNIO (Madrid) under the supervision of Óscar Fernández-Capetillo. There, she explored mechanisms of resistance to anticancer therapies. In 2018, she joined the group of Georg Winter at CeMM (Vienna) supported by EMBO and Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowships, where her interests focused on different aspects of chemical biology and drug screening. Since January 2021, she leads the “Targeted Protein Degradation & Drug discovery” lab at IRB Barcelona. Her research focuses on:
(1) Developing screening strategies for early drug discovery. In particular, to identify monovalent degraders and other proximity-inducing drugs with therapeutic interest.
(2) Tackling exciting biological questions that either benefit from the high kinetic resolution provided by targeted protein degradation, or that involve E3 (dys)regulation dynamics.

IBEC Seminar: Rob Jelier
2021-11-30 16:00 - 17:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
The effect of gene loss on adaptation | 3D cell shape analysis in embryos
Rob Jelier, CMPG – Predictive Genetics and Multicellular Systems University of Leuven
In this talk I will summarize two research projects. First, I will report on a large-scale experimental evolution study into the effect of gene deletion on adaptation. We found gene deletion can speed up adaptation. Further, tracking adaptation after the systematic perturbation of genes involved in a complex trait informs on the genetic architecture of the trait. Second, we have developed a segmentation-pipeline for membrane tagged cells from fluorescent microscopy timelapses. The pipeline uses a biophysical DEM model of cell shape to constrain the possible cell shapes. The retrieved accurate cell shapes are subsequently used for very sensitive characterization of cell shapes, for example to identify changes after perturbations.
This seminar will be held at Tower I, 11th floor Baobab room, there will be 30 avialable seats, the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis. If you wish to attend this seminar online, please write to ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu.

Online IBEC Seminar: Arnau Hervera
2021-12-03 10:00 - 12:00
Therapeutic effects of HDAC3 inhibition on spinal injuries and autoimmune demyelinating diseases
Arnau Hervera, Molecular and Cellular Neurobiotechnology
The molecular mechanisms discriminating between regenerative failure and success remain elusive. While a regeneration-competent peripheral nerve injury mounts a regenerative gene expression response in bipolar dorsal root ganglia (DRG) sensory neurons, a regeneration-incompetent central spinal cord injury does not. This dichotomic response offered us a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental biological mechanisms underpinning this regenerative ability. Following a pharmacological screen with small molecule inhibitors targeting key epigenetic enzymes in DRG neurons we identified HDAC3 signaling as a novel candidate, that hindered axonal regenerative growth. In vivo, we found that only a peripheral but not a central axonal injury induced an increase in calcium, activating protein phosphatase 4 (PP4) who in turn dephosphorylates HDAC3 thus impairing its activity and enhancing histone acetylation. Bioinformatics analysis of ex vivo H3K9ac ChIPseq and RNAseq from DRG followed by promoter acetylation and protein expression studies implicated HDAC3 in the regulation of multiple regenerative pathways. Additionally, we and others have found that, HDAC3 inhibition is able to modulate the neuroinflammatory environment in the CNS after injury. In that sense, after CNS injury, inflammatory phase transitions are poorly orchestrated leading to unresolved exaggerated inflammation that triggers secondary damage and functional deficits. We found that HDAC3 inhibition also altered the cytokinome after SCI, and we are currently characterizing the effects of this inhibition on the functions of different immune cells after SCI. Additionally, HDAC3 inhibition has been also previously described to play important roles in neuronal survival, lymphocyte differentiation and myelination, together with neuroinflammation, all these processes are essential regulators on the development and outcome of autoimmune demyelinating diseases, such as MS. In this direction, we are also currently studying the potential therapeutic effects of HDAC3 inhibition in the multiple sclerosis mouse model Experimental Autoimmune Encephalitis (EAE), as well as their underlying mechanisms, in neuroinflammation autoantigen presentation, lymphocyte differentiation, demyelination, remyelination and oligodendrocyte survival and differentiation.
This seminar will be held using the GoToMeeting app

Online IBEC Seminar: Irene Marco
2021-12-10 10:00 - 12:00
Updates on a new lab at IBEC: hyperpolarised magnetic resonance for real-time, in situ monitoring of cell metabolism
Irene Marco, Molecular Imaging for Precision Medicine group at IBEC
There is a clinical need for non-invasive and reliable markers to diagnose, stage and evaluate treatment response in many diseases such as cancer or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Magnetic resonance (MR) methods now have the potential to revolutionise in the identification of such biomarkers in real time. Spectroscopic identification and quantitation of metabolites via carbon-13 chemical shifts can be combined with imaging (MRI) to simultaneously probe spatial (biodistribution) and temporal (kinetics) aspects of metabolism in vivo. These capabilities are enabled by so-called hyperpolarised (HP) MR techniques, including Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation (DNP), which can transiently boost the carbon-13 MR signals by several orders of magnitude, compared to traditional methods. DNP enables real-time measurement of enzymatic reactions in cell suspensions and in vivo. Multiple HP 13C-labelled substrates have provided insights in several metabolic pathways, including glycolysis, the pentose-phosphate pathway and the cellular redox state. I will present the potential of DNP to study metabolism in cell suspensions, tissue ex vivo and animals in vivo. Also, I will talk about the progress we have made at IBEC in the past couple of months and how we plan to implement HP MR to monitor metabolism in organs-in-chips.
This seminar will be held at Tower I, 11th floor Baobab room, there will be 30 avialable seats, the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis. If you wish to attend this seminar online, please write to ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu.
More information about Irene Marco’s research here

Online IBEC Seminar: Carlos Aleman
2022-01-21 10:00 - 12:00
Smart and multifunctional artificial materials for bioengineering
Carlos Aleman, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunta (UPC)
The research of the ” Innovation, Modeling & Engineering in Materials” group in the field of multifunctional materials. Three, different examples of multifunctional systems will be presented: 1) Magnetic electroconductive and self-healing PEDOT:alginate hydrogels for sensing, drug-delivery and energy storage; 2) Self-standing PLA/PEDOT films as artificial muscles, controlled lactate release and selective ion transport; and 3) Permanently polarized hydroxyapatite a biocatalyst for carbon and nitrogen fixation.
Carlos Alemán graduated in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona (Spain). He received his Ph.D. from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1994, where he was promoted to the position of Full Professor of Physical Chemistry. He was postdoctoral researcher at the ETH in Zürich (Switzerland) and visiting professor at the Università di Napoli Federico II (Italy), University of Twente (Holland) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Since 2003 he is the leader of the ‘‘Innovation, Modeling & Engineering in Materials’’ (IMEM) group. His main research interests focus on conducting polymers and biopolymers with biomedical and technological (energy) applications.
This seminar will take place online, using the go to meeting app

Online IBEC Seminar: Stefano Pulchino
2022-03-04 10:00 - 12:00
Regenerative Neuroimmunology – new generation molecular approaches to restore maladaptive inflammatory responses in the persistently inflamed CNS
Stefano Pulchino, University of Cambridge
There are currently no approved therapies to slow down the accumulation of neurological disability that occurs independently of relapses in multiple sclerosis (MS). International agencies are engaging to expedite the development of novel strategies capable of modifying disease progression, abrogating persistent CNS inflammation, and support degenerating axons in people with persistent inflammation of the, such as that occurring in progressive MS.
Understanding why regeneration fails in the progressive MS brain and developing new regenerative approaches is a key priority for the Pluchino Lab.
In particular, we aim to elucidate how the immune system, in particular its cells called myeloid cells, affects brain structure and function under normal healthy conditions and in disease.
Our objective is to find how myeloid cells communicate with the central nervous system and affect tissue healing and functional recovery by stimulating mechanisms of brain plasticity mechanisms such as the generation of new nerve cells and the reduction of scar formation.
Applying combination of state-of-the-art omic technologies, and molecular approaches to study murine and human disease models of inflammation and neurodegeneration, we aim to develop experimental molecular medicines, including those with stem cells and gene therapy vectors, which slow down the accumulation of irreversible disabilities and improve functional recovery after progressive multiple sclerosis, stroke and traumatic injuries.
By understanding the mechanisms of intercellular (neuro-immune) signalling, diseases of the brain and spinal cord may be treated more effectively, and significant neuroprotection may be achieved with new tailored molecular therapeutics.

I have received my MD and PhD degrees at the University of Siena, Italy, and additional training at Cambridge University, UK. I am currently Professor of Regenerative Neuroimmunology and Honorary Consultant in Neurology, within the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge University.
I have a strong interest in Regenerative Neuroimmunology, and my research over the last 20 years has recalibrated the classical view that cellular grafts only function through structural cell replacement and opened up a new therapeutic avenue by which to use exogenously delivered stem cells, or even stem cell-derived acellular therapies that include extracellular vesicles and exosomes.
The Pluchino team studies whether the accumulation of neurological disability observed in patients with chronic inflammatory neurological conditions can be slowed down using next generation molecular therapies. The overarching aim is to understand the basic mechanisms that allow exogenously delivered stem cells, gene therapy vectors and/or exosomes to create an environment that preserves damaged axons or prevents neurons from dying. Such mechanisms may be harnessed and used to modulate disease states in an effort to repair and/or regenerate critical components of the nervous system.
I am recipient of numerous national and international awards, among which the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation (FISM) Rita Levi-Montalcini prize for outstanding research in MS (2007), the 2009 Italian Ministry of Health Young Investigator Award and the 2010 European Research Council (ERC) Starting Independent Award.
My laboratory research on Regenerative Neuroimmunology is documented in >230 publications in international journals, including many recent articles in highly prestigious journals, such as Nature, Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nat Cell Biol, Nat Chem Biol, PNAS, PLoS Med, Brain, Ann Neurol, and J Neurosci, as well as invited review articles in Nat Rev Neurosci, Physiol Reviews, Trends in Mol Med and Trends Immunol. My publications have to date received >14.000 citations (ISI-WOK), having a Hirsch Factor of 52.

This seminar will take place online, using the go to meeting app

IBEC Seminar: André Körnig
2022-03-14 16:00 - 17:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
NanoWizard® V BioScience – The latest Generation AFM for Automated Structural and Mechanical Analysis & NanoRacer® – High-Speed AFM for dynamical processes
André Körnig, JPK BioAFM, Bruker Nano GmbH
The ability of atomic force microscopy (AFM) to obtain three-dimensional topography images of biological molecules and complexes with nanometer resolution and under near-physiological conditions remains unmatched by other imaging techniques. Bruker BioAFM has recently launched the NanoWizard® V BioScience AFM that combines high spatio-temporal resolution with a large scan area, flexible experiment design, and outstanding integration with advanced optical microscope systems.
This talk will focus on how the advances in Bruker’s latest BioAFM can be applied to study a wide-range of biological samples: from individual biomolecules to mammalian cells and tissues in-situ. It will be presented how we are able to resolve the nanoscale structure of individual biomolecules, at high-speed scan rates (400 lines/sec), follow the dynamic reorganization of the membrane-associated cytoskeleton of living cells at high temporal and spatial resolution. It will be highlighted, how the topography of cells across the entire area of the microscope stage can be automatically mapped. Special part will be dedicated to the suite of BioAFM modes, probes and accessories for studying nanomechanical properties of cells and tissues, including direct correlation with super-resolution microscopy techniques (STED).
In the past, investigating large and rough samples such as tissues and hydrogels using AFM was challenging due to the limited z-axis of the AFM. Using osteoarthritic cartilage as an example, we will demonstrate how a newly developed hybrid of a motorized and piezo stage enables multi-region AFM probing over a large, rough sample area while providing additional correlative optical data sets.
The newly developed NanoRacer® High-Speed AFM enables scanning speeds of up to 50 frames per second. In this way, the high-speed study of the time-resolved dynamics associated with cellular processes and the binding mechanisms of individual biomolecules is possible, e.g. the dynamics of single molecule binding behavior, two-dimensional protein assemblies, motor proteins and membrane trafficking.
We will present data on DNA origami nanostructures containing biotin binding sites, imaged in fluid in the presence of streptavidin, as well as data on DNA metastable bubble formation and closure (~30 nm in length), imaged in fluid in closed-loop at 2000 lines per second.

This seminar will be held at Tower I, 11th floor Baobab room, there will be 30 avialable seats, the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis.

IBEC Seminar: André Körnig
2022-03-14 16:00 - 17:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower i

PhD Complementary Skills Session: Fernando T. Maestre
2022-03-18 10:00 - 12:00
Fernando T. Maestre, Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab at Universidad de Alicante.
This seminar will be held using the GoToMeeting app

PhD Complementary Skills Session: Alicia Calvo-Villamañán
2022-03-18 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower i
Making your science accessible with illustrations and humour

Alicia Calvo-Villamañán, CNB – CSIC.

As researchers we are accustomed to sharing our science mostly with people that have similar sets of skills to ours. But what happens when we have to share our science with people whose backgrounds are radically different to what we’re used to? In these cases, we enter the domain of science communication and science outreach, a radically different way of communicating science that requires equally radically different skills of communication.

Scientific illustration is a great way to make one’s science more accessible to the general public, as it helps others visualise complex scientific concepts that would be totally foreign to them otherwise. Being able to convert what we do every day in the lab into approachable illustrations takes a bit of imagination, a lot of trial and error, and why not, a bit of humour as well.

From very simple stick figures to more complex illustrations, from digital art to more classical media, helping others visualise your work will help you keep your audience more engaged with your work, as well as help them understand it better.

Alicia a postdoc in the lab of Dr. Álvaro San Millán. Her current research focuses on the understanding of sucessful plasmid-bacteria associations in nosocomimal infections to try to prevent the further dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in hospitals.

Past research topics have included the study of CRISPR-Cas systems and the development of synthetic biology tools to tackle the challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

“I am a sleepy, caffeinated molecular biologist by day and a hyper scientific illustrator by night. You can learn more about my science outreach and scientific illustration work in this website.”

You can check here her publications

This seminar will be held at Tower I, 11th floor Baobab room, there will be 30 avialable seats, the free spots will be assigned on a first come first served basis.

IBEC Seminar: Alejandro Mayorca
2022-03-25 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Mapping the structure of the extracellular matrix and engineering matrixbased disease models
Alejandro Mayorca, Biotech Research and Innovation Centre, University of Copenhagen
Understanding disease necessitates a precise representation of the extracellular matrix (ECM), a vast, intricate structure made of ~1300 interwoven proteins and glycans supporting all organs and acting as a master cell regulator. In spite of its importance, there are no high-resolution maps of ECM topography. I will present methods to isolate ECM from mammalian organs and generate a precise, quantitative, three-dimensional representation of the ECM in human organs during health and incurable conditions. Further development of these methods uses ECM scaffolds to engineer experimental models that recreate cell niches associated to advanced disease, aiming to break down the rules of their assembly.

Alejandro Mayorca is an assistant professor at the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre of Copenhagen University. His work focuses on extracellular matrix research and cancer bioengineering. He is an alumnus of the Central University of Venezuela, obtained his PhD in medical sciences from the University of Ehime, Japan and later became a postdoc in Janine Erler’s lab at the University of Copenhagen. He isolated and characterised the structure of the extracellular matrix in primary and metastatic tumours (Nature Medicine, 2017), developed techniques for whole-body ECM mapping (Nature Protocols, 2019) and then designed ECM-based bioreactors to model lung and liver metastasis (Advanced Healthcare Materials, 2022).
Sala Baobab, Tower I, 11 Floor, IBEC

IBEC Seminar: Alejandro Mayorca
2022-03-25 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower i

IBEC Seminar: Miguel Holgado
2022-04-01 10:00 - 13:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Technologies for highly multiplexed in-vitro diagnostic systems and organ on chips. Cases studies for COVID-19 and neurodegenerative diseases
Miguel Holgado, Centro de Tecnología Biomédica-Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Hospital Clínico San Carlos
Technologies for biomarkers screening are of very high importance, particularly when they are reliable, cost effective, easy to use for measuring multiples biomarkers in a single diagnostic KIT working with real biological samples such as serum, saliva, wastewater or culture medium. In this paper we report technologies for the development of a highly multiplexed kit for detecting biomarkers of COVID19 in serum, saliva[1] and wastewater analyzing their correlation with the severity of the COVID19 and showing relevant figures about the severity (90 patients in serum), immunity (200 volunteers in saliva donating sample every 10 days in three months), and wastewater. This technology has also demonstrated for measuring particular proteins of the SARS-COV-2 in wastewater, which results have been compared with Polymerase Chain Reaction. Recently we are using these technologies for detecting Alzheimer Disease (AD) biomarkers in serum.
In concrete, we have achieved to detect the total tau protein at the level of 10 pg mL-1 in serum as a biomarker for early detection of the AD[2]. Other biomarkers are also under development right now. In this term, the use of advanced in vitro diagnostic systems with organ-on-chip based technologies are of a high relevance because can be used for monitoring relevant biomarkers secreted by the cells, tissues or biopsies in these types of bioreactors. We have recently developed microfluidic chips acting as bioreactors for neuronal circuits on a chip for biological network monitoring[3] and brain slice-on-a-chip for organotypic culture and effective fluorescence injection testing[4]. Cultured neuronal networks (CNNs) are a robust model to closely investigate neuronal circuits’ formation and monitor their structural properties evolution. Typically, neurons are cultured in plastic plates or, more recently, in microfluidic platforms with potentially a wide variety of neuroscience applications. As a biological protocol, cell culture integration with a microfluidic system provides benefits such as accurate control of cell seeding area, culture medium renewal, or lower exposure to contamination. In this paper it is presented a novel neuronal network on a chip device, including a chamber, fabricated from PDMS, vinyl and glass connected to a microfluidic platform to perfuse the continuous flow of culture medium.
As a step forward, we employ this technology as an alternative brain slice-on-a-chip, integrating an injection system inside the chip to dispense a fluorescent dye for long-term monitoring. Hippocampal slices are cultured inside these chips, observing fluorescence signals from living cells, maintaining the cytoarchitecture of the slices. Having fluorescence images of biological samples inside the chip demonstrates the effectiveness of the staining process using the injection method avoiding leaks or biological contamination. The technology developed in this study presents a significant improvement in the local administration of reagents within a brain slice-on-a-chip system, which could be a suitable option for organotypic cultures in a microfluidic chip acting as a highly effective bioreactor.

[1] Developing an Optical Interferometric Detection Method based biosensor for detecting specific SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulins in Serum and Saliva, and their corresponding ELISA correlation. Sensors & Actuators: B. Chemical 345 (2021)
[2] A new optical interferometric in-vitro detection for Alzheimer´ disease diagnostic in Serum. To be published elsewhere.
[3] Neural circuits on a chip for biological Network Monitoring. Biotechnology Journal 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/biot.202000355
[4] Alternative Brain Slice-on-a-Chip for Organotypic Culture and Effective Fluorescence Injection Testing. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23, 2549.

IBEC Seminar: Miguel Holgado
2022-04-01 10:00 - 13:00 | IBEC, floor 11, tower i

IBEC Seminar: Iris Batalha
2022-05-13 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Nanotherapeutics – ‘How we sometimes underestimate the influence of little things’
Iris L. Batalha, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC)
Deaths caused by infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria are expected to skyrocket over the next decades, with a staggering 10 million deaths per year projected for 2050. Treating infections by intracellular pathogens, such as M. tuberculosis, is ‘a perfect storm’. The WHO revealed that while some 50 new antibiotics and 10 biologics are under development, only half of those target WHO-priority pathogens and the majority have very limited benefits when compared to existing antibiotics. Reformulating existent drugs in nanocarriers may help achieving enhanced efficacy and safety while reducing dose frequency, by providing temporal and localised control of drug exposure. In this talk, I will present my work on the synthesis of dual-drug tunable nanoparticle-based antibiotics, which showed increased bacterial killing efficacy in a zebrafish larval model of mycobacterial infection when compared to free drugs at the same concentration. In addition, nanoparticles were able to efficiently penetrate mycobacterial cords and granulomatous lesions – shielded regions of difficult access by free drugs, improving the therapeutic effect.

Iris Batalha is currently a Junior Leader Research Fellow at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Barcelona, a Panel Tutor in Nanotherapeutics at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education, a freelance Senior Innovation Consultant at Inspiralia (Spain and USA), a Co-founder, Director and Editor-in-Chief of the non-profit organisation Women Ahead of Their Time (WATT), and a Research Associate at Peterhouse College. From 2017 to 2020, she was a joint Research Associate at the Department of Engineering Nanoscience Centre and Department of Medicine Molecular Immunity Unit, University of Cambridge. From 2014 to 2017, she worked at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, and the biopharmaceutical company MedImmune/Astrazeneca, followed by a brief experience as a healthcare/pharmaceutical consultant. Her research interests and expertise lie in medical and pharmaceutical research and development, particularly in the fields of nanobiotechnology, bio-inspired materials, downstream processing, formulation and drug delivery.

Sala Baobab, Tower I, 11 Floor, IBEC

Meet the editors: Christine Horejs and Kristy Hooper
2022-06-07 15:00 - 17:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Come and meet the editors of Nature Reviews Bioengineering and The Company of Biologists: Christine Horejs and Kirsty Hooper. In this seminar we will hear about the latest updates in their journals and we will discuss the future of scholarly publishing and the open access models.

Sala Baobab, Tower I, 11 Floor, IBEC

Last minute Seminar: Laura Suter-Dick
2022-06-27 12:30 - 13:30 | Sala Baobab, Tower I - 11th floor
Liver and Kidney: 3D-in vitro systems for disease modelling and biomarker discovery
Prof. Laura Suter-Dick
FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland School of Life Sciences, Institute for Chemistry and Bioanalytics a Basel.

IBEC Seminar: Myriam M. Chaumeil
2022-09-09 10:00 - 12:00 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
Imaging metabolism in neurological disorders

Associate Professor in Residence, Departments of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science & Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, UCSFInvestigator, Quantitative Bioscience Institutes (QBI)Lab website : Chaumeil Lab, UCSF

Our lab works on developing and biologically validating magnetic resonance (MR)-based metabolic imaging approaches using animal models of neurological diseases (such as genetically-engineered or toxin-induced). In this talk, I will present how optimized acquisitions strategies, based mostly on the hyperpolarized DNP-MR technology, can be used for improved diagnosis and treatment monitoring of neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, chronic traumatic encephalopathy and Alzheimer’s disease. I will also show how we use metabolomics approaches to identify potential pathways modified in disease, and normalized with treatment, with an example focusing on interneuron transplantation as a treatment for epilepsy.

Dr. Chaumeil is an Associate Professor in Residence in the department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science and Radiology & Biomedical Imaging at UCSF, a faculty member of three graduate programs (UCSF/UC Berkeley BioEngineering; UCSF Biomedical Science and UCSF Rehabilitation Science), and an investigator in the Quantitative Biosciences Institute. Her research focuses on developing new neuroimaging methods to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis or vascular dementia. She is a Junior Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and has been recently elected on the board of the ISMRM Hyperpolarized Study group. Dr. Chaumeil grew up in the south of France, and received her engineer degree and her PhD degree in Paris, before moving across the world to California to join UCSF.

Sala Baobab, Tower I, 11 Floor, IBEC

IBEC Seminar: David Odde
2022-10-05 10:00 - 12:00
Differential migration mechanics and immune response of glioblastoma subtypes
David Odde, Dept. of Biomedical Eng., U. Minnesota
Glioblastoma remains a deadly cancer driven by invasion of tumor cells into the brain. Transcriptomic analyses have revealed distinct molecular subtypes, but mechanistic and targetable differences that explain clinical differences are not clear. Using a state-of-the-art immunocompetent mouse model for glioblastoma – where tumors are induced by injection of plasmids containing human glioblastoma subtype-defining genetic drivers in a wild-type background – we found that, as predicted by the motor-clutch model for cell migration (Klank et al., Cell Rep, 2017), mesenchymal glioma cells are more spread, generate larger traction forces, and migrate faster in brain tissue compared to proneural cells. Despite their fast migration and comparable proliferation rate in vitro, mice with mesenchymal tumors live longer than mice with proneural tumors, which was correlated with an immune response in the mesenchymal mice that included T cell-mediated killing of cancer cells, similar to human tumors. Thus, mesenchymal tumors have aggressive migration, but are relatively immunologically ‘hot’ which suppresses net proliferation, features which are captured by our Brownian Dynamics tumor simulator (Klank et al., Conv Sci Phys Oncol, 2018). These two features counteract each other and may explain the lack of a strong survival difference between subtypes clinically, while also opening up new opportunities for subtype-specific therapies.

David Odde is the Medtronic Professor of Engineering in Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Trained as a chemical engineer at the University of Minnesota and Rutgers University, Odde joined the newly created Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 1999 where he is a professor and Associate Director for Strategic Research Initiatives in the Institute for Engineering in Medicine. In his research, Odde’s group builds computer models of cellular and molecular self-assembly and force-generation-dissipation dynamics, and tests the models experimentally using digital microscopic imaging of living cells ex vivo and in engineered microenvironments. His group seeks to bring an engineering approach that uses physics-based modeling and analysis to understand, predict, and control disease outcomes (oddelab.umn.edu). Dr. Odde is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is the Director of the Physical Sciences in Oncology Center at the University of Minnesota (psoc.umn.edu), which is focused on modeling the mechanics of cancer cell migration in biologically relevant contexts.

IBEC Seminar: Conrado Aparicio
2022-10-14 10:00 - 12:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Peptides and bioinstructive polymers on surfaces for prevention of oral infections
Conrado Aparicio, Faculty of Odontology, UIC Barcelona and Associated Researcher – IBEC
Oral infections are the most prevalent infectious diseases worldwide. We have explored bioinspired modification of surfaces of restorative/regenerative materials and implants as well as dental tissues to address oral infections by harnessing the biomolecular toolbox –oligopeptides, proteins, recombinamers, … and thus, mitigating the worldwide threat of antimicrobial resistance.
One of our strategies aimed at exploiting secondary structure and self-assembly of anti-biofilm peptides and recombinamers to increase anti-biofilm potency vs relevant oral biofilms and to form highly hydrophobic interfaces to obtain dual-action surfaces to address infection in dental peri-tisular and peri-implant sites.
Alternatively, we have found inspiration in the natural junction at the tooth-oral mucosa interface. Teeth, long-lasting percutaneous organs, feature soft tissue attachment through adhesive structures, hemidesmosomes, in the junctional epithelium basement membrane adjacent to teeth. This soft tissue attachment prevents bacterial infection of the tooth despite the rich – and harsh – microbial composition of the oral cavity. Consequently, we have tapped basement membrane peptides known to engage specific integrins as well as synthesized new bioinstructive photocurable resins that stimulate formation of hemidesmosomes on synthetic and natural surfaces.
We recently have also combined those strategies with immunomodulatory regulation to reduce inflammation triggered by pathogenic biofilms causing oral infections.

Dr. Conrado Aparicio is Professor at the Department of Odontology of UIC Barcelona – Universitat International de Catalunya, Spain. He is associated researcher at IBEC-Institute for BioEngineering of Catalonia and elected fellow of the AIMBE-American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Dr. Aparicio is a materials scientist and engineer by training. After starting his academic career at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) he moved to the University of Minnesota (UMN) where he spent 12+ years in the Department of Restorative Sciences, and was the Deputy Director of the MDRCBB-Minnesota Dental Research Center for Biomaterials and Biomechanics. Last year Professor Aparicio returned to his hometown, Barcelona, as FBA-BIST-UIC fellow.
For two decades he has carried out multidisciplinary research on bioinspired biomaterials and interfaces for directing biological responses to repair/regenerate bone and oral mucosa as well as to prevent bacterial infections for dental applications. Using inspiration from nature’s molecules and structures, his team designs and develops bioactive surfaces using supramolecular assembly and enabling spatial-temporal control of bioactive responses.
He has published 130+ research papers and has lectured around the World on bioactivation of synthetic biomaterials for reparative and regenerative dentistry and medicine. He is co-inventor of multiple patents, one of them licensed and marketed by a dental implant company. He has been awarded multiple national and international research projects from US and EC agencies, foundations and corporations, in interdisciplinary collaborations between academic and corporate engineers, biologists, and clinicians.

IBEC Seminar: Felipe Galvez-Cancino (canceled)
2022-11-02 15:30 - 17:30 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

IBEC Seminar: Takashi Hiiragi
2022-11-09 16:00 - 18:00 | Sala Baobab, Tower I - 11th floor
Multicellular coordination in context
Takashi Hiiragi, Hubrecht Institute, The Netherlands
A defining feature of living systems is the capacity to break symmetry and generate well-defined forms and patterns through self-organisation. Our group aims to understand the design principle of multicellular living systems using early mouse embryos as a model system. We developed an experimental framework that integrates biology, physics and mathematics, to understand how molecular, cellular and physical signals are dynamically coupled across the scales for self-organisation. I will discuss our ongoing work investigating the coordination of developmental programmes in space and time.

Takashi Hiiragi is group leader at the Hubrecht Institute. The Hiiragi group aims to understand what defines multi-cellular living systems. In particular, the group studies the design principle of tissue self-organization, using early mammalian embryos as a model system. To this end, they developed an experimental framework that integrates biology, physics and mathematics. Their recent studies led to a model in which feedback between cell fate, polarity, and cell and tissue mechanics underlies multi-cellular self-organization. The group adopts a wide variety of experimental strategies including embryology, genetics, advanced microscopy, biophysics, engineering and theoretical modelling, in order to address fundamental questions in cell and developmental biology.

IBEC Seminar: Astrid Viciano
2022-11-11 10:00 - 12:00 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
Is the price of pharmaceutical drugs justified?
Astrid Viciano, IBEC
10 euros, 1000 euros, or rather 1 million? Many new medicines that have recently reached the market are prohibitively expensive. But are these prices justified? Science reporter Astrid Viciano has investigated the high prices of innovative therapies. For these investigations, she received a number of European journalism stipends.
Viciano will explain how the pharmaceutical industry calculates prices for new drugs, and who currently determines the costs for new medications in different healthcare systems. Looking into different, concrete examples such as the drug Zolgensma for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, she will point out how drugs are currently developed and approved, and how medications for orphan diseases are developed. Moreover, looking into historic examples such as insulin, she will look into why access to potentially life-saving drugs is still not guaranteed in all regions of the world, an urgent problem the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted in the past two years.

Dr. Astrid Viciano has been working as a science journalist for German national media such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Spiegel, and GEO for more than 20 years.
She has worked in a variety of European cross-border teams, focusing on in-depth investigative science reporting. From 2012 to 2016, she worked as a freelance reporter from Paris, and from 2009 and 2011 in Los Angeles. She has published articles in German, English, Dutch and Spanish. Viciano has won several national and international journalism awards, grants, and fellowships.
Astrid Viciano is a medical doctor with a doctorate in immunology and virology and also has an M.A. in Specialized Journalism (USC Annenberg ’11). Currently she is „journalist-in-residence“ at IBEC. She holds the Spanish and German nationalities.

Sostenibilidad en el PCB (spanish)
2022-12-02 10:00 - 14:00 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
En este seminario, Glòria Pladellorens, jefa de Calidad, Seguridad y Medio Ambiente del PCB, nos explicará todas las acciones que se están llevando a cabo desde PCB para avanzar hacia un parque científico más sostenible.
El comité de sostenibilidad ha invitado a Glòria a dar esta charla que será una muy buena oportunidad para resolver todas esas dudas que nos planteamos y compartir nuestras inquietudes e ideas para tener un entorno de trabajo más sostenible.

This seminar will be in Spanish, a translated report will be prepared and distributed among the non-Spanish speakers.
All members of research groups in the process of My green lab certification are strongly encouraged to attend.

IBEC Seminar: Xavier Rovira-Clavé
2022-12-21 11:30 - 13:30 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
Epitope barcoding and subcellular high-plex imaging reveal clonal tumor patch behaviors
Xavier Rovira-Clavé, PhD
Intratumoral heterogeneity is a seminal feature of human tumors contributing to tumor progression and response to treatment. Current technologies are still largely unsuitable to accurately track phenotypes and clonal evolution within tumors, especially in response to genetic manipulations. In this seminar I will present our recent development of epitopes for imaging using combinatorial tagging (EpicTags), which we coupled to multiplexed ion beam imaging (EpicMIBI), for in situ tracking of barcodes within tissue microenvironments. Using EpicMIBI, we dissected the spatial component of cell lineages and phenotypes in xenograft models of small-cell lung cancer. We observed emergent properties from mixed clones leading to the preferential expansion of clonal patches for both neuroendocrine and non-neuroendocrine cancer cell states in these models. In a tumor model harboring a fraction of PTEN-deficient cancer cells, we observed a non-autonomous increase of clonal patch size in PTEN wild-type cancer cells. Thus, EpicMIBI facilitates in situ interrogation of cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic processes involved in intratumoral heterogeneity and it is posed to help reveal principles and mechanisms of tissue developmental processes, in both normal and malignant growth, that will thus accelerate therapeutic discoveries.

Dr. Xavier Rovira-Clavé is an instructor in the laboratory of Professor Garry Nolan in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, where he develops and applies multiparameter technologies to study tissue biology in models of cancer and infectious diseases. In 2016, he received his PhD in Immunology from the University of Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. Enric Espel and Dr. Manuel Reina. He also trained for a year in cancer biology studies as a visiting PhD student in the group of Dr. Gregory Emery at the University of Montreal. He has published 12 articles, including some in leading journals such as Cancer Cell and Immunity. He holds 3 granted patents. He has received 5 competitive fellowships, including the prestigious LLS Career Development Award and the EMBO postdoctoral fellowship. His areas of research include cancer, the immune system, and infectious diseases. His technical expertise includes highly multiplexed tissue imaging (spatial proteomics), single-cell assays, molecular biology approaches, cell culture, in vitro co-culture systems, engineered tumors, murine models, genome editing, bioconjugation strategies, assay automation, and single-cell spatial data analysis. His recent research efforts have been focused in the development of imaging technologies to subcellularly locate structurally unmodified drugs at the nanometer scale, track subclonal growth in situ, and co-detect multiple biomolecular species (RNA, DNA, and protein) to enable new understanding of spatial structures at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels with the long-term goal to improve disease management.

IBEC Seminar: Manuel Valero
2023-01-11 12:00 - 13:00 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
The role of inhibition in hippocampal coding
Manuel Valero, PhD NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University (US)
The fundamental computation a single neuron performs is to integrate incoming excitatory and inhibitory inputs to decide whether to fire an action potential and feedback its activity into the network. Investigation of this synaptic computation requires access to the neuron subthreshold dynamics, whose state-of-art methodologies have remained unaltered for decades and are unrealistic for cell assemblies and behaving animals.
Instead of intracellular recording, we propose a method to optogenetically probe the membrane polarization of the cells with short depolarizing pulses using chronically implanted µLED probes (4 shanks with 3 µLED/shank). Light-sensitive neurons responded to one or more µLEDs and the spike numbers were used as a proxy for estimating relative changes in the membrane potential dynamics. Strikingly, induced spike responses gain sharply increased several-folds inside the preferred position (place fields) of the responsive cells. These results are compatible with a tuning curve model in the CA1 pyramidal cells where excitation and inhibition display a concerted and reciprocal relationship. When optogenetic stimulation was probed on non-place cells, majority of the putative non-place cells showed place-related activity. Finally, we optically probed neurons around sharp wave-ripples (SPW-Rs), hippocampal events considered a key mechanism for memory consolidation and action planning. In the short time window of SPW-R, excitatory and inhibitory neurons increased in parallel. As expected, optogenetic probing of the CA1 networks showed that, in contrast to the large gain within place fields, responsivity of pyramidal cells showed a robust decrease during SPW-Rs.
We have developed a method for studying the subthreshold dynamics of individual cells in chronic recordings using novel high-resolution optical stimulation as a proxy for membrane polarization. These experiments disclosed a reciprocal interaction between inhibition and excitation along the place fields of CA1 and demonstrated that the same exact perturbation can bring about opposite responses during exploration and transient SPW-Rs.

IBEC Seminar (online): Sam Hall
2023-01-20 10:00 - 12:00 | Online
Presentation of Open Research Europe publishing plataform
Sam Hall, from Open Research Euorpe
Open Research Europe is the European Commission’s open access publishing platform for research stemming from Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funding. In this webinar Senior Content Acquisition Editor Sam Hall will show how the platform enables the rapid dissemination of results and facilitates open and constructive research discussion, and maximizes the discoverability and credit for researchers and their work. Sam will also explain the funder-pays model which means that all publication fees are met by the European Commission at no cost to the researcher or the project.

Sam Hall is a Senior Content Acquisition Editor for F1000, commissioning articles and Collections for Open Research Europe. Launched in March 2021, Open Research Europe is an open access publishing Platform for research stemming from Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and/or Euratom funding across all subject areas. Within this broad remit, Sam focusses on the research area of Engineering and Technology, and most recently the Data Note article type. Sam has almost 10 years of experience working in publishing, and in this time has worked in contrasting companies and settings. This has included society publishers, start-ups, and international governmental organizations.
Link Teams here

IBEC Seminar: Presentation of the new Programme of ”la Caixa” Foundation on Innovation in Biomedicine and Health
2023-02-17 10:00 - 12:00 | Sala Dolors Aleu, Cluster II, IBEC, Baldiri i Reixac, Barcelona
Alexandre Esteban, Programme Manager at ”la Caixa” Foundation
During the event, all the details of the new Innovation programme will be presented, with which the “la Caixa” Foundation reinforces its commitment to innovation and knowledge transfer in Spain and Portugal.
This new programme will fund breakthrough technologies with high market potential.
