Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

PhD Thesis Defence: Ignasi Jorba Masdéu
2019-10-07 00:00 - 13:00 (Europe/Madrid) | Aula 11, Facultat Medicina UB (Campus Clínic), Barcelona, Spain
Multiscale nonlinear mechanics of soft biological tissues
Ignasi Jorba Masdéu, Cellular and Respiratory Biomechanics group

PhD Thesis Defence: Ignasi Jorba Masdéu
2019-10-07 00:00 - 13:00

IBEC Seminar: Martijn Gloerich
2019-10-04 10:00 - 11:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Mechanical control of cell division
Martijn Gloerich, UMC Utrecth, Center for Molecular Medicine, Molecular Cancer Research
During development and adult tissue homeostasis, cellular behavior is controlled by signals that cells receive from their local environment. This is not limited to biochemical signals, as cell behavior can be instructed by mechanical forces exerted by neighbouring cells and the surrounding tissue. Cells sense this mechanical information through numerous molecules, including cell adhesion receptors, which translate mechanical cues into an appropriate cellular response. I will discuss our recent findings on force transduction through the cell-cell adhesion protein E-cadherin, and its central role in the mechanical control of cell division to regulate epithelial integrity and architecture.
Martijn Gloerich is Assistant Professor at the department of Molecular Cancer Research at the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. Martijn obtained his PhD cum laude in 2011 from Utrecht University for his work on the regulation of small GTPases. Following his PhD, he received fellowships from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and Dutch Cancer Foundation (KWF) to perform postdoctoral research in the lab of James Nelson at Stanford University. Here, he gained experience with numerous microfabrication and bio-engineering techniques to study how communication between cells regulates cell behavior. In 2016 Martijn returned to the Netherlands to start his own research group at the University Medical Center Utrecht. His group uses an interdisciplinary approach to understand how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces to control tissue development and homeostasis, and how its disruption contributes to tumor progression.

PhD Thesis Defence: Carlos Pérez González
2019-10-04 00:00 - 14:00 | Hospital Clínic, Sala 7, Barcelona
Active forces driving spreading and retraction of living tissues
Carlos Pérez González, Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics group

Development, regeneration and cancer involve drastic transitions in tissue morphology. In analogy with the behaviour of inert fluids, some of these transitions have been interpreted as wetting transitions. The validity and scope of this analogy are unclear, however, because the active cellular forces that drive tissue wetting have been neither measured nor theoretically accounted for. In this thesis, we show that the transition between two-dimensional epithelial monolayers and three-dimensional spheroidal aggregates can be understood as an active wetting transition whose physics differs fundamentally from that of passive wetting phenomena. By combining an active polar fluid model with measurements of physical forces as a function of tissue size, contractility, cell–cell and cell–substrate adhesion, and substrate stiffness, we show that the wetting transition results from the competition between traction forces and contractile intercellular stresses. This competition defines a new intrinsic length scale that gives rise to a critical size for the wetting transition in tissues, a striking feature that has no counterpart in classical wetting. Finally, we show that active shape fluctuations are dynamically amplified during tissue dewetting. Overall, we conclude that tissue spreading constitutes a prominent example of active wetting—a novel physical scenario that may explain morphological transitions during tissue morphogenesis and tumour progression.

PhD Thesis Defence: Jordi-Ysard Puigbó
2019-10-01 16:00 - 17:00
Learning mechanisms of uncertainty and neuromodulation
Jordi-Ysard Puigbó, Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) group
Supervisors: Dr. Paul F.M.J Verschure (IBEC) and Dr. Miguel Ángel González Ballester
Committee: President: Dr. Gustavo Deco (UPF) Secretary: Dr. Andrea Soltoggio (Loughborough Univ.) Member: Dr. Yves Boubenec (ENS)

IBEC Seminar: Carlos Rodríguez Cabello
2019-10-01 10:00 - 11:00 | IBEC, floor 11, Tower I, Baldiri Reixac 4-8, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Dynamic Systems Based on Elastin-Like Recombinamers
Carlos Rodríguez Cabello, Bioforge Lab, University of Valladolid CIBER-BBN
The use of recombinant technology in the production of macromolecule-based advanced biomaterials has caused a breakthrough increase in achievable degree of complexity and control on the molecular designs and compositions. Those recombinant macromolecules of polpeptide nature are called recombinamers. They are produced from a purely synthetic gene, in which the amino-acid sequence is not restricted to those found in naturally occurring proteins and it is dictated only by engineering design parameters. The high degree of complexity and control of the recombinamer compositions permit to reach unmatched levels of functionality in the materials produced by this way and on the systems based on them.
The development of functionality in such systems comes by to different ways. In one hand, these materials can display direct functionality. Such functionality is based on the presence in their composition of functional epitopes, typically inspired by functional epitopes found in natural proteins. The other source of functionality is the holistic functionality that emerges by the precise combination and interactions of direct functions in a precise and well designed macromolecular composition. This holistic function is particularly evident in system with a dynamic nature; systems that rearrange and respond to changes in their environment.
Examples of such dynamic systems will be presented. The examples will expand from complex 3D structures for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering that are able to incorporate a designed program of degradation and time evolution, to more fundamental matters such as the hierarchical spontaneous development of morphology and macroscopical shapes in natural and artificial systems.
Dr. Rodríguez-Cabello is a full professor at the Dept. of Condensed Matter Physics of the University of Valladolid (UVa) Spain. During his career he has been teaching courses related to physics of polymers and biomaterials science in both undergraduate and graduate levels. In 1997, he founded BIOFORGE in the UVa, which nowadays is an internationally recognized and word leading group in the field of recombinamers. His current research interests include the development of biofunctional, smart and customized protein polymers towards obtaining advanced biomedical devices.

PhD Thesis Defence: Carlos Pérez González
2019-09-30 08:00 - 17:00
Active forces driving spreading and retraction of living tissues
Carlos Pérez González, Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics group

SEMINAR Series in Development, Regeneration and Disease
2019-09-25 15:00 - 16:00 | Felix Serratosa, Baldiri Reixac, 10-12, Barcelona, Spain
“Engineering human pluripotent stem cells for organoid applications in regenerative medicine”
Nuria Montserrat
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.
Pluripotency for Organ Regeneration, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Technology (BIST), Barcelona, Spain.
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Madrid, Spain.
ABSTRACT
The generation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) derived organoids is one of the biggest scientific advances in regenerative medicine. Recently, we have demonstrated that lengthening the time that hPSCs are exposed to a threedimensional microenvironment in the presence of defined renal inductive signals we are able to generate kidney organoids that transcriptomically match secondtrimester human fetal kidneys. Furthermore, we have recently developed a transplantation method that utilizes the chick chorioallantoic membrane to emulate a soft in vivo microenvironment further sustaining the growth and differentiation of implanted kidney organoids, as well as providing a vascular component.
In order to promote the efficient generation of nephron-like structures we have also mimicked the stiffness of the in ovo chorioallantoic membrane microenvironment in vitro by fabricating compliant hydrogels. This approach showed that by mirroring both biochemical and mechanical cues during organoid generation we are able to boost renal commitment and nephron differentiation. We will also discuss recent findings on the application of different bioengineering strategies (i.e., including 3D biopriting and tissue engineering) for kidney organoid generation, as well as the definition of culture conditions mimicking renal disease. Furthermore, we will discuss how through the use of CRISPR/Cas9 we are able to introduce mutations related to kidney developmental diseases exploiting kidney organoid technology.

Mechanobiology of cancer summer school 2019
2019-09-17 08:00 - 2019-09-21 17:00 | La Cerdanya Eco-Resort
The MECHANO·CONTROL consortium, led by several research institutions across Europe, is launching a Summer School that will be taking place between 17-20 of September 2019 at the Eco Resort in La Cerdanya. The aim of the summer school is to provide training on mechanobiology, and specifically its application to breast cancer. This school will include lectures as well as practical workshops in different techniques and disciplines, ranging from modelling to biomechanics to cancer biology.
There will be scientific sessions in the morning, mixing 6 keynote speakers with 18 short talks selected from abstract submissions by junior scientists attending the school. In the afternoon, there will be 2-3-hour practical workshops, given by scientists from the MECHANO·CONTROL consortium. The course will also include leisure activities.
The 6 confirmed speakers who will attend the summer school are:
Marija Plodinec (University Hospital Basel)
Andrew Ewald (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)
Peter Friedl (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Guillaume Salbreux (Francis Crick Institute)
Christina Scheel (Institute of Stem Cell Research, Helmholtz Center Munich)
Buzz Baum (Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at UCL)
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Pere Roca Cusachs, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (chair)
Xavier Trepat, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (co-chair)
Marino Arroyo, Technical University of Catalonia-BarcelonaTech and Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (co-chair)
