IBEC researchers joined the activities of European Researchers’ Night 2026, held at CosmoCaixa and the Gabriel García Márquez Library last week. With activities on magnets, bacteria, nanoparticles and light, the aim was to showcase excellent research, spark interest in science and show how scientific work has an impact on people’s everyday lives.
More than 700 experts from around the world will attend the 3rd Conference of the European Society for Spatial Biology (ESSB), until 1 October, and co-organised by Dr Anna Pascual-Reguant from CNAG.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has today released the first episode of IBEC On Air, its new science communication podcast and one of the activities marking the institute’s 20th anniversary. Across seven episodes of around 20 minutes each, researchers from the institute talk about their work, the questions that drive it and the journey behind each project. The podcast is available on Spotify, iVoox, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has installed a new POLARIS system in Barcelona, one of the first two quantum-enhanced MRI systems deployed under the EU-funded Q-AID project, alongside a twin installation at the University of Antwerp. The system marks IBEC’s entry into a four-year, €8.3 million European initiative to build a shared platform for quantum-enhanced metabolic imaging.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) currently has two projects in the ATMP Catalyst acceleration programme, run by Biocat: AdCerebri, from the Molecular Bionics research group led by Giuseppe Battaglia, which joined the programme’s second call this week, and Aegisome Bio, from the Quasi-living Materials group led by César Rodriguez Emmenegger, selected in the first edition and now moving into its second phase. Both projects were presented on Thursday 10 September 2026 at ATMP Day 2026, the event organised by Biocat to showcase the programme’s new cohort.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) welcomes Dr Carlos Moreno Yruela as principal investigator. Moreno-Yruela joins from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) and will lead the new Enzyme Sensors and Chemical Probes group, focused on developing imaging tools and enzyme-activity modulators to uncover disease mechanisms.
Manuel Salmeron, director and ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), received the George Winter Award 2026 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to biomaterials research. The European Society for Biomaterials’ (ESB) most prestigious individual honour was officially presented to Salmeron, he stated on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, during the ESB 2026 conference held in Antwerp, Belgium.
As every year, as soon as the school year ends, IBEC’s laboratories fill up with a new generation of future scientists. This summer, more than 20 secondary school, high school and undergraduate students took part in various programmes, gaining first-hand experience of the day-to-day work of bioengineering research in nine of the centre’s laboratories.
Xavier Trepat and his team at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) are key partners in ALIVE: Active Living Matter — Information, Vitality, and Emergence, an international research programme selected for funding through the first European edition of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme. Coordinated by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, the project will receive 75 million DKK (around €10 million) over six years to uncover how information flows drive the emergence, organisation and function of living tissues.
