Three researchers from IBEC awarded with grants from “la Caixa” for their pioneering and high social impact research
José Antonio del Río, Pau Gorostiza, and Samuel Sánchez have been awarded in two of the “la Caixa” calls.
José Antonio del Río, principal investigator of the Molecular and Cellular Neurobiotechnology Group at IBEC, is one of the winners of the second edition of the call for applications in biomedicine and health. Del Río’s project focuses on analysing the molecular mechanisms involved in the genesis and propagation of tau protein in brain cells. This protein is linked with several neurodegenerative processes and is present in numerous diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Pau Gorostiza, principal investigator of the Nanoprobes and Nanoswitches Group, also received an award at the second edition of the call for applications for research projects in biomedicine and health. In this case, for his project on degenerative eye conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa, which causes blindness due to the progressive degeneration of the cones and rods, which are the light sensitive cells.
On Wednesday July 17th, the 12th IBEC Annual Symposium was held at the Hotel Catalonia Plaza in Barcelona. With the participation of more than 300 assistants and the exhibition of more than 102 scientific posters, this year, the event focused on Bioengineering for active aging – one of the three main research areas of IBEC- and had the participation of three MIT speakers (Massachusets Institute of Technology), among others.
Three members of the ICMS have participated at the second IBEC-ICMS symposium, celebrated last 16th July at the Barcelona Science Park. The event aimed to identify synergies and potential for collaboration between IBEC groups and the researchers of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS), a research institute of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).
This Friday took place at CosmoCaixa Barcelona the diploma award ceremony of the INPhINT PhD fellowships granted by Fundació bancaria “La Caixa”. The call received more than 1.100 applications and only 77 where selected for a total value of more than 9 million euros. 
The researcher Núria Montserrat accompanies the president of the European Research Council (ERC) together with a selection of the best European researchers, at the Summer Davos annual Meeting, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF). She has participated in several forums about how to work on more prosperous future and she explained how the research in organ regeneration that she is currently undertaking at IBEC can help in the fight against cancer.
A group of experts at Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) lead the European project BRIGHTER (Bioprinting by light-sheet lithography: engineering complex tissues with high resolution at high speed), an initiative to develop an innovative and high resolution 3D bioprinting technology able to produce functional tissues.
Santiago Marco, group leader of the Signal and information processing for sensing systems research group at IBEC has recently been appointed vice-president for the next two years of the International Society for Olfaction and Chemical Sensing (ISOCS) during the general assembly held at the International Symposium on Olfaction and Electronic Nose Conference (ISOEN) in ACROS, Fukuoka, Japan. 
