Institutional news

The nanoBio&Med2018 International Conference opened today with IBEC Director Josep Samitier chairing the first round of talks, in which group leader Samuel Sanchez is the first speaker.

Other IBEC speakers and participants throughout the three-day event will include Rafael Mestre, Anna Lagunas, Silvia Pujals, Xavier Arqué and Samuel Ojosnegros, as well as UCL’s Giuseppe Battaglia, who will join the institute soon.

Taking place at the PCB, the IBEC-supported event – now in its fourth year – presents the most recent international developments in the fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine and will provide a platform for multidisciplinary communication, new cooperations and projects to participants from both science and industry.

Today Spain’s Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence – including IBEC – and the María de Maeztu Units of Excellence are at the CNIO in Madrid for 100xCiencia.3, the annual event of the SOMMa alliance.

This year’s 100xCiencia is devoted to ‘Bringing Science and Society’, and IBEC is participating with a poster about its outreach activities.

As well as representatives from the research centres and units, the event is being attended by politicians, journalists and civic figures to debate about the different aspects of how and why science is important for society.

Ben Feringa (left), Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner in 2016, will be one of the speakers at the second International Symposium on Photopharmacology (ISPP2018) on 1st-2nd November.

Co-organised by IBEC, UVic-UCC and IQAC-CISC, the symposium will take place in the Torre dels Frares building at the UVic and will be attended by more than 120 people, the vast majority of whom will be coming from countries other than Spain.

Introducing a drug into the human body that remains inactive inside it and only acts when, where and how we tell it to will be possible within a few years with the application of photopharmacology, a new branch of science that uses light to control the activity of medication.

Last week IBEC attended the third edition of “IN(3D)USTRY: From Needs to Solutions”, the international meeting devoted to 3D printing.

The institute had a stand in the exhibition area, where Head of Technology Transfer Xavier Rubies and Technology Transfer manager Xavier Puñet welcomed visitors interested in finding out more about IBEC’s 3D bioprinting capabilities.

The Generalitat de Catalunya’s Minister of Enterprise and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón (right), was interested to hear about IBEC’s medical solutions using 3D bioprinting for bone, cartilage, skin, diagnostic, cardiology and muscle.

On Friday 19th October, an event to round off the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera’s ‘Bojos per la ciència’ (‘Crazy for Science’) initiative took place at IBEC.

This year was the first year that IBEC took part in the ‘Bojos’ initiative, with a course devoted to bioengineering. 25 students have been coming to IBEC on eighteen Saturdays between January and October to attend in theoretical and practical sessions about the main areas of research in bioengineering applied to health: controlled drug release, biomaterials, regenerative therapies and the medicine of the future, among other topics. In addition, the students participated in complementary workshops where they looked at ethical questions and scientific communication, as well as getting hands-on experience of the research laboratory environment.

Last week IBEC’s PhD students headed off to Mas Colltort in Sant Feliu de Pallarols for the first ever IBEC PhD retreat.

The two-day sojourn in the country was a chance for more than 50 of IBEC’s students to hear talks by various speakers, give flash presentations about their career paths, and get to know one another.

Yesterday’s 11th IBEC Symposium closed with the bestowing of IBEC Doctoral Certificates of Excellence on two PhD fellows, the first time the recognition has been awarded since the initiative’s inception in 2017.

Maria Valls from the Biomimetic Systems for Cell Engineering group and Berta Gumi from Nanoprobes and Nanoswitches were the students who achieved the certificates, which are in recognition of outstanding performance during the PhD at IBEC.

Tueday 2nd October will see the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia’s 11th Annual Symposium take place at Barcelona’s AXA Auditoritum, the first symposium in the insitute’s second decade of activity.

Focusing this year on the topic of Bioengineering for Regenerative Therapies – one of IBEC’s three areas of application, with its expertise in 3D bioprinting, biomaterials, nanomedicine, stem cells and biomechanics – the symposium will welcome expert speakers in tissue engineering and regeneration from all over the world.