Institutional news

Today IBEC welcomed the new Director General of Research, Development, and Innovation of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MINECO) to meet some of the group leaders and hear about their research.

Dr. Teresa Riesgo Alcaide met IBEC’s directors and was taken on a tour of the laboratories of Samuel Sánchez, Josep Samitier, Xavier Trepat and Elena Martínez, as well as viewing IBEC’s 3D bioprinting facilities.

Dr. Riesgo was in town for the EIT Health Partner Assembly at Caixa Forum, an important event on the calendar for the network.

IBEC is celebrating its sixth Caixaimpulse success, with Eduard Torrents’ project ‘BiofilmChip: personalized treatment for biofilm infections’ winning support in the programme’s fourth round.

Working in collaboration with Josep Samitier’s Nanobioengineering group, BiofilmChip will develop an easy-to-use device that allows biofilm-forming bacteria to be grown in vitro, enabling clinicians to evaluate the efficency of various antibiotics and determine the best individualized treatment for biofilm-infected patients. 20 projects from all over Spain and Portugal were awarded in this fourth round, selected from a total of 85 submissions.

The European Commission has published its proposal for the next framework programme in research and innovation, Horizon Europe.

Succeeding Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe will run from 2021 to 2027 and aims to strengthen science and technology in the EU to help tackle the major global challenges of our time. The framework programme is based on the conviction that Europe’s success increasingly depends on its ability to transform excellent scientific results into innovation that will have a beneficial impact on the economy and quality of life, and create new markets with more skilled jobs.

IBEC is listed as an ‘outstanding’ Spanish research centre for Horizon 2020 funding in a recent report published by the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI).

The institute, which coordinates eight H2020 projects and is a partner in two more, appears in the table ‘20 asociaciones de investigación más destacadas por retorno en H2020’ (pictured) in the CDTI’s ‘Participación española en Horizonte 2020: Resultados provisionales (2014-2017)’. This report presents the facts and figures behind the participation of Spanish universities, research centres, companies and other organisations in the EU’s current framework programme, which took over from FP7 in 2014.

This week IBEC group leader Elena Martinez is in Toulouse for the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe, where she is taking part as a speaker.

Elena, who heads IBEC’s Biomimetic systems for cell engineering group, was invited to take part in the ‘Growing mini-organs on a petri dish: myth or reality’ session by the ERC, which funds her COMIET project with a Consolidator grant. COMIET aims to engineer epithelial tissue models that mimic the physiological characteristics found in the human intestine. Around 40 of the ERC’s grantees have been invited to take part in the funding body’s sessions at ESOF this year.

An IBEC project has won funding from the BBVA Foundation under its ‘Ayudas a Equipos de Investigación en Biomedicina’ funding programme.

ICREA research professor Samuel Sánchez’s Smart Nano-Bio-Devices group will receive the support for three years to develop their project ‘MEDIROBOTS: Precision nanobotomy against tumors’.

The project will develop biocompatible robots driven by enzymes with applications as drug release systems whose progress in vitro and in vivo can be traced using advanced molecular imaging techniques such as super-resolution microscopy.

Last month IBEC Director Josep Samitier was one of the panelists in a round table organised by the Cercle de Salut, an association devoted to improving the health system so that it may respond adequately to the challenges posed by society.

In the discussion at the Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona (PRBB) entitled ‘L’excel·lència en la recerca, reptes immediats’, Josep and the other participants – ISGlobal director Antoni Plasencia and IrsiCaixa director Bonaventura Clotet – discussed the current situation of biomedical research in Catalonia. In particular, the hot topic under discussion was the impact that recent regulatory and administrative changes may have on its competitiveness.

An IBEC project pitch won third prize in a Technology Transfer Competition at last week’s Onco Emergence Forum.

The project, which is the brainchild of IBEC group leader Pere Roca-Cusachs and proposes the targeting of tumor mechanics to develop new drugs for oncology, specifically with pancreatic cancer in mind, was pitched by IBEC Technology Transfer manager Diana Gonzalez at the meeting on Friday.

Diana, involved in the project from its onset, was one of twelve finalists chosen to present in six-minute pitches to a panel of judges. The project was shortlisted because of its solid focus on an unmet medical, market or patient need, and because it proposed using innovative technology to create a product or service.