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Institutional news

IBEC signs an agreement for 1.5 million euros with Scranton Enterprises

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has signed an agreement for an initial investment round of one and a half million euros with Scranton Entreprises B.V. -an investment association headquartered in the Netherlands-, with the aim of developing technology that predicts the probability of implantation of embryos obtained through in vitro fertilization.

This agreement is the first to be established within the framework of the institute’s new initiative, the Open Innovation Lab, that offers companies and investors a platform to bring the cutting-edge research to patients and to the market faster.

IBEC brings together two Nobel prizes on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

The Instiute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has brought together in the same act the American physicist Jerome Friedman, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990, and the Israeli crystallographer Ada Yonath, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009.

Both researchers, who are in Barcelona for the biennial “Ciutat i Ciència” organized by Institut de Cultura de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona, have coincided in this event on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Another successful edition of Health TECH World Cancer Day

Last Friday the IBEC-managed Spanish Nanomedicine Platform, NanoMed Spain, co-hosted the sixth edition of Health TECH World Cancer Day, a global initiative organized as part of World Cancer Day.

It’s the fourth year running that the platform has hosted the conference, which took place at the headquarters of the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC) in Barcelona and was opened by Laureano Molins, president de AECC Cataluña and IBEC/NanoMed Spain’s Josep Samitier, who also gave a presentation about the platform.

IBEC joins the Magnet program for the educational innovation

This past Tuesday 22 of January took place the first meeting among the cloister of the school Gayare de Sants with the scientists and IBEC staff in the framework of the Magnet program. It was an interactive and practical day attended by 20 teachers from the centre.

“Magnet, alliances for educational success” is a program that unites educational centres that have an unbalanced social composition with an institution of excellence for 4 years. This union will allow the educational centre to develop an innovative project that will become a reference project in its territory.

IBEC participates in the First Biennial Ciutat-Ciència 2019

IBEC is a driving force behind a major science festival that will be taking place across the city this year. The event was presented yesterday at a press conference held at the Amfiteatre Anatòmic de la Reial Acadèmia de Medicina and it is organized by the Ajuntament de Barcelona along with other top research centers.

An initiative promoted by the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB), Ciutat-Ciència is being planned by a committee of seven reseachers, including IBEC’s group leader Nuria Monstserrat.

With a week of concentrated activity from 7th-11th February, Ciutat-Ciència will present today’s rapidly accelerating scientific advances to citizens and encourage debate and opinion.

Two more juniors consolidate as full group leaders

Lorenzo Albertazzi and Nuria Montserrat, IBEC’s Junior Group Leaders selected in the 2014 Tenure Track programme, have been successfully consolidated as Group Leader as of 1st January 2019, following a positive evaluation by the ISC.

IBEC’s tenure track programme aims to support career development by helping young researchers establish their own independent research lines. Other factors considered included the added value offered by their projects to the current IBEC research programme, and the ability of the selected candidates to carry out efficient group leadership and management.

The first four junior group leaders selected by the programme in 2012 – Eduard Torrents, Elisabeth Engel, Pere Roca-Cusachs and Xavier Fernández-Busquets – were all successfully consolidated as Senior Group Leaders as of 1st January 2017.

Third IBEC student wins PIONER prize for thesis

Jemish Parmar from IBEC’s Smart Nano-Bio-Devices group has been awarded a Premi Pioner from CERCA for his Doctoral Thesis “Micromotors for Environmental Applications”.

Since their launch in 2014, the prizes recognize researchers who present a doctoral thesis with results that are clearly aimed at commercial exploitation. The third IBEC winner of one of these prestigious awards, Jemish was honoured alongside the three other winners – from ICFO, CTFC and IGTP – at a ceremony yesterday.

The jury in this fifth edition of the Premis Pioner was made up of Eduard Balbuena (Enterprise Department at UAB), Josep Maria Pujals (IP lawyer at Oficina Ponti), Melba Navarro (Knowledge Transfer Technology Manager at CIMNE Tecnologia), Anna López Lozano (IP expert),

IBEC project to defy blood-brain barrier awarded in highly competitive call

IBEC group leader Silvia Muro has been granted funding in MINECO’s ‘Explora Ciencia’ and ‘Explora Tecnología’ 2017 call.

It’s the first competitive grant for Silvia and her group since she joined IBEC at the end of 2017, and one of only 97 research projects to be financed out of the 1594 applications submitted – a success rate of only 6%.

The project, ‘Controlling the differential transport of therapeutic cargoes into versus across the BBB (BBB2GATE)’ will aim to develop drug vehicles that can cross the blood-brain barrier using the natural routes that the body’s substances use to circumvent this obstruction.

Iproteos, IBEC and VHIR to develop an innovative therapy against solid tumors

The biotechnology company Iproteos, IBEC and the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) are set to develop an innovative treatment to slow down, stop and even reverse the growth of solid tumors, which represent more than 90% of cancer cases.

It’s a family of peptidomimetic drugs based on a totally new anti-tumor action mechanism, the result of several years of research by Pere Roca-Cusachs’ group at IBEC.

The Translational Research Group on Cancer in Children and Teenagers at VHIR will evaluate candidate drugs, developed with Iproteos’ IPROTech technology, in pediatric tumours in vitro and in vivo.

IBEC’s CRISPR and organ regeneration project wins Fira Recerca en Directe 2019 vote

This year an IBEC project has won the Fira Recerca en Directe 2019’s public poll for most popular project, with 26.94% of the votes.

“CRISPR and the regeneration of organs” is one 11 activities which will take place at the research fair on 6th -14th March 2019 in CosmoCaixa.
This annual festival of science, organised by Parc Cientic of Barcelona in collaboration with Obra Social “la Caixa”, is a chance for research groups and universities to bring the latest in research to the attention of the public and school-age visitors with exciting demonstration stands and activities.