Institutional news

This week IBEC is attending BIO-EUROPE SPRING, the premier partnering conference that brings together the “who’s who” from biotech, pharma and finance in Europe.

Taking place at the CCIB convention centre today, tomorrow and Wednesday, BIO-EUROPE SPRING will welcome more than 2400 attendees from 1400 companies from more than 45 countries.
IBEC’s Technology Transfer head Xavier Rubies will be there for the three days presenting the institute’s portfolio of patents and technologies to look for partners, attending company presentations and networking.

The Spanish Platform for Nanomedicine (NanoMedSpain), led by IBEC Director Josep Samitier, is participating once again in the Annual Conference of Technological Platforms of Biomedical Research in Madrid this week.

This year, NanoMed Spain has invited Pier Maria Fornasari, Director of Complex Structures at the Instituto Ortopedico Rizzoli di Bologna. He will represent the ‘Biofabrication for Regenerative Medicine’ joint proposal sent to the European Commission in response to their call for new FET Flagship initiatives for the next work program.

This week IBEC is taking part in the Youth Mobile Festival (YOMO) of the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, with an interactive stand about bioengineering for cardiac regeneration.

Members of the Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group, Soledad Pérez, Jesús Ordoño and Gerard Rubí, will explain the research carried out to regenerate the heart using biodegradable and bioactive materials. With the aid of a 3D pen, attendees will be able to replicate one of the techniques that are used for research in this area.

Today, the tenth international Rare Disease Day, IBEC is taking part in an event at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu.

Organised by the Federación Española de Enfermedades Raras (FEDER), the Federació Catalana de Malalties Minoritàries (FECAMM) and the Plataforma de Malalties Minoritàries, and supported by GENCAT, CatSalut and the Parlament de Catalunya, the open conference will emphasize the importance of research in tackling rare diseases.

Josep Samitier will take part in a round table at the conference, during which he will present bioengineering applied to rare diseases.

On Friday last week MECHANO-CONTROL, the largest European project ever coordinated at IBEC, held its kick-off meeting at the institute.

Pere Roca-Cusachs’ project, which is funded by H2020’s FET Proactive programme, will focus on understanding and controlling how cells transmit and detect mechanical forces, with the aim of coming up with new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches for cancer and other diseases.

Saturday 11th February is the UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a chance for everyone to take a stand against gender inequality in research.

According to a study conducted in 14 countries, the probability for female students of graduating with a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and PhD in science-related field are 18%, 8% and 2% respectively, while the percentages of male students are 37%, 18% and 6% (UN).

At IBEC in 2016, female PhD students (38) outnumbered male (29), as did technicians (17 female and 11 male), but in other positions they lag behind.

Today the IBEC-managed Spanish Nanotechnology Platform, NanoMed Spain, co-hosted the fourth edition of Nano World Cancer Day 2017, a global initiative organized as part of World Cancer Day.

It’s the second year running that the platform has hosted the conference, which took place at Vall d’Hebron Instituto de Oncología (VHIO) and was opened by Josep Tabernero, Director of VHIO, and IBEC/NanoMed Spain’s Josep Samitier, who also gave a talk.

January 2017 sees the start of the largest European project ever coordinated at IBEC, Pere Roca-Cusachs’ MECHANOCONTROL, which aims to come up with new therapeutic or diagnostic approaches for cancer and other diseases.

Funded under Horizon 2020’s FET Proactive programme, which helps new research communities to be developed by encouraging researchers from different disciplines to work together, MECHANOCONTROL will focus on understanding and controlling how cells transmit and detect mechanical forces.

Former IBEC PhD student Ariadna Bartra has been awarded a Premi PIONER from CERCA.

The Signal and Information Processing for Sensing Systems group’s student’s thesis, ‘Detecció d’estats inadequats per la conducció d’un vehicle a partir de la degradació del control dinàmic’, was selected for its “direct applicability and market-minded approach, as well as its impact on improving road safety”, according to the judging panel. Her research carried out in Santiago Marco’s group was connected to the driver drowsiness alerter developed by IBEC and the company Ficosa.