Institutional news

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.

IBEC group leaders Eduard Torrents and Elisabeth Engel both received awards at last week’s EIT Health Spain event at the PCB.

Eduard’s project, Novel Antimicrobial Therapy, won first prize in the ‘PoC +’ category of EIT health Spain’s Proof of Concept (PoC +) awards, and in the ‘PoC’ category, Elisabeth won a prize for Dermoglass, the smart dressing for the treatment of chronic wounds.

Two IBEC projects have been granted funding as part of the 2016 CaixaImpulse programme, which is organized by the ”la Caixa” Foundation and Caixa Capital Risc.

Cellular and molecular mechanobiology group leader Pere Roca-Cusachs’ project, “Solid tumor therapy”, and “ISCHEMSURG”, led by Monica Mir, senior researcher in Josep Samiiter’s Nanobioengineering group, will each receive up to €70,000 through this year’s programme, which aims to promote technology transfer in science.

Last week more than 50 people attended a special event organised by IBEC, “Advancing Gender Equality and Diversity in Science”. The morning of talks and discussions aimed to raise awareness and reflect on how to balance gender equality, and particularly how institutions, as well as society in general, can address such issues via best practices or other strategies.

The proceedings began with a look at gender and aging stereotypes in society and specifically in science and advertising by marketing and communications consultant Montse Montllau, followed by an examination by CRG Group Leader Dr. Mara Dierssen of more science-based issues such as bias in publishing papers, raising funds and recruitment procedures.

IBEC has become a partner in the Red de Innovación en Tecnologías Médicas y Sanitarias (ITEMAS), an innovation network for medical and health technologies.

ITEMAS, promoted by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), brings 95 companies and organizations together with 66 medical centres in Spain to collaborate on R+D projects. The partners will also work together on outreach initiatives.

Barcelona is playing host to EIT Health’s very first Summit this week, the highlight of its first year of activities.

IBEC is a core partner in the €2.1 billion Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC), one of the largest public funded initiatives for health worldwide, with IBEC director Josep Samitier on the Supervisory Board. Barcelona is one of EIT Health’s co-location centers, with the initiative’s Spanish headquarters based at the PCB.

The EIT Health Summit, which is taking place on 23rd-24th November at CosmoCaixa, will bring together up to 350 participants from among the initiative’s partner organisations, education programmes and external stakeholders.

IBEC’s Technology Transfer Unit was in Germany this week to present a new product developed by the IBEC-GENOMICA Joint Unit that carries out analysis to detect Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in a cheap, quick and convenient desktop device.

Head of Technology Transfer Xavier Rubies, as well as representing IBEC as a research centre related to health, joined forces with representatives from GENOMICA S.A.U. to reveal NEDxA, a nano-electronic diagnostic array, at the MEDICA World Forum for Medicine in Düsseldorf on 14th-17th November.