Institutional news

2017 sees the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) celebrate its first ten years of research activity, with this week’s 10th Anniversary Symposium kicking off the celebrations.

It’s been a hair-raisingly fast climb up to the near top of the tree of centres in the Catalan research arena, with IBEC already holding its own alongside bigger and more established organizations for scientific output, number of ERC grants, patents, spin-offs, training programmes, national or EU-level stamps and endorsements, and other important indicators.

IBEC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the EF Clif, the European Foundation for the Study of Chronic Liver Failure.

The five-year agreement will enable the two organizations to share staff and knowledge, apply for funding together and otherwise collaborate with the goal of improving knowledge of the mechanisms of chronic liver failure and increasing survival rates for patients.

Two undergraduate biomedical engineering students who are doing their practical work at IBEC have been selected to go to Montreal to compete in SNIFFEST, a new international competition promoting practical and original solutions for odour measurement.

The UB-IBEC team, third year students Alba Iruela and Suhyang Park, have built a system based on chemical sensors and a Raspberry Pi in Santiago Marco’s Signal and Information Processing for Sensing Systems group at IBEC, which is also sponsoring half the cost of their trip. The system contains embedded intelligence algorithms which the students have programmed to analyze the signals from the sensors.

On Wednesday a group of 30 delegates from the 23rd World Smart Systems & Micromachine Summit (MMS 2017) paid a visit to IBEC to find out more about the institute’s activities.

MMS 2017, which has been taking place in Barcelona since Monday, has the special topic of “Micro and Nano systems for Smart Cities applications” this year. It attracts 80 representatives from more than 25 countries annually, and was first organized in 1995 by the Micromachine Center in Japan.

Forty undergraduate and master students attended today’s reSearch4Talent at IBEC, the third time we’ve opened our doors to young scholars interested in a career in science.

Held in the Dolors Aleu room of the Barcelona Science Park, the event started with a welcome and presentation about the institute from IBEC’s director, Josep Samitier, followed by specific information about applications and admissions from Ciara Boter of the HR department.

After the Careers Fair at midday, which was a chance for participants to mingle and chat with IBEC’s researchers, the visitors enjoyed some tours of selected labs.

Last week IBEC attended the 3rd general assembly of the Health Tech Cluster, an alliance of industry, research centres and other bodies working in the health technologies sector in Catalonia.

Established in 2015 with the support of the Catalan government, the HT Cluster counts IBEC and most of hospitals, as the Hospital Clinic among its research and clinical partners. They’re joined by businesses such as Avinent, Vecmedical and Sibel to contribute to the Cluster’s aim of promoting and developing innovative solutions via public-private partnerships to improve the quality of life for patients.

IBEC is to be part of a multi-million euro 3D printing infrastructure in Catalonia that was presented at a press conference today at La Pedrera.

The Global 3D Printing Hub, which will receive up to 28 million euros from the Generalitat by 2020, will aim to consolidate Catalonia as a world leader in 3D printing, one of the key technologies in industry 4.0.

During the last two days IBEC has been taking part in 10alamenos9, the second Festival of Nanoscience, at CosmoCaixa museum in Barcelona.

Funded by FECYT, the festival is taking place simultaneously in Barcelona, Saragossa, Bellaterra, San Sebastian and Madrid, and aims to highlight the importance and impact of nanoscience and nanotechnology.
IBEC’s contribution to the programme of exhibitions, workshops, seminars and contests included a Nano Workshop in collaboration with Il·lustraciència, talks by Gabriel Gomila and Samuel Sánchez, and a workshop on drug delivery.

One of IBEC’s mentees under the BATX2LAB programme was a prize winner last Wednesday at the initiative’s annual ceremony to award the best research projects.

In BATX2LAB, organised by the PCB and CatalunyaCaixa, researchers working in the science park are assigned as tutors to secondary school pupils who are starting their A-level/Baccalaureate research projects. It enables participating students to carry out their research in a ‘real’ lab environment and with the support of an experienced scientist.

An image from Xavier Fernandez-Busquets’ Nanomalaria joint unit has been selected as Image of the Month for April 2017 for the Pinacoteca de la Ciencia, a competition run by the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM).

The cryo-transmission electron microscope image of liposomes being assayed for the encapsulation of drugs targeted to red blood cells infected by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum was a result of Xavier’s ongoing collaboration with artist Marc Cirera.

SEBBM’s Pinacoteca de la Ciencia, sponsored by Eppendorf, showcases the best photos sent by the society’s partners month by month.