Institutional news

Xavier Rubies, head of IBEC’s Technology Transfer unit, took part in last week’s B · Debate conference on “Fighting Blindness. Future Opportunities and Challenges for Visual Restoration”, organized by the Barcelona Macula Foundation in collaboration with the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and LEITAT.

Xavier took part in the “From Bench to Bedside” round table, where he explained the process of bringing research results to market. The other speakers agreed with his position that in order to achieve effective results, it’s necessary to start by looking at demand, and then to lead the transfer of projects according to the needs of the market.

This B · Debate conference, an initiative of Biocat and Obra Social “la Caixa”, aimed to explore the potential of new therapeutic approaches for retinal dystrophies, combining nanotechnology, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, genomics, bioengineering, photonics and optogenetics.

Lorenzo Albertazzi and ‘Gripin’ the virus have made it into the 2016 AXA Research Fund Photo Contest, a competition that challenges scientists to capture their AXA Research Fund project in a single image.

Lorenzo’s photo (left) – taken at IBEC with the help of the Communcications Team – shows him grappling with the ‘virus’, which have the ability to mutate, change, and become resistant to treatments.

With AXA funding, his research group at IBEC is creating resistance-free therapies based on nanofibers that can wrap around a virus like yarn, stopping disease from spreading. “I’d like viruses to be as big as the one in the photo,” says Lorenzo. “It would make our job a lot easier!”

The photo, along with 13 other semi-finalists, has been posted to a dedicated Facebook gallery at which the public can vote during September by “Liking” a photo.

IBEC now has Wikipedia entries in English, Spanish and Catalan.

Wikipedia is the seventh most-visited website in the world and the largest encyclopedia ever, with 5,200,000 entries in English alone. The fifteen year-old website has been described as the ‘largest collaborative effort in the history of mankind’.

As with all Wikipedia entries, the IBEC page is a ‘living’ page, and will be expanded and improved over time as the institute’s history progresses.

With these new entries, IBEC joins the category “Research institutes in Catalonia” of the free online encyclopedia, in which other centres in the Catalan research system are already present.

IBEC is a member of one of five ‘communities’ that will receive funding as part of the RIS3CAT intiative, which aims to enable and promote large projects in Catalonia that combine industry and research.

In the launch meeting at the headquarters of RIS3CAT coordinator ACCIO – the government’s agency for competitivity in business – on Monday, Minister for Business and Enterprise Jordi Baiget, who chaired the event alongside Director General of Industry Nuria Betriu, declared RIS3CAT “the greatest ever effort for innovation in Catalonia”.

IBEC is a member of NEXTHEALTH, one of two health-related RIS3CAT communities among the five, all of which bring together businesses, research organizations, hospitals, and other major players to form a critical mass to work in collaboration on large-scale projects to boost innovation.

This month IBEC is taking part in the Barcelona International Youth Science Challenge (BIYSC 2016), a new initiative that aims to stimulate scientific talent among young people from all over the world.

IBEC’s researchers are contributing via the institute’s BIYSC project, “Instructive Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine”, coordinated by Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group senior researcher Soledad Pérez. The project aims to help the students understand the basis of regenerative medicine and to find out about developing of target-specific biomaterial scaffolding systems. IBEC’s project is one of ten being offered by research centres in the area within the framework of BIYSC, including IRB, CRG, ICFO, the UB, and ICIQ, and one of four that was fully subscribed.

IBEC is celebrating its 9th annual IBEC Symposium today at Barcelona’s AXA Auditorium.

This year the theme will be ‘Bioengineering for Active Ageing, which is one of the institute’s three main areas of application.

The global ageing population will have considerable consequences, but biomedical engineering can contribute greatly to improving the quality of life of older people. Assisted living technologies such as telecare, home-based devices and services that support daily life with a remote link to a call-centre, and telehealth – remote monitoring, consultation and diagnosis – can help support independent living at home, keeping patients out of hospital and residential care for longer. Advances in sensors, signal treatment, data analysis, robotics and intelligent control systems at IBEC are enabling the development of remote care or assisted living, so that people with dementia or long-term health conditions can remain in their own homes.

IBEC Director Josep Samitier and the Technology Transfer unit introduced IBEC’s 3D bioprinting capabilities at the first IN(3D)USTRY event, which was held in Barcelona last week.

The first ever international meeting devoted to 3D printing, “IN(3D)USTRY: From Needs to Solutions” saw leading companies and other organisations showcase the innovations and opportunities that the new technology can offer to countless projects and processes.

The meeting, which was founded by Fira de Barcelona and HP, attracted professionals working in areas as diverse as as autos and aeronautics, architecture and habitat, retail and consumer goods and, of course, healthcare.