Institutional news

IBEC group leader Samuel Sánchez was one of the experts invited to attend the Innovators Under 35 European Summit in Brussels last week, a gathering of the European winners of MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators under 35” list.

Samuel gave a talk, “The Evolution of Nanorobots”, at the event, which brought together the winners of the prestigious recognition from Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Poland as well as Spain. The summit aimed to create a strong community of those innovators recognized annually by the prestigious publication to share their knowledge and experience in fields ranging from nanotechnology and energy to software or transportation.

A research project involving IBEC group leader and ICREA research professor Pau Gorostiza has been chosen for funding under a Call for Expressions of Interest (CEol) on Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience by the Human Brain Project (HBP) FET Flagship.

The four selected projects from the total of 57 proposals submitted address ambitious cognitive and systems neuroscience questions and rely on the collaboration of researchers from different European countries. The project involving Pau, Wave Scaling Experiments and Simulations (WaveScalES), is coordinated by Pier Stanislao Paolucci at the Instituto Nazionale di Fisica in Rome and will study the neuronal networks underling sleep and wakefulness under normal conditions and in disease.

IBEC group leader Samuel Sanchez was one of the experts and professionals invited to take part in CEDE’s “Talento en Crecimiento” event at the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos in A Coruña at the beginning of the month.

He took to the stage with some of the most influential business leaders, entrepreneurs and experts in the country, including Francisco Reynes, CEO of Abertis, Juan Urdiales, co-founder of Jobandtalent, and Maria Salamero, Director of Innovation and Knowledge at Agbar, all of which were there to give the 500 young attendees advice on career advancement, personal branding, mobility and employability.

The 100XCIENCIA “Communicating frontier science” forum took place last week in Santa Cruz de La Palma. IBEC Director Josep Samitier was one of the twenty directors that presented their Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence to the assembled science communicators and journalists, including the New York Times’ Kenneth Chang.

The three-day unprecedented event also included round tables during which the directors, journalists and other professionals including European Commission representatives could discuss topics such as science policy, science in the media, and the impact of outreach activities.

This morning IBEC had the chance to show off its research facilities and investigators to Carmen Vela, Spain’s secretary of state for research, development and innovation.

After inaugurating the IBEC-organized B·Debate on “Future Tools for Biomedical Research” at CosmoCaixa at the beginning of the day, Mrs. Vela was taken on a tour of IBEC’s laboratories, where she chatted with heads of research groups – including Nuria Monserrat, Samuel Sanchez, Elena Martinez, Eli Engel, Lorenzo Albertazzi and Pau Gorostiza – about their work. Afterwards, Mrs. Vela enjoyed morning coffee with IBEC’s directorate and several more group leaders.

Next week will be a full one at IBEC, with several important events on the agenda.

Monday 28th September will see the arrival of Scientific Advisory Board for their annual two-day meeting with IBEC’s directorate. Among other things, the panel of experts from research and industry, who will be coming from as far afield as the USA and Singapore, will be reviewing the international candidates for the group leader and tenure track positions.

On Wednesday 30th September, IBEC’s 8th Annual Symposium will take place at Barcelona’s AXA auditorium.

IBEC group leader and ICREA Research Professor Pau Gorostiza will be taking part in the Barcelona version of European Researcher’s Night this Friday, 25th September.

Held at the CCCB, the Nit Europea de la Recerca Barcelona will be in celebration of the Year of Light. At 20:00 Pau will take part in a round table moderated by BIOCAT on the subject of “Humans amb més llum: re-evolució humana gràcies a les noves tecnologies basades en la llum”.

Yesterday IBEC welcomed some of its partners from HT Cluster, a new alliance of industry, research centres and other bodies working in the health technologies sector in Catalonia, through its doors.

IBEC Director Josep Samitier and researchers Elisabeth Engel, Xavier Puñet, Lucas Pedraz, Agustín Gutiérrez and Mateu Pla gave talks to the visitors, who represented some of the businesses and other organizations that form the cluster. Afterwards, Mateu led a tour of IBEC’s facilities.

This morning, the 15 research projects that have been selected for funding under in the first CaixaImpulse call, including two IBEC projects, were presented at the Palau Macaya.

Xavier Puñet, a PhD student in the Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group, presented Dermoglass, a dressing that stimulates revascularization in chronic wounds such as skin ulcers and promotes the formation of healthy skin. The other IBEC project selected for funding is RNRbiotics led by Eduard Torrents, group leader of the Bacterial infections: antibiotic therapy group, which aims to develop new antimicrobial agents effective against resistant bacterial infections, currently considered as one of the main threats to human health (World Health Organization).

Dr Lorenzo Albertazzi, a nanoscientist whose research focuses on creating smart self-assembling materials for therapeutic applications, is joining IBEC this September.

Lorenzo, who is coming to Barcelona from Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, will set up a laboratory at IBEC to create a molecular ‘toolbox’ of supramolecular biomimetic structures – self-organized or assembled synthetic materials able to mimic the complexity of biological machinery – for applications in nanomedicine and biotechnology, such as transporting drugs into the body or attacking viruses.