Institutional news

The AXA Research Fund, the international scientific philanthropy initiative of global insurer AXA, officially announced last week that it will devote €15.6m in 2016 to 44 new research projects with leading academic institutions in 16 countries.

IBEC’s two-year project, “Novel approaches for Pandemic Virus Targeting Using Adaptive Polymers”, is led by new junior group leader Lorenzo Albertazzi and aims to harness nanotechnology to introduce a whole new class of tools to fight viruses. This and the 43 other new projects were announced last Friday at an event in Paris, bringing together AXA executives and experts, members of the AXA Research Fund scientific community and academic partners, and other stakeholders.

Today and tomorrow, 22 hopeful candidates are visiting IBEC for their interviews for IBEC´s International PhD Programme positions.

The candidates, who represent 12 countries, have been selected from the more than 150 applicants who applied for the programme’s nine positions, which are supported by Severo Ochoa and La Caixa. It’s the first ever time that IBEC has held mass interviews of this type, as the PhD programme is new for this year and forms part of the institute’s Strategy for 2014-2017 in the area of attracting the best talent from all over the world via a transparent, open and international selection process.

Representatives from the Associació Catalana de Fibrosi Quística (ACFQ) came to IBEC on 22nd March to meet researchers and discuss the focus of their continuing support of investigation into the disease.

The visit took place in the framework of some exploratory groundwork in preparation for a potential new initiative involving the Obra Social “La Caixa” to focus on support for rare disorders.

Eduard Torrent’s Bacterial Infections: Antimicrobial Therapies group’s projects researching the enzyme that promotes the growth of the bacteria linked to this disease, and possible therapeutic targets, has been supported by the ACFQ since 2009.

This week, IBEC will once again be taking part in the annual Recerca en Directe science fair, which is co-organised by the PCB and the Obra Social ”la Caixa” which aims to bring science to the public, enable dialogue between society and researchers, and encourage young people to consider science as a career.

The event, which is in its 14th year and is supported by Barcelona City Council and the University of Barcelona, will take place in CosmoCaixa Barcelona from Wednesday to Saturday.

The GLAM project, of which IBEC’s Biomimetics for Systems for Cell Engineering group leader Elena Martínez is a partner, is supporting the 3rd Festa StandupPaddle (SUP) in aid of leukemia research in Barcelona on 24th April.

Via the crowdfunding platform “Mi grano de Arena” (My grain of sand), GLAM is collecting donations in for the event, which will involve stand up paddle boarding races, family activities, and much more. All donations made on the website and 75% of the money collected on the day will be forwarded to the Josep Carreras Foundation, a Barcelona-based organisation aiming to make leukaemia a 100% curable disease.

IBEC is to be part of a revolution in fetal surgery and the research of prenatal diseases thanks to support by the Obra Social ”la Caixa” and Cellex foundations.

The two foundations are set to fund two major projects coordinated by the Fetal Medicine Research Centre, Fetal i+D (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu). A fetal surgery part of the project, promoted by the Cellex Foundation, will improve the interventions currently being carried out, as well as developing new surgery to treat problems that currently lack solutions.

The Spanish Nanomedicine Platform (NanomedSpain), led by IBEC director Josep Samitier, is once again participating in the annual conference of Spain’s Plataformas Tecnológicas de Investigación Biomédica.

At the meeting, which is being held at the Hotel Crowne Plaze today and tomorrow, the keynote speaker invited by NanoMed Spain is Sylvia Bove, CEO of EIT Health. In addition, the Platform is organizing a parallel session on innovation in nanomedicine, in which various projects funded by the European programme H2020 will be presented. These success stories will include IBEC’s Elena Martinez’s ERC Consolidator grant to use biomimetic systems to study intestinal epithelium related diseases, as well as the SME Neos Surgery, which has received funding to complete the development of a new device for spine surgery.

More than 250 companies and public organizations met at Thursday’s Nit de CataloniaBio 2016, the annual forum for the sector, which this year had a special focus on the 10th anniversary of organiser CataloniaBio.

CataloniaBio is an association of companies, but the most relevant public institutions and research centers were invited, and IBEC was represented by director Josep Samitier and Xavier Rúbies and Diana Gonzalez from the Technology Transfer unit.

Also present at the event was the conseller of Health, Antoni Comín, the conseller of Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, CataloniaBio president and Reig Jofre CEO Ignasi Biosca, and CataloniaBio vice-president and Kern Pharma’s Director of Strategy and Development Clara Campàs.

IBEC group leader and ICREA research professor Xavier Trepat has come third in the La Vanguardia Science Award.

Xavier was nominated, alongside the UPC’s Marino Arroyo, for their groups’ research into what happens at a cellular level when the body’s tissues are broken – work that was published last year in Nature Materials. Xavier and Marino gained 15.3% of the votes in a readers’ poll that was open throughout February to nominate the Spanish scientist or scientists that did the most important research during 2015.

The overall winner of the competition was Joan Seoane at VHIO for his work on lumbar puncture against cerebral tumours. Clara Soria-Valles and Fernando G. Osorio of the University of Oviedo came second for their work on the role of the NF-kB molecule in ageing.

IBEC group leader and ICREA research professor Samuel Sánchez is the winner of this year’s edition of the Círculo Ecuestre’s Premio Joven Relevante.

Samuel received the honour at a gala dinner last Thursday, where he was voted first of the three finalists by the members of the exclusive society. The prize recognizes and rewards an individual or team of people younger than 38 who has developed a project that brings significant change for the benefit of Catalan and Spanish society.

The Círculo Ecuestre was founded in 1856 by a group of middle-class Catalans united by a common interest – horse riding. It has since been a meeting point in Catalan society, and a place where current and past affairs are debated and culture, business and leisure are brought together. The club currently has 1565 members, of which 400 are under the age of 40, from all walks of life: economics, politics, society and culture.