Institutional news

IBEC is participating this week in Expoquimia, the international chemistry trade show whose 17th edition is taking place from 30 September to 3 October at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona.

Expoquimia is attended by the leading companies and organizations in the international chemical industry such as BASF, BAYER, Dow Chemical, ICL, REPSOL and SOLVAY. The Fira’s three halls open their doors at 10am today, kicking off a program of workshops, seminars and conferences, as well as the trade exhibition.

The 7th annual IBEC Symposium is fast approaching!

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

The latest article published by IBEC’s Nanoscale bioelectrical characterization group has made the cover of the journal Nanotechnology.

The paper, “Finite-size effects and analytical modeling of electrostatic force microscopy applied to dielectric films”, presents a model for the accurate quantification of EFM measurements on dielectric films on metallic substrates.

IBEC’s Xavier Fernández-Busquets appears in a video produced by the EU‪-‬funded‪ ERA-NET‬ project‪ EuroNanoMed‬ on “‪Drug Delivery‬:‪ The Use of Nanoparticles in Medicine‬”.

It’s the second in a series of videos featuring scientists working in the field of nanomedicine which are being produced for ‪EuroNanoMed‬ by its Israeli partner, the Chief Scientist Office of the country’s Ministry of Health (CSO-MOH).

This week, 24 young researchers from Spain, Italy, Portugal and even further afield are at IBEC to learn about the state-of-the-art of stem cell research and regenerative medicine, as well as learning some essential lab techniques, in the fourth  “Interrogations at the Biointerface” Advanced Summer School.

The Summer School, which is co-organised annually by IBEC, the Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica (INEB) and the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto (IPATIMUB), both in Portugal, features a stellar line-up of speakers for three days and then introduces PhD students and early postdocs to advanced experimental techniques for a day.

On Monday 16th June IBEC signed an agreement with the council of Sant Feliu de Guíxols to work together on a new museum exhibit on the history of health and medicine in Catalunya, “Curar-se en salut”.

Sant Feliu de Guíxols’ Museu d’Història will host the exhibition, which will begin with a journey through the past to the present and future of medicine.

Andrea Malandrino, a postdoc in IBEC’s Biomechanics and Mechanobiology group, will spend two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship.

Andrea will work in new SAB member Roger Kamm’s Mechanobiology lab developing the “Coordination And Migration of Cells during 3D vasculogenesis” (CAMVAS) project, in which existing 3D microfluidic techniques are combined with a computational model of vasculogenesis.

IBEC is taking part in this year’s Festival Ciència, Tecnologia i Innovació – formerly known as the Festa de la Ciència – with several activities during the ‘Festa al Parc’ part on 14th-15th June.

From 11:00 each day, Elisabet Martí from the Nanomalaria group and Rosa Letizia Zaffino from Nanobioengineering will be teaming up with IrsiCaixa, coordinators of the EU project NanOpinion, to man the Mobile Station (pictured left) in the Espai Glorieta of the Parc de la Ciutadella.

IBEC Director Josep Samitier is one of the four delegates for Spain nominated to take part in the new Working Party on Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Converging Technologies (BNCT) of the OECD, which will start work in January 2015.