Institutional news

One of the world’s top researchers – and a record-breaker – in the field of nano- and microrobots is coming to Barcelona to continue his career.

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) welcomes Dr. Samuel Sánchez (Terrassa, 1980), who is taking up a new Group Leader position there this month. He’ll be continuing his work on tiny self-propelling machines that not so long ago were still only fantasy – such as the miniature submarine Proteus, injected into a scientist’s bloodstream in the film Fantastic Voyage – and which are now becoming very much a reality.

IBEC is a core partner in the winning proposal for the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) on healthy living and active ageing.

InnoLife, a consortium of 144 European companies, research institutes and universities – including IBEC – has been selected by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) for EIT Health.

Xavier Serra Picamal, formerly a PhD student in IBEC’s Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics group, was awarded a prestigious Ramon Margalef Prize for the best paper derived from a doctoral thesis at a ceremony at the UB last night.

Xavier received the prize for a 2012 Nature Physics paper, “Mechanical Waves during tissue expansion”, which describes a new type of mechanical waves in living matter.

The 2nd edition of the Networking & Innovation Day (NID) will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at the PCB.

Its objective is to create a benchmark in knowledge transfer between academia and business that promotes public-private collaboration, partnership agreements and open innovation.

Today is the first day of the annual congress of the Sociedad Española de Ingeniería Biomédica (CASEIB 2014) which this year being organized by IBEC, as Biomedical Signal Processing and Interpretation group leader Raimon Jané is SEIB’s president.

It is taking take place at Barcelona’s CosmoCaixa museum until Friday 28th November.

Saturday saw the inauguration of the exhibition “Curar-se en salut” at the Museu d’Història de Sant Feliu de Guíxols, an initiative of the town’s council with the involvement of two CERCA centres, IBEC and Girona’s Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica (IDIBGi), among other bodies.

The vice-president of the Government of Catalonia, Joana Ortega i Alemany, and Minister of Health Boi Ruiz i Garcia were in attendance at the unveiling.

This week the NanoBio&Med 2014 international conference, co-organised and sponsored by IBEC, is taking place in Barcelona.

The four-day event aims to cover current research and recent developments in the fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine.

The Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) received 881 proposals from 383 public and private organisations for the call, which offers a total funding pot of €3,25 million for ideas and activities aimed at the promotion of scientific culture, technology and innovation.

IBEC’s Molecular and Cellular Neurobiotechnology group is to receive funding from 2013’s La Marató de TV3 for their project “Role of the cellular prion protein as “cross-talk” protein between a-syn/ LRRK2 and p-Tau in sporadic and familiar Parkinson´s disease.”

The group’s proposal was one of 44 selected for funding under the annual award, which in its 2013 call focused on neurodegenerative diseases.