Research news Archives - Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

July 25, 2025

Scientists create an artificial cell capable of navigating its environment using chemistry alone

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) have created the world’s simplest artificial cell capable of chemical navigation, migrating toward specific substances like living cells do. This breakthrough, published in Science Advances, demonstrates how microscopic bubbles, called vesicles, can be programmed to follow chemical trails. This breakthrough reveals the bare essentials needed to make synthetic life move with purpose. Decoding how vesicles navigate reveals how cells communicate and transport cargo, and provides a blueprint for engineering targeted drug delivery systems

June 19, 2025

Embryos can eliminate bacterial infections before forming their immune system, a new research shows

The work, led by a team from the CSIC and IDIBELL, with the collaboration of IBEC, manages to visualise how embryonic cells eliminate bacterial infections, before the formation of the immune system. The research describes a mechanism of phagocytosis similar to that used by white blood cells, and reveals that this mechanism is also present in human embryos.

June 11, 2025

Scientists map the first step in Alzheimer’s protein aggregation and discover clues for future therapies

This is an analysis on an unprecedented scale. They studied over 140,000 versions of the Aβ42 peptide, which forms harmful plaques in the brain. It is the first map to reveal how mutations affect a protein in its transition state — a fleeting phase that is difficult to study. This finding opens up new avenues for preventing Alzheimer’s disease and suggests a method that can be applied to studying other proteins involved in different pathologies. The study, published in Science Advances, is a collaboration between the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom, the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, and the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona.

June 5, 2025

New technology for mass serological analysis

A study by Stanford University and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia describes an innovative technology that enables the large-scale analysis of antibodies in biological samples. Using microscopic beads marked with stable isotopes, this advance surpasses traditional techniques, accelerating the study of immune responses and opening up new possibilities for biomedical research.

May 30, 2025

Disrupting malaria’s inner balance: targeting parasite’s protein control system could be key to innovative treatments

IBEC and ISGlobal researchers led a study that points towards protein aggregation as a possible target to find new ways to reduce the viability of Plasmodium falciparum, the main causing agent of malaria. By inducing protein aggregation, they observed considerable disorders in protein homeostasis and a significant reduction in parasite growth. The results position protein aggregation control as a promising target for antimalarial therapies.

May 14, 2025

Sugar-coated nanotherapy dramatically improves neuron survival in Neurodegenerative model

The new therapy, made of nanofibers and trehalose, a sugar that naturally occurs in plants, traps and neutralizes toxic proteins to stop disease progression. Now trapped, the toxic proteins can no longer enter neurons and instead harmlessly degrade. The study, published in the journal of the American Society, was led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia and the Northwestern University.

May 8, 2025

Common lung bacteria team up to evade immune defences

A study led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has uncovered how co-infection by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacterium abscessus, two common lung pathogens, can suppress immune responses and worsen outcomes in patients with respiratory diseases. The findings, published today in the journal Virulence, provide new insight into why polymicrobial infections are particularly difficult to treat and open the door to new therapeutic strategies.

April 30, 2025

“Explainable” AI cracks secret language of sticky proteins

The new AI is able to predict when and why protein aggregation occurs, a mechanism linked to Alzheimer’s and 50 other diseases that affect 500 million people. The results show great potential for research into neurodegenerative diseases and for improving drug production, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. The study, published today in Science Avances, is the result of a collaboration between the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).

April 9, 2025

New advances in the fight against the most common form of lung cancer

From left to right, Fernando Martín and Joan Montero at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. / Credit: University of Barcelona

A study led by the University of Barcelona in collaboraiton with the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia reveals that the functional assay dynamic BH3 profiling (DBP) can predict whether specific treatments will be effective in non-small cell lung cancer patients. The technique helps determine which therapy will be most effective by testing it directly on living cells, improving personalised therapies.

February 27, 2025

Novel nanomotors improve bladder cancer immunotherapy

A study led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in South Korea describes the development of urea-powered nanomotors that improve immunotherapy for bladder cancer. The nanomotors activate the immune system more efficiently and exceed the efficacy of currently used treatments, opening up new possibilities in oncology.