Research news

A new discovery about how cells move inside the body may provide scientists with crucial information about disease mechanisms such as the spread of cancer or the constriction of airways caused by asthma.

Researchers at IBEC and Harvard School of Public Health have found that epithelial cells—the type that form a barrier between the inside and the outside of the body, such as skin cells—move in a group, propelled by forces both from within and from nearby cells to fill any spaces they encounter.

Researchers at IBEC and IRB achieve photo-switchable molecules to control protein-protein interactions in a remote and non-invasive manner

These tools will serve as a prototype to develop photo-switchable drugs, whose effects would be limited to a given region and time, thus reducing the side effects on other regions.

Researchers at IBEC, the University of Barcelona and their collaborators have found that cells in our bodies, when moving collectively, carry out something similar to a game of ‘tag’ to coordinate their movement in a particular direction.

The scientists in Barcelona and London looked at cells in the neural crest, a very mobile embryonic structure in vertebrates that gives rise to most of the peripheral nervous system and to other cell types in the cardiovascular system, pigment cells in the skin, and some bones, cartilage, and connective tissue in the head.

An IBEC researcher and his collaborators uncover the crucial role of two molecules in enabling cells to communicate with their environment

Imagine you’re driving a car on a mountain road, and a steep slope appears. To make sure that you can make it up the slope, you reduce gears, which improves force transmission from the motor to the wheels.

Researchers from IBEC and the University of Barcelona have revealed a promising new strategy for regenerating the central nervous system, in a paper published in the journal Biomaterials.

A paper by the Nanobioengineering group reveals a new strategy for targeted malaria treatment that doesn’t rely on the use of expensive antibodies.

An IBEC researcher has collaborated on a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology that outlines an effective new way to characterize and improve nanoparticle catalysts, which play essential roles in biomedicine, industry and everyday life by affecting the rate at which chemical reactions take place.

Nanoparticle catalysts are used in making polymers and biofuels, synthesising new drugs, pollution control devices and fuel cell technology, and both characterising them and finding more effective ones is vital.

IBEC researchers have stuck tissue engineering gold with the creation of a new ‘smart’ biomaterial that triggers angiogenesis by providing the biochemical and mechanical cues needed for the process to begin.

Researchers in Josep Planell’s Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group, in a paper led by Elisabeth Engel, reveal their calcium phosphate glass/PLA composite that itself promotes the mobilization and differentiation of endothelial progenitor cells – those that become the cells making up the lining of blood vessels.

“In regenerative medicine, successful tissue repair hinges on being able to recreate the right environment, so that the biomaterial not only acts as a scaffold for the new tissue but also contributes to the activation of the regeneration process,” explains Elizabeth.