Today, the BIST Forum, an event that brings together the BIST scientific community, focused this year on the joint initiative of the seven CERCA centres to promote precision medicine in healthy ageing. During the event, the new BIST Ignite projects to promote multidisciplinary research were announced, with IBEC involved in four of the five selected projects. In addition, one of the projects in which IBEC is involved won a BIST Ignite Award.
The BIST scientific community, made up of seven CERCA centres – CRG, IBEC, ICFO, ICIQ, ICN2, IFAE and IRB Barcelona – held the BIST Forum today at the CaixaForum auditorium. This year’s annual meeting, together with the President of the European Research Council (ERC) and the President of the European Innovation Council (EIC), discussed the potential contribution of frontier research to European competitiveness and the creation of the industries of the future in the context of a knowledge-based economy, following the Draghi report. The joint scientific initiative of the seven centres in the field of precision medicine, linked to healthy ageing, was also presented.
The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, and the Catalan Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, inaugurated the BIST Forum, which brought together two hundred people from the scientific, political, economic and social worlds. Among them were the rectors of the UB, UAB and UPC universities, the heads of scientific institutions, the presidents of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, the Círculo de Economía, Fomento del Trabajo, Barcelona Global, the Catalonia-La Pedrera Foundation and FemCAT, the director general of the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation and the director general of the Banco Sabadell Foundation.
Similarly, the different sessions of the meeting highlighted Catalonia’s exceptional scientific production capacity, which has reached a leading position in Europe in two decades, and its potential to be the main source of industry in the 21st century.
With our research, we are trying to find a way to promote and maintain healthier lives at a time when lifespans are longer.
Benedetta Bolognesi
In the same vein, three representatives of the BIST Precision Medicine Task Force, Dr Direna Alonso (IRB), Dr Benedetta Bolognesi (IBEC) and Dr Turgut Durduran (ICFO), presented the first steps of the joint scientific initiative of the seven research centres, which aims to contribute to healthy ageing in an integrated way. The initiative will address the fundamental mechanisms of health and disease in ageing to develop new concepts, tools and approaches to improve prevention, early detection, monitoring and treatment of age-related diseases.
Drawing on the diverse expertise and resources of the seven BIST centres, the initiative will create a unique collaborative platform from basic research to practical applications, enabling fundamental discoveries and widely applicable technologies, models and tools. In Bolgnesi’s words, ‘with our research, we are trying to find a way to promote and maintain healthier lives at a time when lifespans are longer’.
The Forum also welcomed the ability of the BIST scientific community to attract projects from the ERC, Europe’s most prestigious call for research projects. Since the launch of the ERC programme in 2007, the BIST community has attracted 165 projects, resulting in a net contribution of €250.9 million. Of these, three have been awarded to IBEC researchers: Irene Marco Rius, César Rodríguez Emmeneguer and Samuel Sánchez.
The BIST Forum culminated in the announcement of the five new multidisciplinary research projects between groups in the BIST community as part of the BIST Ignite programme:
- SWITCH: presented by Anna Sadurní Parera, postdoctoral researcher at ICIQ, and Pau Gorostiza Langa, group leader at IBEC; it focuses on light-activated neuroinhibitors based on natural steroids.
- MAPtoFinAD: led by IBEC researcher Amayra Hernández-Vega and CRG group leader Thomas Surrey, it focuses on the in vitro reconstitution of the initial transition of tau from a microtubule-associated protein to the form found in Alzheimer’s disease.
- OSTEOPRINT: a collaboration between IBEC associate Aránzazu Villasante and Ángel R. Nebreda, group leader at IRB Barcelona, aims to develop advanced bioprinted models of metastatic osteosarcoma to study their response to drugs.
- FertEye: presented by Aida Rodríguez Nuevo, postdoctoral researcher at the CRG, and David Gomez-Cabeza, postdoctoral researcher at the IBEC, aims to develop a protocol to assess ovarian reserve using molecular imaging techniques.
The BIST Ignite Awards were also announced. The two winning teams will receive additional funding to further develop their projects. Specifically, the TriBioNics team, led by Dr Elena del Corro (ICN2) and Dr María Crespo Cuadrado (IBEC), is developing graphene microelectrodes that can stimulate skeletal muscle in a very controlled and precise way, with the aim of using them in the future to heal complex muscle injuries.
The BIST Ignite multidisciplinary research programme is supported by the city of Barcelona, and the forum was closed by the deputy mayor for economic promotion, Jordi Valls.
