IBEC group hosts liver specialist
Xavier Trepat’s Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics group is hosting Prof. Jonel Trebicka, Head of the University of Bonn’s Laboratory for Liver Fibrosis and Portal Hypertension in its Department of Internal Medicine, during 2017. During his stay, he will study the mechanobiology of stellate cells in liver fibrosis, harnessing the expertise of the IBEC group in cell mechanics and migration, including traction force and confocal microscopy, durotaxis assays and magnetic cytometry.
His stay at IBEC is funded by the foundation EF-CLIF, the European Foundation for the Study of Chronic Liver Failure.
Former visitors
IBEC group collaborates with microfluidics expert on intelligent delivery systems
Prof. Dong-Pyo Kim, Head of the Center of Intelligent Microfluidic Pharmaceutical Synthesis at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science & Technology) in Korea is spending a six-month research stay in Samuel Sánchez’s Smart nano-bio-devices group at IBEC.
Prof Kim is a world expert in microfluidics, and his collaboration with the IBEC group will aim to develop unique functional drug delivery systems that take advantage of the excellent heat/mass transfer in microfluidics. The ultimate goal of the collaboration will be to develop an intelligent synthetic microreactor system for highly efficient ‘one-flow’, ‘feed-to-end’ production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The work will involve creating a microrobot – for which Samuel’s group is key –that will be synthesized by microfluidic systems and in situ loaded drugs into micro- or nanoscaled carriers with self-actuating functions. It’s hoped that by the end of the project, the researchers will be at the stage of assessing the bot’s function in a biomimetic blood vessel.
Prof Kim, who has also worked in the USA and been a visiting professor in Europe and Japan, is the winner of many accolades including the National Research Foundation (NRF)’s Scientist of the Month in 2016 and the Korean Chemical Society’s Academic Excellence Award in 2017.
Surfaces experts join forces
Fabio Variola, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa (Canada), is spending 2017 in the Biomimetic Systems for Cell Engineering group. Having created, for the first time ever, a 3-dimensional hierarchical surface that mimics biologically successful life-forms such as marine diatoms or unicellular algae, Dr. Variola is collaborating with Elena Martinez and her group to determine the bioactive properties of this surface.
By working together at IBEC, Dr. Variola’s experimental knowledge of synthetic nanostructured surfaces and Elena’s extensive experience in biomimetic ones is hoped to lead to new advances in understanding nanoscale hierarchical structures in nature, as these underlie the development of both normal and pathological conditions. The ultimate aim is to develop new diagnostic tools and approaches for health-related research.