Catalan research labs repurposed for mass COVID-19 testing service
Laboratories in three Catalan research centers, including IBEC, will be adapted as Covid-19 mass detection services.
The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is coordinating a task force with the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), as requested by the Generalitat de Catalunya, to set up mass testing for citizens to stop the spread of the new coronavirus outbreak.
Laboratories in three Catalan research centers, including IBEC, will be adapted as Covid-19 mass detection services.
Javier Ramón, Group Leader of the “Biosensors for Bioengineering” group at IBEC, has been appointed new Research Professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, ICREA. Currently IBEC hosts 8 ICREA Professors out of 22 group leaders.
Nuria Montserrat, principal investigator of the “Pluripotency for organ regeneration” and her group have participated in an international study to find a treatment to stop the virus from continuing infecting other cells, preventing the virus from replicating.
IBEC researchers led by ICREA Research Professor Núria Montserrat, together with international collaborators, have identified a drug capable of blocking the effects of the SARS-Co-V2 virus, the origin of the Coronavirus 2019 disease.