Alzheimer Archives - Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

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.

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).

May 15, 2024

New biomarker to diagnose Alzheimer’s in asymptomatic stages

This is a molecule that is directly linked to the expression of the cellular prion protein found on the surface of nerve cells. The study, led by the IBEC, opens the door to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in asymptomatic stages in blood samples, favouring its diagnosis and treatment.

November 23, 2023

Benedetta Bolognesi awarded a prestigious European ERC Consolidator Grant

The researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant. This prestigious European funding supports excellent scientists and scholars who are consolidating their independent research teams to pursue their most promising scientific ideas. The €2 million grant over 5 years will allow Bolognesi and her team to develop a new method for identifying mutations that lead to the formation of amyloids—aggregates of proteins that contribute to a variety of diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

February 5, 2024March 29, 2023

A blood-brain barrier on a chip to study drugs against Alzheimer’s

A study led by the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) describes the development of an organ-on-a-chip that mimics the human blood-brain barrier. With this system, researchers can study the barrier permeability to different drugs and screen the most effective ones, avoiding animal tests. The device could also incorporate cells from patients to make a personalized study of the disease.

December 15, 2022December 14, 2022

A new atlas unveils which mutations are behind the noxious amyloid formation

Researchers from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) have developed the most complete atlas up to date of the genetic mutations that cause the formation of amyloid beta fibril, … Read more

July 22, 2021July 21, 2021

Benedetta Bolognesi and Ben Lehner win competitive funding to join forces against neurodegenerative diseases

The “la Caixa” Foundation will fund a large and innovative research project co-led by IBEC Junior Group Leader Benedetta Bolognesi and by ICREA research professor Ben Lehner at CRG, which aims to gain a better understanding of the genetic causes leading to neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers will combine deep mutagenesis and machine learning techniques to produce a “map of dementia” as a method to predict whether a person is more susceptible to suffer these diseases.

March 22, 2021March 15, 2021

One more step towards early detection of Alzheimer’s

Benedetta Bolognesi, junior group leader at IBEC, appears in different media for a recent study published in the eLife magazine. In the study they show the first map with all the possible mutations in the amyloid beta peptide and tested how they influence its aggregation into plaques, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021

First comprehensive map of amyloid plaque mutations opens new avenues for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease

A study published in the journal eLife made all the possible mutations in the amyloid beta peptide and tested how they influence its aggregation into plaques, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.