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Josep Samitier

Group leader

IBEC researcher awarded with an ERC Starting Grant to fight tuberculosis

IBEC researcher Loris Rizzello receives 1.5 million Euros from the prestigious ERC Starting Grant for his PANDORA project, focused on creating a new therapy to eradicate tuberculosis.

Last September 3rd the European Research Council (ERC) announced the projects awarded with an “ERC Starting Grant”. Among the 408 projects selected is the PANDORA project of Dr. Loris Rizzello, a researcher of the Nanobioengineering group of the IBEC led by Prof. Josep Samitier.
The PANDORA project of Dr. Rizzello aims to revolutionize the way we cure infections caused by intracellular pathogens, finding a universal therapy able to attack infectious diseases and, at the same time, avoiding antibiotic resistance. More specifically, the winning project of the prestigious ERC Starting Grant will seek solutions that help eradicate tuberculosis, one of the worst pandemics so far, identifying the molecular “barcode” of infected cells, in order to design polymeric nanoparticles that selectively attack infected cells, without affecting healthy cells.

Proteins can transfer electrons at a distance

Collaborating IBEC groups have published a study in Nature Communications that reveals that electron transfer can take place while a protein is approaching its partner site, and not only when the proteins are engaged, as was previously thought.

The results open up a new way of thinking about how proteins interact, and can have implications in a better understanding of many processes – such as photosynthesis, respiration and detoxification – in which electron transfer plays an important role.

The relocation of an electron from one chemical entity to another – electron transfer (ET) – doesn’t happen passively: electrons are carried individually by redox proteins.

Two projects for IBEC at AECC ceremony

On Monday IBEC junior group leader Nuria Montserrat and senior researcher Aranzazu Villasante were two of the researchers awarded funding at the Asociación Española de Investigación sobre el Cáncer (AECC)’s ceremony in Madrid.

The AECC has bestowed 160 grants on cancer researchers during the past year, a total of €17.6m. The association made the official presentations of these awards at an event presided over by Her Majesty Queen Letizia on World Cancer Research Day, 24th September 2018.

Inspiration from a carpenter’s toolbox

IBEC’s Smart-Nano-Bio-Devices and Nanobioengineering groups have joined forces to solve the problem of random movement of micro- and nanomotors.

Samuel Sanchez’s group has been forging ahead with its creation of self-propelling micro- and nanodevices in the last few years. These chemically powered ‘swimmers’ are self-propelled by catalytic reactions in fluids – which could be the fluids of our body, or water – and have a number of promising applications, such as targeted drug delivery, environmental remediation, or as pick-up and delivery agents in lab-on-a-chip devices.

Deciphering cell language

New insights into the intercellular communications mechanism that regulates cell repositioning leads the way towards the development of targeted therapies in regenerative medicine

Understanding the language of cells in order to redirect them when necessary: this is one possibility unveiled by researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona (CMR[B]), led by Dr. Samuel Ojosnegros, who describe in their latest paper the intercellular communications mechanism involved in cell relocation.

The work, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was carried out in collaboration with the groups of Elena Martínez (IBEC) and Melike Lakadamyali (ICFO), among others. The fruitful collaboration also gave rise to the publication of work by Verónica Hortigüela, former PhD student in Elena’s group, who bioengineered a nanopatterning strategy that provides control over this communication mechanism.