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Josep Samitier

Group leader

IBEC joins the BASE3D community to contribute to the future of 3D printing

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) will contribute its extensive experience in 3D printing and bioprinting to the BASE 3D community, an entity that brings together research centers and companies from all over Catalonia with the aim of promoting R+D+i in the field of printing 3D.

The groups led by Josep Samitier, Elisabeth Engel, Núria Montserrat and Javier Ramón at IBEC are joining the BASE3D project.

Joan Montero and colleagues in Boston suggest a new strategy for melanoma patients

IBEC researcher Joan Montero authors a paper in Nature Communications which uncovers a key adaptation that melanoma cancer cells use to evade current therapies. This finding might allow physicians to use better drug combinations to improve patient outcomes in the future.

Despite significant advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, most targeted cancer therapies fail to achieve complete tumor regressions or durable remission. Understanding why these treatments are not always efficient has remained a main challenge for researchers and physicians. Now, Joan Montero from the IBEC and colleagues at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in USA report in Nature Communications a mechanism that uncovers why some therapies fail to treat melanoma.

Josep Samitier and Núria Montserrat at the “Engineering and Manufacture of Living Systems” workshop in China

Last 9-11th of October took place in Beijing the workshop on “Engineering and Manufacture of Living Systems”. The aim of the workshop was to bring together multi-disciplinary researchers to review the latest advances and discuss the future directions in the design and manufacture of engineered living systems, and their integration amongst the researchers gathered at this international workshop.

The major topics discussed during the workshop were: to consider issues related to translation of engineered living systems from the laboratory to the clinic and to industry, review enabling and emerging techniques for using pluripotent cells from various sources such as cell spheroids, organoids and organs-on-a-chip, discuss the ethical, societal and regulatory issues associated with the development and manufacture of engineered living systems and envision future research, development and synergies at the integration and interface of biomanufacturing and engineering living systems amongst others. The meeting was organised by Tsinghua University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

IBEC and EMBL join forces

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) aim to strengthen future collaboration between the two research institutions. With this purpose, IBEC Director’s Josep Samitier and Edith Heard, Director of EMBL, have signed a 5-year agreement at EMBL Barcelona headquarters.

This collaboration is the beginning of a working framework for activities between EMBL and IBEC which support strategic long-term scientific and general collaboration in areas of mutual interest. Some of the proposed join projects are a postdoc EMBL-IBEC program and a series of EMBL-IBEC seminars. Moreover, it is also planned to reinforce visitors’ exchange whereby scientific personnel affiliated to EMBL or IBEC will have the possibility to visit the facilities of the other institution in order to study research developments and techniques and to foster interdisciplinary collaborations.

IBEC obtains a second Severo Ochoa accreditation for Excellence

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia is one of the six centres in Spain to be awarded accreditation in this round of the Severo Ochoa Excellence programme. Furthermore, IBEC is the only center that receives this accreditation for the second time.

The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities published yesterday the results of the winners of this distinction, selected by an international panel of a hundred judges, for its scientific results and strategic programmes.

Severo Ochoa Excellence Awards identify and promote public research centres and units in Spain that stand out as international references in their specialized fields

IBEC Director Josep Samitier expressed his gratitude for the award and highlights that: “the obtention of the Severo Ochoa accreditation for the second time satisfies us greatly because it recognizes the leadership and excellence of IBEC activities both in research and in translation of the obtained results to society”.

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.