Group leader
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 for discovering a gene technology in Bioengineering: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. The announcement marks the first time a science Nobel has been awarded to two women.
Under the name of “Modern approaches for developing antivirals against SARS-CoV 2” (MAD-CoV 2) the project focuses on the development and delivery of therapeutic tools for the current COVID-19 outbreak.
International studies reveal that in the global health crisis women are doing less research, also in the coronavirus itself. Some of the reasons are the inequality in the housework distribution and the leadership distribution.
Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) led by Núria Montserrat have found in vitro that diabetes is a disease that accelerates Covid-19. In the lab, they have also created mini-hearts to study the heart problems caused by Covid-19.
Nuria Montserrat, Group Leader at IBEC and ICREA Research Professor, meets with the Minister of Science and Innovation, Pedro Duque, to present her ACE2-ORG project, which seeks, by using organoids generated from bioengineering techniques, possible therapeutic solutions against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.The Minister of Science and Innovation held a videoconference meeting this Thursday, June 18, with the responsibles of five research projects that are working on the development of new technologies to deal with SARS-CoV-2 and which are being financed by the Fund COVID-19, managed by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII).
The Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, visited IBEC facilities last Friday to learn, by our Director and a group of researchers, how bioengineering can help find solutions to health problems such as COVID19, cancer, or degenerative diseases.When in early 2020, more than 200 scientists gathered in La Pedrera in Barcelona to discuss the present and future of bioengineering, no one imagined that the world would experience the first pandemic of the 21st century and that science would take on more importance than ever.
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.