Under the title "How are drugs developed", the first presentation of teaching resources available through the European portal «Xplore Health», was held at the OpenLab of the Barcelona Science Park on the 27 of October for the benefit of all secondary teachers in Catalonia. The event was organised by the Technical Directorate of the Dissemination of Science department of the PCB, in cooperation with the CESIRE-CDEC of the Department of Education of the Generalitat of Catalonia, as part of the "Update on Biology and Geology Seminar", offered by this institution to academic staff to promote and improve the teaching of science.

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The session began with a presentation by Jordi Quintana, Head of Drug Discovery Platform at the Barcelona Science Park in order to update the knowledge of participants on the different stages of drug development, from initial idea until the drug reaches the market. This was followed by the presentation of tools developed as part of the project “Xplore Health” to work this in the classroom such as virtual experiments, games, videos, experimental protocols, card games to stimulate public debate and other online contents.

This session is the first of a scientific update program for Catalan secondary teachers that the Technical Directorate of the Dissemination of Science department at PCB periodically carries out under the project “Health Xplore.” Last February, the PCB also organized another workshop with a similar format aimed at educators in five European countries who act as coordinators to promote the use of Xplore Health resources in your local area. The next editions for Catalan teachers will focus on biotechnology, malaria and AIDS, and will be endowed by the “la Caixa” Foundation and Amgen Cesira-CDEC, the support centre for research and innovation of the Department of Education of the Generalitat of Catalonia “Xplore Health” was created with the aim of extending the offer of science dissemination provided by the Barcelona Science Park within the scope of the “Research Society” programme which organised over 120 free classroom activities involving about 6,000 people annually.

The portal is developed by a European consortium coordinated by the Barcelona Science Park, and also includes the Centre of the Cell, at the University of London and two European networks: la European School Net, which includes more than 30,000 students from more than 30 countries and the European Network of Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE), which includes more than 400 science museums. The project is funded by the European Commission, through the 7 th Framework Programme, and also has the support of the “la Caixa” Social Outreach Programme and the Amgen Foundation.