At 19 h on Tuesday 29 September, Ernest Giralt –coordinate of the Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Programme at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), group leader at this centre located at PCB, and senior professor at the University of Barcelona– will give a talk entitled Ambulances for the brain at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). Addressed to all audiences, the one-hour conference is free of charge and no prior registration is required.

Ernest Giralt, awarded the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 2014, will broach the breakthroughs made in his lab in an innovative cutting-edge research line in which he has been working for almost 10 years. This research offers a solution to overcome the blood barrier that protects the brain, thus allowing drugs to enter this organ.

In Professor Giralt’s words, “in the last 50 years very few new drugs have been developed to treat diseases that affect the brain, and some of these diseases, like Alzheimer’s, are spreading almost contagiously in developed societies.” The low success rate of new treatments for diseases of the brain is to a large extent due to this obstacle, which is called the blood-brain barrier and also serves as a defence system. Dr. Giralt’s talk will be devoted to the design of chemical tools called shuttles, which can carry drugs across the barrier without damaging it.

The talk forms part of conference series called ‘Barcelona Biomed Perspectives‘, and it is the third one given by IRB Barcelona to the general public at the CCCB, as part of the ‘Science today for the medicine of tomorrow‘ programme. This conference series is one of the various commemorative events held to celebrate IRB Barcelona’s 10th anniversary, which falls this year.