Last week, the 18th Annual Symposium of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), an institution located at the Barcelona Science Park, took place in a multidisciplinary environment where nearly 300 professionals from other centers and from the IBEC community itself had the opportunity to discover and discuss the latest advances in the field of bioengineering for precision medicine. The day began with a welcome from the representatives of the Institute’s founding institutions: Jordi Garcia, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Barcelona (UB), and Josep Samitier, Director of IBEC.

As is tradition, Josep Samitier opened the series of talks with a presentation in which he provided a comprehensive overview of IBEC’s achievements over the past year and the institute’s future direction, reaffirming its commitment to excellence in research and biomedical innovation. Meanwhile, Rohit Nautiyal and Angela María Ramírez Rosales, researchers from the IBEC’s Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics and the Nanobioengineering groups, respectively, served as the masters of ceremonies for the symposium.

Biotechnology for Precision Medicine

This year, four presentations were given by leading researchers in the field of biotechnology for precision medicine.

The first speaker was Melike Lakadamyali, Professor of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania. She presented her work on how super-resolution microscopy reveals the dynamic organisation of chromatin and its response to chemical and mechanical stimuli. She explained how, through quantitative analysis and machine learning, her team had demonstrated that the structure of chromatin enables us to distinguish between different cellular states and to better understand how they are regulated.

Next was Alejandro Torres-Sánchez, an IBEC alumnus and current group leader at EMBL Barcelona. During his presentation, Torres spoke about computational modelling as a tool for understanding how cells and tissues respond to mechanical stimuli. Using cardiac morphogenesis and malaria parasite adhesion as examples, he demonstrated how these models can predict and explain complex biological behaviours that are difficult to observe directly.

Evrim Acar Ataman, a research professor and the head of the Department of Data Science and Knowledge Discovery at the Simula Metropolitan Centre for Digital Engineering in Oslo, then explained how coupled tensor factorisations enable complex, multimodal data — such as that from metabolomic or neuroimaging studies — to be analysed jointly and comprehensively. These techniques integrate prior information and computational models to identify interpretable patterns, improve our understanding of biological systems, and facilitate the discovery of dynamic biomarkers and diagnostics.

This was followed by a translation session, featuring a roundtable discussion with three IBEC researchers who shared their experiences of setting up spin-off companies: Maria Alejandra Ortega Machuca, senior researcher of the Molecular Imaging for Precision Medicine group and founder of Vitala Technologies, Samuel Ojosnegros, leader of the Bioengineering for Reproductive Health group and founder of Lumiris Spectral Solutions, and Samuel Sánchez, leader of the Smart Nano-Bio-Devices group and founder of Nanobots Therapeutics.

The fourth and final presentation was given by Yuval Ebenstein, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s School of Chemistry. He presented tools for analysing epigenetic modifications of DNA at the level of individual cells and molecules, demonstrating how these techniques can provide important information for clinical cancer research and the development of DNA chips for use in biotechnology.

Teresa Sanchís, Director General of Research at the Department of Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia, closed the event.

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