Great success of the 13th IBEC Symposium “Bioengineering for Future & Precision Medicine” Blog Post

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), based in the Barcelona Science Park, organized from the 27th to the 28th October its 13th Symposium. The event, that this year took place for the first time online, was focused on “Bioengineering for Future & Precision Medicine”. With more than 400 registered attendees, the event also counted with contributions from top international speakers.

 

A project led by IBMB-CSIC tests molecules that stop the cytokine storm caused by SARS-CoV-2 Blog Post

A team of researchers led by Timothy Thomson’s group from the Barcelona Institute of Molecular Biology (IBMB-CSIC), based at the Barcelona Science Park, has developed a platform that allows to see in real-time if a drug inhibits the immune cellular response caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. The project has the advantage that all the molecules being tested are previously known drugs and compounds that are used for other clinical indications. This would expedite the necessary procedures to propose, in due course, the use in patients with COVID-19.

 

BHV Partners settles in the Barcelona Science Park and closes a 500,000 euros investment round Blog Post

BHV Partners, the first venture builder in the southern European health sector, has moved its headquarters to the Barcelona Science Park, and closes an investment round, raising half a million euros. In just over a year of history, the company, also based in Silicon Valley (San Francisco), has established itself as a leading driver in the biomedical innovation and entrepreneurship scene; it has three startups in its portfolio; has established several consulting contracts with companies and research centers, and is initiating an ambitious phase of national and international expansion.

 

Researchers reveal the evolutionary events leading to the creation of eukaryotic cells Blog Post

A collaborative study between the groups of Toni Gabaldón, ICREA researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Berend Snel at the University of Utrecht, has reconstructed the evolutionary events leading to the creation of eukaryotic cells, the precursors to virtually all life you can see with the naked eye. The work, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, reveals that The evolutionary timeline from simple bacterial cells to complex eukaryotic cells progressed differently than previously thought.

 

SOM Biotech identifies eravacycline as an effective treatment against SARS-CoV-2 Blog Post

The biopharmaceutical company SOM Biotech,based in the Barcelona Science Park, announces the preclinical validation studies of eravacycline as an effective treatment against SARS-CoV-2. The conclusions of the studies will be presented at the virtual event IDWeek 2020. that will be held from October 21 to 25. Eravacycline is one of the three drugs that the company has identified and validated in collaboration with Ewha Womans University for the treatment of the new coronavirus, and SOM already plans to carry out a Phase 2 clinical trial.

 

 

Moirai Biodesign developes a diagnostic kit for the detection of sepsis in three hours Blog Post

Moirai Biodesign, a biotech start-up based in the Barcelona Science Park, has developed a prototype ‘kit’ based on biosensors that analyzes a blood sample and identifiesthe most important sepsis-causing pathogens and their associated antibiotic resistances, at the point of care and directly from the patient’s blood, in just three hours, a process that usually requires up to 5 days of analysis in the laboratory. The company has just received a €75,000 grant through the Startup Capital financing line from ACCIÓ to  to set about the activities derived from the execution of the initial business plan. Its objective is to market this device in hospitals, once the validation phase is completed.The kit will allow identification