IRB Barcelona to participate in #GivingTuesday Blog Post

On Tuesday 1 December, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) will be participating in #GivingTuesday, a global movement founded four years ago in New York that seeks to promote fundraising and that has reached Spain this year. #GivingTuesday Spain operates under the leadership of a group of 19 non profit organizations that want to expand philanthropy and volunteering and build a better society, with the aim of encouraging people, charities and businesses to donate time, money or their voice to help a good cause. The movement is open to organizations, foundations, companies, students, universities and schools, as well as to individuals looking to launch or collaborate on more than 60 projects registered on its website.

 

IRB Barcelona develops an advanced method and the first platform of DNA simulations Blog Post

The Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics Laboratory at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), headed by Modesto Orozco, has published today in Nature Methods a new model which allows atomic-level simulations of DNA dynamics, with unprecedented accuracy. All the simulations and posterior analyses are kept in the first online tool developed to date dedicated to atomic level simulations of nucleic acids. The platform is free of charge and available to the entire scientific community through the Spanish Institute of Bioinformatics and the European network ELIXIR-Excellerate.

 

New Trojan horses to conquer the brain Blog Post

20 pioneering scientists present their latest research on the barrier and the breakthroughs in therapeutic shuttle transporters that target the brain in the ‘Blood-Brain-Barrier’ Barcelona Biomed Conference, an event organised by IRB Barcelona with the University of Tohoku (Japó) and supported by the BBVA Foundation. One of the latest results is a shuttle based on bee venom developed by Ernest Giralt’s Lab from IRB Barcelona at PCB. The conference starts today at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in Barcelona and ends on Wednesday 4th November.

 

A big step towards understanding the electric properties of the cell Blog Post

Having measured the electric polarizability of DNA – a fundamental property that directly influences its biological functions – for the first time ever last year, researchers from IBEC at PCB has made a further breakthrough in the understanding of the dielectric properties of cell constituents by measuring the electric polarizability of the main components of the cell membrane – namely lipids, sterols and proteins – with a spatial resolution down to 50nm.

 

Mind the byte concludes the biggest round of biotech crowdequity in Spain Blog Post

In just 43 days, bioinformatics company Mind the Byte, which specializes in products and services for computational drug design and is located in the Barcelona Scientific Park (PCB), has concluded an investment round totalling €234,310 through the crowdequity platform (for investment crowdfunding) Crowdcube. This figure represents not only more than double the funding target set by the company (234%), but it is also the largest round of crowdequity achieved in the biotech industry in Spain, with 115 private investors. The average investment amount was €2,037, with a maximum investment of €80,000.

 

A study applies iPSC technology to Sanfilippo syndrome research Blog Post

Sanfilippo type c syndrome is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by mutations in the HGSNAT gene that leads to progressive neurodegeneration. A study, which has just been published in the journal Stem Cell Reports, has generated patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) which can contribute to know better disease’s pathological mechanisms and design new therapeutic options. A group of researchers from the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB) and Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) at PCB has participated in the study. 

IBEC success in Human Brain Project funding call Blog Post

A study involving IBEC group leader and ICREA research professor Pau Gorostiza has been chosen for funding under a Call for Expressions of Interest (CEol) on Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience by the Human Brain Project (HBP) FET Flagship. Thanks to their success in this Call, the project partners – including IBEC – will be integrated in the broader HBP Consortium. 

 

IBEC researcher Samuel Sanchez at the ‘Innovators Under 35 Europe’ summit Blog Post

Samuel Sánchez, researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) at PCB, was among the experts invited to participate at the European summit of the winners of the MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 Europe award, which was held last week in Brussels. The research conducted by Samuel Sánchez is pioneer in the field of micro- and nanomotors, small machines such as bacteria that can target specific body cells for applications such as localized drug delivery.

 

Spain and France join the European Consortium Elixir for managing and analysing biological data Blog Post

At their meeting today in Hinxton (UK), the Board unanimously accepted Spain and France as full members of Elixir, the largest infrastructure of life science data in Europe. The National Bioinformatics Institute (INB), which acts as the Spanish scientific node, will coordinate the Spanish scientific partner institutions. These comprise top-level institutions such as CNAG-CRG and IRB Barcelona, located at PCB. The National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCII) will coordinate the Spanish scientific partner institutions.

 

Researchers at IBEC and UAB have found a mycobacterium that is more effective in treating superficial bladder cancer Blog Post

Researchers from Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), at Barcelona Science Park (PCB), with the Mycobacteria Research Group of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology, at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), have found a mycobacterium that is more effective in treating superficial bladder cancer and does not cause infections, unlike those used up to now.