Albert Barberà, new CEO of Biocat Blog Post

The Biocat Board of Trustees, presided over by Catalan Minister of Health Boi Ruiz, has appointed Dr. Albert Barberà the new CEO of the organization with headquarters at Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB). Barberà, who until now has served as director of the Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGi), will take over in January for Dra. Montserrat Vendrell, who was CEO of Biocat from 2007 through September of this year when she took the reigns of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), which is also located at PCB.

 

Cells are liquids, but behave like solids Blog Post

Scientists at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) at PCB have revealed that, counter to previous understanding, the living cells in our bodies behave like solids rather than the liquids they are made of. The finding changes the way we think about processes such as embryo development or wound healing. 

 

Doing your PhD at IBEC! Blog Post

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) at PCB is looking for PhD candidates to apply for the International PhD Programme at IBEC from ”la Caixa”– Severo Ochoa fellowships, and ‘Ayudas para contratos predoctorales para la formación de doctores 2016’ fellowships funded by Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Mineco). Students selected will have the opportunity to start your research career in a stimulating, interdisciplinary and high quality international scientific environment.

 

Knowledge transfer in psoriasis, recognized with the Antoni Caparrós Award Blog Post

The Knowledge Transfer program in psoriasis between the academia and the industry developed by the Translational Immunology Group of the Department of Physiology and Immunology at the University of Barcelona (UB)- based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB)– has been recognized with the Antoni Caparrós Award, one of the five awards that the UB Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG) granted this last Wednesday. 

 

Secondary school teachers learn about biomedical chemistry at IRB Barcelona Blog Post

On the afternoon of Friday 27th November and all of the next day, fifteen secondary school teachers from around Catalonia will have the opportunity to learn about the value of chemistry for biomedicine by the hand of researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). Forming part of the programme Teachers and Science, an initiative of the Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation, the course Chemistry: the basic ingredient of biomedical research involves the collaboration of IRB for the fifth consecutive year. The course will be held on IRB Barcelona premises at the Barcelona Science Park.

 

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.