In the second René Descartes París 5 University-Parc Científic de Barcelona Symposium, held on 19 October, the rector of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, University of Barcelona), Màrius Rubiralta, and the dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the René Descartes Paris 5 University, Patrick Berche, in representation of its rector, signed an agreement to strengthen collaboration between the two institutions in the field of life sciences.

”

Through this agreement, these two institutions will cooperate in joint projects developed in European research and training programmes and in other international research programmes, as well as in exchanges of doctoral students and students in the last year of their degree. Furthermore, collaborations will be established between the technology platforms of the two organisations with the aim to facilitate access of researchers to these facilities. The agreement also contemplates collaboration between the PCB’s Bioincubator and the business incubator “Paris Biotech”.

The activities to be developed jointly by the two universities will be coordinated by the director of the PCB, Fernando Albericio, on behalf of the UB, and the director of the Institut Fédératif des Sciences du Médicament (IFR71), Arnaud Ducruix, on behalf of the René Descartes París 5 University. Specifically, these two institutions will collaborate in research on chemical synthesis, vectorization, life dynamics, the biology of integrated systems and molecular dynamics.

The symposium held in Paris on 19 and 20 October was the second occasion that researchers at the two institutions working at the interface between biology and chemistry, particularly in fields such as combinatorial chemistry, neuroscience and oncology have come together. The first symposium was held in February at the PCB. This was a multidisciplinary meeting to present the research performed at the two institutions and to draw up future collaboration agreements.