News

Mind the Byte wins 2018 Biosuccess Award

Yesterday, CataloniaBio & HealthTech awarded the 2018 Biosuccess Award recognising the most important business milestones in biomedicine and health in Catalonia to Anaconda Biomed and Mind the Byte. The ceremony took place during the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Gala Dinner at the Museu Marítim of Barcelona, featuring president of CataloniaBio & HealthTech, Jaume Amat; CEO of ACCIÓ, Joan Romero; director general for Research and Innovation in Health, Albert Barberà; and over 200 entrepreneurs, executives and investors from the sector.

 

 

Read more on the Mind the Byte website

Pere Roca-Cusachs wins City of Barcelona award

This was the moment that IBEC group leader Pere Roca-Cusachs received the City of Barcelona Award for the life sciences from Barcelona mayor Ada Colau. 

Pere won the prize for his study in Cell last year which identified a mechanism by which tissue rigidity regulates cell survival and proliferation, as well as its implications in diseases such as cancer and liver and lung fibrosis. The ceremony took place last night in the city council’s Saló de Cent, where the twenty winners of this year’s prizes, now in their 17th edition, were congratulated by Ms. Colau and Culture Commissioner Joan Subirats.

The prestigious City of Barcelona awards recognize outstanding creativity and research carried out in Barcelona that contribute to culture and society in the city. Image © Ajuntament de Barcelona

Read more on the IBEC website

 

 

Another successful Nano World Cancer Day

Another successful Nano World Cancer Day

The panel of speakers during a round table

On Friday the IBEC-managed Spanish Nanotechnology Platform, NanoMed Spain, co-hosted the fifth edition of Nano World Cancer Day, a global initiative organized as part of World Cancer Day.

It’s the third year running that the platform has hosted the conference, which took place at the PCB and was opened by IBEC/NanoMed Spain’s Josep Samitier, who also gave a presentation about the platform.
The latest innovations in nanomedicine for cancer were presented and discussed in front of an audience of more than 90 researchers, clinicians, students and industry professionals, as well as journalists.

The other speakers were Ana Roda of the Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española contra el Cáncer (AECC); Salvador Borrós and Anna Cascante of SAGETIS Biotech; IBEC’s Pere Roca-Cusachs and Joan Montero; and Jaume Mora, Scientific Director of onco-hematology at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. They presented various new advances in the field and what they may imply in terms of new opportunities in diagnostics and therapies against cancer. Mechanocontrol coordinator, Pere Roca-Cusachs, showed his research in mechanobiology applied to the fight against cancer.

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Mechanocontrol at the ASCB EMBO meeting

Philadelphia has held the last ASCB EMBO Meeting, in which many of the Mechanocontrol members have been actively involved.

From December 2 to 6, the Pennsylvania Conventions Center has held one of the biggest meetings in the field of cell biology.

Under the lema Science is an international endeavor,  the 2017 first joint ASCB | EMBO meeting highlights the importance of inclusiveness and of the exchange of information and ideas beyond national boundaries. The Keynothe Speaker of this year’s meeting, Cori Bargman, highlighted the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration for neuronal cell biology with his talk “Building Knowledge by Integrating Levels: Genes, Cells and Behavior.”

 

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IBEC investigators show that physical forces activate genes involved in cancer

In their effort to shed light on the role that physical forces play in the body, Pere Roca-Cusachs’ group at IBEC has shown how these forces ‘switch on’ the expression of genes that may result in cancer.  

Cells apply mechanical forces to their surrounding tissue, and this mechanical effect is crucial for tissue function. In diseases such as cancer or liver and lung fibrosis, tissue rigidity and mechanical forces increase, promoting the progression of the disease. In their study published in Cell yesterday, IBEC’s researchers reveal how forces trigger the expression of certain genes by increasing the activity of a protein called YAP in the nucleus of the cell.

Read more on the IBEC website

Mechanocontrol partners meet in Saarbrücken

Mechanocontrol partners meet in Saarbrücken

Yesterday Mechanocontrol partners met to discuss their first results on breast Mechanobiology under the auspices of the project. The meeting was held in Saarbrücken, coinciding with the Cell Physics 2017 conference, organized and financed by the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1027, in which Prof. Dr. Aránzazu del Campo, member of the consortium, has been involved.

During the meeting, all the partners had their chance to present their incipient results to the rest of the members of the consortium. Also the general guidelines of the project were discussed and reviewed during the meeting.

In view of the occasion, several members of the consortium –  Prof. Marino Arroyo from UPC, the Project Coordinator and Group Leader at IBEC Pere Roca-Cusachs, Prof. Xavier Trepat from IBEC and Prof. Sergi Garcia-Manyes from King’s College – will be contributing to the Cell Physics conference with a talk, given the happy coincidence of both events.

For more information about the conference see the conference webpage.

 

 

IBEC at the forefront of research in mechanobiology

Today three IBEC group leaders – Pere Roca-Cusachs, Vito Conte and Xavier Trepat – consolidate the institute’s leadership in mechanobiology by publishing a review of the field in Nature Cell Biology.  Their paper, “Quantifying forces in cell biology”, summarizes a wide range of sensors and sensing methods able to quantify the forces generated by cells.

Read more on the IBEC website

 

 

 

Noviocell in latest Biotech News & Life Sciences

NovioCell CEO Juliette van den Dolder of Noviocell expects to be able to market their patented hydrogel technology next year. This offers researchers the possibility to grow cells in 3D. This is possible, but the big advantage of the new gel is that it is synthetic and adaptable in stiffness and elasticity. see page 15

 

http://bit.ly/2q2jdVU

 

   Read more on the NOVIOCELL website