Engineer, David Bermúdez, until now Director of Technology at Intelligent Pharma, has been appointed CEO of this biotech located at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB). Bermúdez takes on this new challenge as of the 1st September and brings nearly twenty years of professional experience in research, development and leadership of innovative interdisciplinary projects in the field of ICT, artificial intelligence, supercomputing and drug design.
IRB Barcelona scientists Benjamí Oller, Macarena Sánchez, Ernest Giralt, and Meritxell Teixidó, all from the Peptides and Proteins Lab of the Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Programme, have written a review on the emerging field of shuttle peptides—molecules that have the capacity to transport drugs across the blood-brain barrier and thus treat diseases affecting the central nervous system. The article will be featured on the cover of September’s issue of Chemical Society Reviews.
Prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s…these three diseases are associated with proteins that share a common feature, namely disordered regions that have no apparent rigid three-dimensional structure. In spite of the potential of these regions as therapeutic targets, it was believed that drugs could not be directed to them. But now scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), have rediscovered their utility as drug targets.
A study led by ICREA researcher Salvador Aznar Benitah and undertaken at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) based at PCB has identified two proteins that are fundamental to conserve skin stem cells and has shown that without these proteins these cells are lost. The study, which has been published in Cell Stem Cell, has involved Luciano Di Croce’s group at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG).
The groups of Pau Gorostiza, ICREA Research Professor in IBEC at PCB and Amadeu Llebaria of IQAC-CSIC have developed molecules that can be applied as light-regulated molecular prostheses to help restore vision in cases of retinal degeneration. Marina Gay, Senior Research Officer in the IRB Barcelona Mass Spec & Proteomics Facility at PCB, has also contributed to a study to develop molecular prostheses to restore sight.
The welcome ceremony to participants of the Spend the summer at the Park! program was held tyesterday, Monday, July 18. The aim of this initiative –organized annually by the Barcelona Science Park (PCB)– is to bring research closer to students of any university in the world through their participation in projects currently being carried out in research groups, research centers and companies based at the PCB.
This morning in Barcelona, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) –based at Barcelona Science Park (PCB)– and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-National Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) have presented Nostrum Biodiscovery, a new biotech company that applies computational simulation to help new drugs and biotech molecules to reach the market. The creation of this spin-off has also been made possible thanks to the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG) of the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), with the support by the Botín Foundation’s technology transfer programme.
A team of researchers from the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) –based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB)–, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, and the Real Jardin Botánico (CSIC-RJB) in Madrid, has brought new insight to the genetic puzzle of the olive tree, by sequencing the complete genome of this species for the first time ever. The results of this work, published this week in the groundbreaking Open Access and Open Data journal GigaScience, will facilitate genetic improvement for production of olives and olive oil, two key products in the Spanish economy and diet.
Up to this date only 13 migraine-related genes were known and now a study of Nature Genetics proves the contribution of these 10 genes and adds 28 more to the candidate list. In the international work, focused on the analysis of common genetic migraine variants on people, there is the participation of Professor Bru Cormand and the collaborator Cèlia Sintas, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB), located at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB).
Xavier Salvatella, ICREA researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) at PCB, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Florence (Italy), has described a molecular system of protection that involves the androgen receptor protein, a molecule that is mutated in patients with Kennedy’s disease and which cause progressive muscle wastage.
