Molecules activated by light to control glutamate receptors Blog Post

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) based at PCB, the Institute of Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC-CSIC) and the Institute of Functional Genomics of Lyon (IGFL) have developed molecules that can modulate the activity of glutamate receptors in the central nervous system, with important applications in biomedicine.

 

IRB Barcelona intensifies its research on cancer with two new recruits Blog Post

Biologist and ICREA Research Professor Núria López-Bigas will join the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) in November as a new Group Leader. Her laboratory brings the number of research groups at IRB Barcelona to 23, a number which will grow again in March 2017 with the arrival of Fran Supek another researcher in the bioinformatics and genomics of cancer.

 

CZ Veterinaria and Bioingenium collaborate in the development of new vaccines Blog Post

Bioingenium, a biotech service company based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), and the Galician biopharmaceutical company CZ Veterinaria announce their collaboration in the development of new generation vaccines. CZ Veterinary will invest in a new project where Bioingenium technology is used for the production of recombinant vaccines of new generation, able to improve the protection of animals against diseases. The project started in 2016 and now this new vaccine has successfully passed the first tests in experimental stages.

 

Genome sequencing reveals ancient interbreeding between chimpanzees and bonobos Blog Post

A study led by Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, ICREA researcher at the Centro Nacional de Analisis Genomico (CNAG-CRG) –based at the Barcelona Science Park– and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) – joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF)–  together with Christina Hvilsom, researcher at the Copenhagen Zoo, reveals ancient admixture events among the extant species closest to humans: bonobos and chimpanzees. The work is published today in Science.

 

IBEC has been designated one of five EU Centers of Excellence in Health in new EC report Blog Post

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has been designated one of five European Centres of Excellence (CoE) in Health in a report by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research & Innovation on European Union international positioning. The other European organizations named as Health CoEs are: CEA Tech- Leti (Grenoble, France); the Trinity College Dublin (Germany); el King’s College London (United Kingdom) and the Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam (Belgium, Netherlands).

 

IBEC’s first EMBO Young Investigator Blog Post

IBEC junior group leader at PCB and UB assistant professor Pere Roca-Cusachs has been accepted into the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Programme. EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization, chooses some of the best young group leaders in Europe through a highly competitive annual selection. Pere presented his research plan for the next five years to an international panel in Heidelberg at the beginning of October.

 

The United States brings together five labs worldwide to study a fatal form of epilepsy Blog Post

Scientists from the US, Canada and Spain, among them Joan Guinovart from IRB Barcelona, are poised to perform joint research with the aim to find a treatment for Lafora disease, the most severe type of epilepsy in humans. Joan J. Guinovart’s lab at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) –based at the Barcelona Science Park–  forms part of this recently launched international alliance. The National Health Institutes has awarded the consortium $8.5 over five years. The US organisation Chelsea’s Hope, a charity formed by families affected by this disease, has promoted this international collaboration.

 

Midas Clean launches Baula, a family of effervescent tablets that start the 3.0 era in the ‘cleaning’ field Blog Post

Under the name Baula, the start-up Midas Clean, based at the Barcelona Science Park, has launched to market a new family of effervescent tablets that mark the start of the 3.0 era in the cleaning sector by combining efficacy (1.0) with ecology (2.0). These are ‘first in class’ –products developed by means of a highly innovative processing technology and under social, economical and environmental sustainability criteria– thereby offering an equal or superior performance to that of high-end equivalent proposal based on a non-ecological formulation. 

 

Bioinformatics Mind the Byte enters the Japanese market Blog Post

Mind the Byte, a bioinformatics computational design company dedicated to pharmaceuticals products through big data and machine learning, has signed a distribution agreement with the Japanese company Filgen to access the bioinformatics market in Japan. Located at Parc Científic of Barcelona, the company expects to reach a turnover of 1.2 million Euros in 2020 in this country, a market it had no commercial presence until now.

 

Stat-Diagnostica attracts Siemens Venture Capital as a new investor Blog Post

Medical diagnostics company Stat-Diagnostica, based at the Barcelona Science Park, has closed an extension of its Series C financing with Siemens Venture Capital. Led by Gilde Healthcare, the Series C financing round also drew participation from existing investors, including Kurma Partners, Ysios Capital, Idinvest Partners, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Caixa Capital Risc, and Axis. The additional proceeds will be used to support the 2017 European launch of its DiagCORE Near Patient Testing system.