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.

 

Biolatam, a benchmark meeting in the series of biotechnology summits worldwide Blog Post

On 16 and 17 November Santiago de Xile hosted the last edition of the largest biotechnology partnering conference in Latin-America, Biolatam 2015.The event, produced by EBD Group and ASEBIO in collaboration with ProChile and Chile Biotech, was attended by over 340 life science dealmakers from pharma, biotech and service companies representing US, Latin American and European entities.organized by the Spanish Association of Biocompanies  (Asebio), EBD Group and Chilean biotechnology companies (Asembio), with the support of ProChile and the Chilebiotech cluster. Leitat, its Biomed Division – which has located its Biomedical Division at PCB– is one of the 30 companies from the Spanish state that took part in this global partnering forum which ranks high in a relevant place in biotechnology summits worlwide.

 

Marco Pugliese: “EIT Health Spain is a very solid public-private alliance in terms of excellence and capacity” Blog Post

Less than a month ago Marco Pugliese took over as General Manager of the Spanish node of EIT Health, the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC), an initiative dedicated to healthy living and active aging and one of the KICs promoted by the European Institute of Technology and Innovation (EIT). EIT Health Spain, based at  Barcelona Science Park (PCB), is made up of 17 public and private leasing institutions in their sector. Pugliese reveals what his management priorities are going to be as head of such a large consortium.

 

Science Week celebrates its 20th edition with more than 350 activities Blog Post

The 20th Edition of Science Week (SC’15) was inaugurated today, 16 November, at the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC). The event, coordinated by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRi), will take place from 13 to 22 November and will host more than 300 different multidisplinary science and technology dissemination activities. SC’15 has the support of nearly 100 institutions and agencies of the Catalan system of research and innovation, most notably the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Catalan Institute for Bioengineering (IBEC) that which will be offering a unique scientific workshop at its premises located at Barcelona Science Park (PCB).

 

SOM Biotech and Vall d’Hebron successfully complete a clinical trial in patients with TTR amyloidosis Blog Post

SOM Biotech and the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) have successfully completed a Phase IIa proof-of-concept clinical trial in humans to evaluate the efficacy and safety of an innovative oral therapy for transthyretin amyloidosis (TTA), a rare disease that affects the peripheral nervous system and heart. To carry out this trial, the hospital and the Catalan biotech, with headquarters at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), signed an risk-sharing agreement under (RSA) which they jointly assumed the risks and economic returns of the project.

 

A scientific study outlines the evolution of genes involved in selenoprotein synthesis Blog Post

An international study has been highlighted on the cover of the prestigious journal Genome Research. It illustrates the evolution of selenophosphate synthetase genes —involved in selenoprotein synthesis— in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Montserrat Corominas and Florenci Serras, professors in the Department of Genetics and researchers at the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB) at PCB, participate in the study together with the scientific team led by Roderic Guigó, expert at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG-UPF).

 

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.

 

PCB hosts a ‘Lessons Learned’ session on investment in R & D and tax administration Blog Post

Thursday, the 22 of October, Barcelona Science Park (PCB) hosted the 8th session of ‘Lessons Learned’ series: ‘Biofiscalitat: els incentius per a la ciència‘, an initiative of CataloniaBio and Biocat to foster knowledge and networking among professionals in the field of life sciences. On this occasion, the aim of the event was to gain further insight and analyze the tools to overcome the regulations and red tape governing the taxation regimen of biotechnological and biomedical companies which hamper R & D.

 

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.