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IRB receives 1.3 M€ from the European Research Council for investigation into Alzheimer’s disease

By 14 de January de 2014November 18th, 2020No Comments
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Patrick Aloy leads the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology laboratory (Battista/Minocri, IRB).
 14.01.2014

IRB receives 1.3 M€ from the European Research Council for investigation into Alzheimer’s disease

ICREA researcher Patrick Aloy at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) –based in the Parc Científic de Barcelona– seeks to identify new biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease through the «SysPharmAD» project awarded 1.3 million euros by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant, a new funding schemes designed by the ERC to support researchers at the stage at which they are consolidating their own independent research team or programme.


Over the next five years, until 2019, the «SysPharmAD» project (‘A systems pharmacology approach to the discovery of novel therapeutics in Alzheimer´s disease’) aims to monitor the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease from its most early stages and to discover new therapeutic targets and chemical compounds able to alter the biology of the disease. Aloy will apply a network biology approach, a field that seeks to offer a complete and global view of diseases by studying the relation between the cellular and molecular components involved in a specific problem.

Aloy’s team, formed by 12 researchers, among them postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and lab technicians, “has the capacity to transform research into the origin, diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” state the European evaluators of the project.

Alzheimer´s disease is the most common form of dementia, with over 35 million people suffering from it worldwide, and it constitutes a personal and societal tragedy of immense proportions. Fifty years of intense research have revealed many key elements of the biology of this neurodegenerative disorder. However, our understanding of its molecular bases is still very limited, and the medical treatments available for this condition are purely symptomatic and hardly effective.

“It is clear that we will not find a solution by concentrating on modifying a single gene and that we should move away from this genocentric perspective towards a more realistic therapeutic strategy based on networks of interconnected genes, what we refer to as systems pharmacology.”, says Aloy. The researchers want to focus on stages prior to the appearance on the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, before irreversible brain damage, and to identify new molecular biomarkers to monitor patient response.

25% of the researchers at IRB Barcelona are supported by the ERC

Today the ERC has announced the results of the first call for Consolidator Grants. The ERC has awarded 312 grants, with funding totalling 575 million euros. Spain has received 20 of these grants, 9 of which have been given to researchers in centres and universities in Catalonia.

Regarding IRB Barcelona, six of its scientists are currently funded by the ERC, this figure accounting for 25% of its researchers. In total, IRB Barcelona has 4 Advanced Grants (Batlle –since 2013 Starting-, Orozco, González and Nebreda), 1 Starting Grant (Aznar Benitah), and 1 Consolidator Grant (Aloy). IRB Barcelona researchers have been awarded funding totalling more than 13,5 million euros.

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