News

• 24 January 2012
  IRB Barcelona receives 20% of the ERC Advanced Grants awarded in Spain

  Professors Cayetano González, Angel R. Nebreda and Modesto Orozco have each been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant, the first two in the category of Life Sciences and the last one in Physical Sciences and Engineering.

  Only 13% of European researchers who have presented a project in the 2011 call passed the screening process.

  Each project will receive funding of approx. 2.5 million euros over five years.

• 20 January 2012
  Better than the natural hormone

  Researchers at IRB Barcelona synthesize an analogue of somatostatin that shows greater stability in blood and is more selective than the natural hormone. This compound could compete with the somatostatin analogues currently used in the treatment of certain kinds of cancer and other diseases.

• 12 January 2012
  Project to develop a new treatment for brain cancer

  The “Generalitat de Catalunya” awards funds to a research on glioblastomas conducted by VHIO and IRB Barcelona.

• 15 December 2011
  Researchers describe a new genetic programme that converts static cells into mobile invasive cells

  • This transformation, which is common in embryonic development, is very similar to the process undergone by metastatic tumour cells.

  • The gene GATA 6 is sufficient and necessary for this change to happen. This gene is associated with many tumours of endodermal origin, such as those of the liver, pancreas and colon.

• 13 December 2011
  New results from the Spanish Leukaemia Genome Consortium

  The research, published in the journal Nature Genetics, has addressed the genome of 100 patients with leukaemia and identified that more than 1000 genes are mutated in the development of this disease.

  This study is a significant step forward to achievement of the objectives set out by the Spanish Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Genome Consortium.

• 9 December 2011
  New leads on mechanisms that confer virulence to E.coli-type bacteria

  • The study focuses on the protein Ler, which is present in the pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli that caused an outbreak of food poisoning in Germany last May.

  • Ler binds multiple DNA sequences, thereby activating numerous genes responsible for bacterial virulence.

  • The findings of the study have been published in PloS Pathogens.

• 5 December 2011
  Discovery of a new reprogramming mechanism for tumor cells

  Nature Medicine publishes a pioneering study about a protein that regulates the expression of hundreds of genes that have a crucial role in the progression of pancreatic cancer, gliomas and possibly many other kinds of tumor.

• 28 November 2011
  The Severo Ochoa Programme recognizes IRB Barcelona as one of the eight top research centres in Spain

  Today the Minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, has presented the distinctions to the directors of the awarded centres.

• 23 November 2011
  Support for innovation at IRB Barcelona

  The Ministry of Science and Innovation gives an INNCIDE award to the centre’s strategic technology transfer project.

• 23 November 2011
  IRB Barcelona trains secondary school teachers in biomedicine

  This initiative is a practical course on cell biology that aims to improve science teaching in secondary schools.