Aaron Ciechanover, holder of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is participating this Thursday and Friday in the II IRB Barcelona PhD Student Symposium “Life in Motion: Dynamics of Molecules and Systems”. This event is organized by young scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and will take place at the Aquàrium of Barcelona. This is a pioneering initiative in Spain that aims to stimulate and strength interactions between leading scientists and young researchers. On Friday, the Israeli Nobel Prize winner from the Technion Institute of Technology -Israel, in Haifa, will give the main conference about the ubiquitin system to the 170 international students who have registered for the event. Ciechanover won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his studies on the protein degradation system that is guided by ubiquitin. This molecule serves a vital function in cells and the organism as it removes excess or damaged proteins, thereby ensuring cell survival. This discovery opened up a new avenue for research into human disease and for the design of new therapeutic targets.

The symposium includes a wide range of biomedical disciplines, from biophysics and biochemistry to molecular biology and oncology. The common thread is the relevance of dynamics in all biological systems. Lasting two days, the congress will combine senior scientific sessions with short talks given by selected students. The programme also includes a round table and poster sessions during which young PhD students present and discuss the research they are doing. Andrey Dyachenko, a Russian student doing his PhD at IRB Barcelona, says he expects that “the event will be a great success because of the high scientific standards of the congress. We have been oversubscribed with applications to attend and we believe that the coming editions will attract even more young researchers from all over the world”.

The Organizing Committee is formed by 12 students with distinct nationalities from the 5 research programmes at IRB Barcelona. The students summarise the experience as “a unique opportunity from which we have gained scientific knowledge and many other new skills. We have learnt to work efficiently as a team, dividing up tasks and taking rapid decisions. We also believe that this event contributes to increasing the international visibility of the institute and facilitates interactions between attendees and speakers.”

The PhD Student Symposium, a biennial event, squares with one of the main missions of IRB Barcelona: training future scientific leaders in a vibrant, competitive, international community. The 28 laboratories at IRB Barcelona currently host 152 PhD students from 27 countries. IRB Barcelona is one of the four centres in Spain to receive the prestigious “la Caixa” PhD Fellowships, which attract the most promising candidates worldwide. The II IRB Barcelona PhD Student Symposium is sponsored by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), Roche and VWR International.

Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona)

The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) is a public institution engaged in basic and applied research at the unique interface between molecular and cell biology, computational and structural biology and chemistry, with experts in proteomics, genomics, biostatistics and advanced digital microscopy. Research at IRB Barcelona is carried out by 28 groups, organized into five programmes, which work together with the common goal of conducting multidisciplinary projects that address important biomedical problems affecting our society. Approximately 470 scientists, and technical and administrative staff from 35 countries currently work at IRB Barcelona. IRB Barcelona's ultimate objective is to translate research results to the clinic and has already established three biotechnology spin-off companies to this end. The institute was created by the Catalan government in October 2005, and is located at the Barcelona Science Park. IRB Barcelona was recently named a "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Find out more at: www.irbphdsymposium.org