IRB Barcelona News - Scientific

• 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.

• 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.

• 8 September 2011
  Flexibility for functionality: the new dogma of protein structure
• 4 September 2011
  A recipe for isolating and growing human intestinal stem cells at the lab bench

  Human colon stem cells have been identified and grown in a lab plate for the first time. This achievement, made by researchers in the Colorectal Cancer Lab at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and published in Nature Medicine, is a crucial advance towards regenerative medicine.

• 29 August 2011
  A mouse model brings new perspectives on Lafora disease

  Using a mouse model, researchers at IRB Barcelona have demonstrated a link between abnormal sugar accumulation and the neuronal degeneration characteristic of Lafora disease. The study may contribute to understanding the origin and progression of Lafora and other neurodegenerative pathologies.

• 25 August 2011
  Degrading proteins to divide cells

  Researchers at IRB Barcelona discover a crucial mechanism controlling the segregation of genetic material from parent to daughter cells. A finely tuned process of degradation tightly regulates CenH3 protein levels to ensure the correct function of the cell division machinery in Drosophila.

• 9 August 2011
  Gene activation in 3D

  The use of crystallography allows us to 'see' the regulation of gene expression in bacteria.