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Over a hundred professionals attend the UAB conference on the challenges facing university hospitals

- Conferences, Innovation, Institutional

The UAB organised a conference dedicated to the challenges of university hospitals, bringing together over one hundred professionals from the research institutes of affiliated hospitals and the University itself.

With nearly 120 attendees registered, the event aimed to create a space for exchanging knowledge, challenges, and shared objectives to enhance scientific and healthcare impact. The conference was promoted by the UAB and hospital research institutes: the Parc Taulí Institute for Research and Innovation (I3PT), the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) the Sant Pau Research Institute (IR Sant Pau) and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), with support from the UAB Office of the Vice-Rector for Transfer, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.

Rosa María Sebastián, vice-rector for Innovation, Transfer, and Entrepreneurship, welcomed participants, noting that this initiative "has already been underway for over a year". She emphasised, "we must leverage the full potential of hospitals to work together. The UAB is multidisciplinary, and an event like today's provides momentum to create opportunities for innovation. Hospitals need universities, and universities need hospitals".

Javier Lafuente, UAB rector, highlighted that we are "in a great moment. We have a level of multidisciplinarity that will enable us to achieve significant progress. This conference marks a turning point for connecting and working as a macro-organisation, maximising resources to address societal challenges".

Lluís Blanch, former director of the I3PT, encouraged strengthening ties between institutions to develop joint projects with scientific and social impact. He also introduced the keynote speaker, Alfonso Valencia, ICREA researcher and director of the Spanish National Institute of Bioinformatics (INB-ISCIII). An international leader in bioinformatics and data science, Valencia heads the Life Sciences Department at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). During his talk, he presented BSC's Digital Twins project, aimed at creating digital twins to model cities, the planet, mechanics, quantum computing, and humans. In this latter area, Valencia explained the development of software to create digital twins of parts of complex biological systems, the challenges of working with international patient data, and how AI is being applied to advance the project. "The only major success of AI so far has been in the protein field, with significant implications for the entire biotech industry", Valencia remarked, adding, "20% of drugs approved in the past year have substantial computational components".

Subsequently, UAB and participating institute professionals presented various research challenges. Eric Voltà, a researcher at the UAB Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB), showcased work on recombinant proteins for sustained drug release. Jordi Pujols, also from the IBB, introduced the NANOBLOCK project, a biotechnology platform for detecting and treating infectious pathogens. The technology offers a multifunctional molecular tool: a protein that self-assembles into a multifunctional ring that can be modified for different purposes, which Pujols described as "highly uniform, stable, safe, and patentable".

Victor Najas, a speech therapist from Hospital Sant Pau, presented research on detecting oral frailty-a deterioration in physical abilities such as chewing, salivation, or swallowing. "Oral frailty can lead to issues beyond the oral cavity, yet no diagnostic tool exists", Najas noted. "We aim to develop the first tool and digital solution for diagnosing oral frailty".

Arantxa Mas, head of Intensive Care at Hospital Sant Pau, discussed continuous monitoring of respiratory patterns during spontaneous breathing to gather clinically valuable data. "Respiratory failure accounts for 10% of hospital admissions, with 10,000 deaths annually in Catalonia alone", Mas explained. She highlighted the importance of monitoring respiratory frequency and patterns outside ICUs and presented a Venturi mask sensor that provided valuable data but called for a lighter, user-friendly system with instant intuitive analysis.

Antoni Artigas, researcher of the translational research group on the critical patient of I3PT, addressed the challenge of developing personalised treatments and diagnostic techniques for sepsis and acute respiratory failure, affecting over 50 million patients globally. "The WHO has recommended governments invest in new treatments and diagnostic methods", Artigas noted, focusing on "early detection and cell-free therapy using vesicles that encapsulate therapeutic agents. Now, we need to analyse the application characteristics of these vesicles".

Víctor M. Martínez González, director of the Genomic Medicine Centre at Parc Taulí, discussed detecting somatic mosaicism in routine diagnostics and hidden variants in undiagnosed patients. He focused on "somatic mosaicism occurring in early embryonic development stages". The challenge lies in developing a methodology to detect such mosaicism in routine diagnostics, with mutations not present in all body cells.

Rafael Navajo, director of Innovation and Technological Transformation at VHIR, discussed asset valorisation in pre-seed, seed, and spin-off phases. "The journey from project inception to market is lengthy; it requires identifying business opportunities, regulatory considerations, etc.", Navajo explained. He emphasised, "If we fail to assess the value of scientific and technological assets in the final development and transfer phases, we won't achieve sufficient returns".

Anna Santamaria, director of Internal Strategy, presented challenges in research on the impact of environmental pollution on mental health in urban communities. For Santamaria, "Pollution is linked to mental illnesses, and we aim to investigate the mechanisms behind these relationships to create healthier environments".


Josep Manyé, from IGTP's Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Research Group (GReMII), discussed digestive health, particularly the use of extracellular vesicles as a therapy for immune-mediated diseases. "We focus on inflammatory bowel diseases: ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. These have a genetc basis but are also influenced by gut microbiota", Manyé explained. "We have developed a new stem cell-based therapeutic strategy, reducing inflammation up to 200-fold with long-lasting anti-inflammatory effects". The current challenge is "delivering therapies to patients, optimising release matrices, and applying the strategy to other diseases".

Finally, MarcJante, a researcher from the Nursing Research Care Group (NURECARE) at IGTP, presented the UPPLong project in community health, aimed at improving care in managing pressure ulcers. The issue affects one in ten hospitalised patients globally. "UPPLong is a device that analyses wounds through imaging, thermography, and ultrasound", Jante explained. "The goal is to integrate machine learning for a predictive algorithm capable of offering patient-specific treatment".

Vice-Rector Rosa María Sebastián concluded the event, encouraging participants to share their challenges to foster new collaborations.

Source: UAB