At the IGTP TODAY
Experimental Tuberculosis Unit (UTE)
The clinical trial will test whether the food supplement Manremyc® protects against infection with SARS-CoV-2 and starts this May. The Pharmaceutical company Reig Jofre is the sponsor of the trial. It is coordinated from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute together with the IDIAP Jordi Gol Foundation. The trial will last three months and results are expected in October 2020.
The study has collected close to 62,000 replies to the questionnaire in only 15 days so far. The researchers have carried out the analysis of the results for this initial period. The questionnaire is still available in four languages (and soon in five) and will continue to collect information during the coming phases of the pandemic.
Researchers of the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit at the IGTP have launched a questionnaire to ask the public how they are being affected by the pandemic. The project, led by Dr Cristina Vilaplana, will collect replies from the public using a standard questionnaire to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on people, including healthcare workers including effects on health, emotional wellbeing and family finances.
A team of researchers from the Computational Biology and Complex Systems research group (BIOCOM-SC) of the UPC and the Centre for Comparative Medicine and Bioimage (CMCiB) of the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) with the support of "la Caixa" Foundation, have developed a mathematical model to follow up the epidemic of COVID-19. The report that they have produced for the Strategy Office of the European Union is updated every day and includes predictions for Catalonia, Spain and the European Union. The model also serves to analyze the efficiency of the measures being established by different countries
The European Union has granted 10 projects in all of Europe in the area "prevention, treatment and cure of infectious diseases" in the last call for the Horizon 2020 Programme. The only two to come to Spain have been awarded to institutions on Can Ruti Campus (Badalona). One of the studies will investigate the role of the intestinal microbiome in cases of HIV infection and the other the potential of anti-inflammatories as adjuvant therapy for tuberculosis.
A new study by a multidisciplinary team from the CMCiB-IGTP and the UPC uses mathematical modelling to provide tantalising insights into how the origin of tuberculosis has affected population growth and female resistance to infection. The study published in Scientific Reports, provides mechanisms by which TB infection has helped to shape human society as we know it.
Cristina Vilaplana and Adrià Pujol-Cruells of the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit at the IGTP have used a novel approach to TB research and applied anthropological methodology to make recommendations on how the set up a patient-oriented approach to treat tuberculosis (TB). The article has been published in Frontiers in medicine.
Two groups at the IGTP have taken part in the workshop "Complex Systems" organized by the Èpica Foundation. The experience is a first for the IGTP and has meant that art and science have worked together to produce results for both of them. Èpica is a space for interdisciplinary learning and training for the performing arts run by the Fura dels Baus. The results of the workshop are based on research projects from the IGTP and will be shown this Friday and Saturday 29 and 30 November at the Èpica headquarters in Badalona.
Manremyc, a spin-off of the IGTP specialised in the development of a probiotic against tuberculosis, has opened a funding round through Capital Cell, the first on-line investment platform in Europe specialized in biomedicine. The objective of the campaign is to reach 250,000 euros, with a minimum investment requirement per person of only 600 euros. Up to now, the company has secured 35% of the investment, which includes participation from the Reig family, main shareholders in the pharmaceutical company Reig Jofre.
The IGTP has organized a morning with the charity Fundació Salut Alta from Badalona that got everybody sticking together! The result of the experiment was 55 balls of coloured slime and a lot of happy faces!
