At the IGTP TODAY
For the first time the IGTP has participated in the European Researchers' Night, part of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Programme, which aims bring scientists and society together. Five researchers from the institute have participated in science popularization events.
The IGTP is one of the participating institutions working to promote this along with other research institutions and also others from academia, business and the third sector. Badalona Health Services (Badalona Serveis Assistencials, BSA), the municipal health organization promoted the candidature. BSA is part of an ecosystem of over 30 bodies and associations who make the local area eligible for the award.
The Neurogenetics research group, led by Dr Antoni Matilla is performing an experiment at the ALBA Synchrotron to obtain for the first time 3D images of cells with this disease. Friedreich's ataxia affects more than 3,000 people in Spain, causing serious mobility problems and other severe illnesses such as heart disease. At present there is no treatment to prevent or cure the disease
Dr Jordi Casabona has presented the RIGHT-PLUS Network at the New approaches to monitor HIV services and accelerate the response to HIV among men who have sex with men and transgender women in Latin America Symposium, organized by the WHO within the International AIDS Society meeting (IAS 2019) that took place in Mexico City from 21 to 24 July. Dr Casabona is Scientific Direct.or of the CEEISCAT, a research group affiliated with the IGTP.
Three research groups at the IGTP have received three of the 21 grants in the 2019 call for CaixaImpulse, awarded by the "la Caixa" Foundation. The projects receiving the awards are led by Dr Katrin Beyer, Dr Francesc Borràs and Dr Alicia Martínez-Piñeiro and focus on improving the diagnostics for with Lewy body dementia; new non-invasive methods for monitoring renal dysfunction and new predictive markers for acute ischemic stroke respectively.
The Regulatory Genomics Group at the IGTP and the IJC has developed a new method to make checking whether samples that have had RNA sequenced are from related individuals. They have shown that it can be used on large data sets of RNA sequencing information to check if samples are from related individuals or not, or to reconstruct family trees.
The Centre for Comparative Medicine and Bioimage (CMCiB) now forms part of the Working Group on European 3Rs Centres. This literally puts it on the map, for European 3Rs Research and it has been included in the Norwegian NORECOPA website, which is currently the largest resource on European 3rs Research available. The Working Group is preparing the setting up of a European 3Rs Center Network to promote and facilitate ethical research.
Two students have been awarded INPhINIT grants by “la Caixa” Foundation to complete their PhDs on the Can Ruti Campus. Emma Koehorst, has been working on Myotonic Dystrophy in the Neuromuscular and Neuropaediatric research group led by Gisela Nogales at the IGTP since last September. Ifeanyi Ezeonwumelu has started working at the IrsiCaixa on novel therapeutic strategies for HIV with Dr Ester Ballana Guix in the HIV Pathogenesis Group, led by Dr José A Esté.
This July the Government of Catalonia officially approved the Plan for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis in Catalonia, which aims to facilitate the adoption and implementation of measures to reduce the number of cases and the morbidity and mortality associated with this infection. This is in line with the goal of the WHO, which aims to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030. The plan is the result of healthcare and public health professionals, experts, representatives of scientific societies and organizations and patients and families associations all working together.
The paper "Human pancreatic islet 3D chromatin architecture provides insights into the genetics of type 2 diabetes" published in Nature Genetics on Friday is the result of work carried out by an International team that includes Dr Lorenzo Pasquali and Mireia Ramos-Rodríguez of the Endocrine Regulatory Genomics Research Group at the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute and the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute. Pasquali's group has provided their tool, the Islet Regulome Browser, which allows non-bioinformaticians to visualize and use all the data collected in this study. The work brings personalized medicine for type 2 diabetes a little closer.
