At the IGTP TODAY
The Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology Research Group, led by Teresa Gasull at the IGTP has a mission to carry out basic and translational research into strokes. This week they have published a review of recent advances in the field, which includes the role of the ferroptosis in stroke-induced neurodegeneration and includes references to their own recent publications in the field.
A study by the Digestive Inflammatory Pathology Research Group at the IGTP was awarded the best basic-translational research study in the Catalan Digestive Medicine Conference 2019. The study presented by Dr Violeta Lorén is within one of the main research lines of the group and centres on understanding, predicting and solving one of the main complications arising from therapy for patients with ulcerative colitis: the failure of glucocorticoid treatment.
The study, by the Hereditary Cancer research group at the IGTP, focuses on characterizing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from benign tumors, characteristic of Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). The iPSCs are able to regenerate indefinitely and give rise to any other cell in the body so they represent an inexhaustible supply of cells to study tumors and new treatments.
How do they do it? How do they get genetic information from a blood sample? How do you manage the genetic information of 20,000 people? How do you get to understand all this information so it can be used for research? These are some of the questions asked by GCAT participants while visiting the National Centre for Genomics Analysis- Centre for Genomic Regulation (CNAG-CRG) and Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC), both centres are collaborating with the project. These questions now have answers.
A new study by the Immunology of Diabetes Group, led by Marta Vives-Pi at the IGTP in conjunction with the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, builds on previous work led by the group in Hamburg. The new study looks into the effect of betamethasone on new-borns and its susceptibility to develop type 1 diabetes, when it is administered to mothers before birth. As well as corroborating the previous results and finding new changes in the developing immune system, the results also throw light onto the effect of the drug on the insulin-producing cells themselves.
Researchers from the Heart Disease Research Group at the IGTP and the CIBER Cardiovascular Group both led by Dr Antoni Bayés prepare the way to optimize reparative cell therapy in heart failure patients. The study, carried out in conjunction with the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory and the Cell Therapy Unit of the Blood and Tissue Bank of Barcelona has studied the HLA allele and the frequency of haplotypes in a cohort of patients with heart failure as the first stage in optimizing future allogenic cell therapies for these patients.
Ana Gamez has been awarded one of the 2018 Pioner Awards from the CERCA Institute (Research Centres of Catalonia). The aim of the prize is to recognize and highlight researchers who have just read their thesis and whose results have a clear commercial orientation.
The professionals that make up the Reference Centre (CSUR) on Neurocutaneous Syndromes- Phakomatoses, have met up together at the IGTP. The aim of these regular meetings and mini-symposiums is to revise the work done in healthcare and research, including innovations, new approaches and the lines of research underway. The prescence of different professionals in the meeting provides a more global view of the work carried out by the whole group and a better reciprocal understanding of the healthcare and research aspects.
Researchers from the Digestive Inflammatory Pathology Research Group at the IGTP and the Spanish Network for Hepatic and Digestive Diseases (CIBEREHD) have identified key elements of the mechanism behind the failure of steroid treatments for ulcerative colitis in some patients. Treatment failure is one of the main obstacles in the management of this disease and the new findings could help prevent treatment failure and allow for more efficient rescue therapies when needed. The study also identifies a possible biomarker to predict which patients might suffer treatment failure. The research was led by Dr. Eugeni Domènech and Dr. Josep Manyé, and published recently in the Journal of Crohn's and Colitis.
Dr Rafael de Cid joined the institute in 2012 as the Scientific Director of the GCAT. Since then, the Project has been successfully set up and is now seeing the first research results. We asked him about the six publications that have appeared so far this year and what GCAT has in the pipeline.
