January 2009 | Issue 05 January 2009 | Issue 05 03 04 05 07 New year, new beginning for Board of Trustees Getting the inside scoop on science Hey good looking, whatcha got cooking? From the nanoscale to species hybridization NEWSLETTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE in vivo IRB Barcelona gets on the project leadership bandwagon Building the architecture of life 2009 will be a busy year for some IRB Barcelona PhD students. At least until November 2-3, when the first IRB Bar- celona PhD student symposium, ‘The Architecture of Life,’ is scheduled to take place. Page 3 IRB Barcelona has been granted the coordi- nation of two European projects, making the Institute a leader in Spain, together with the Spanish National Research Council. The EC will grant IRB Barcelona funding of more than 5 million euros from 2009 to 2011. Page 2 Enlightening research with new imaging techniques Staff at the newly created Advanced Digi- tal Microscopy Core Facility have been busy these past months purchasing a wide range of advanced microscopes, which will be soon fully operational to support IRB Barcelona researchers. Page 2 Faces to Names Page 6 Interview with American vis- iting professor Alan Smrcka about his sabbatical year at IRB Barcelona. Run, IRB Barcelona, run On March 1, a team of runners from IRB Barcelo- na will take to the streets to participate in the city's marathon. In addition to putting their endurance to the test, they'll also be raising donations for charity. Support them with a donation and by coming out to cheer them on. For more info on the race, visit www.barcelonamarato.es
Transcript
January 2009 | Issue 05January 2009 | Issue 05
03 04 05 07New year, new beginning for Board of Trustees
Getting the inside scoop on science
Hey good looking, whatcha got cooking?
From the nanoscale to species hybridization
NEWSLETTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE
in vivoIRB Barcelona gets on the project leadership bandwagon
Building the architecture of life
2009 will be a busy year for some IRB Barcelona PhD students. At least until November 2-3, when the first IRB Bar-celona PhD student symposium, ‘The Architecture of Life,’ is scheduled to take place.
Page 3
IRB Barcelona has been granted the coordi-nation of two European projects, making the Institute a leader in Spain, together with the Spanish National Research Council. The EC will grant IRB Barcelona funding of more than 5 million euros from 2009 to 2011.
Page 2
Enlightening research with new imaging techniques
Staff at the newly created Advanced Digi-tal Microscopy Core Facility have been busy these past months purchasing a wide range of advanced microscopes, which will be soon fully operational to support IRB Barcelona researchers.
Page 2
Faces to Names
Page 6
Interview with American vis-iting professor Alan Smrcka about his sabbatical year at IRB Barcelona.
Run, IRB Barcelona, run
On March 1, a team of runners from IRB Barcelo-na will take to the streets to participate in the city's marathon. In addition to putting their endurance to the test, they'll also be raising donations for
charity. Support them with a donation and by coming out to cheer them on. For more info on the race, visit www.barcelonamarato.es
in vivoJanuary 2009 | Issue 05
02
IRB Barcelona gets on the project leadership bandwagon
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine
has been chosen by the European Com-
mission to coordinate two European health
research projects, as part of the second call of
the VII Framework Programme. This conces-
sion makes IRB Barcelona a leader in Europe-
an projects in Spain, together with the Spanish
National Research Council. In all, Spanish
centres will be heading ten projects.
The EC will grant the projects funding
of more than 5 million euros from 2009 to
2011. Malaria and diabetes will be the topics
addressed by the consortia headed by the re-
searchers Lluís Ribas de Pouplana and Anto-
nio Zorzano, respectively.
The consortium coordinated by Lluís
Ribas de Pouplana, head of the Gene Trans-
lation Laboratory at IRB Barcelona, will ex-
plore a promising line of research to find new
The coordination of two European projects makes the Institute a leader in Spain, together with the Spanish National Research Council
anti-malarial compounds. The project, called
Mephitis, will take a look at the formation of
proteins in the parasite that are involved in
the transmission of malaria, with the aim to
identify the key components that inhibit this
process and allow the development of anti-
malarial drugs.
Antonio Zorzano, head of the Molecu-
lar Medicine Programme at IRB Barcelona,
will coordinate a pioneering project on dia-
betes, a disease described as the epidemic of
the XXI century. The project called MITIN
will be the first time that bioinformatics is
applied to obtain information about complex
diseases such as diabetes, which are the re-
sult of a combination of environmental and
genetic factors.
should consolidate to reach an expected full
capacity and space occupancy by 2011.”
The ADM will introduce new advanced
Antonio Zorzano (right) with other members of the MITIN project during the kick-off meeting held at IRB Barcelona on November 4. Sònia Armengou
More than 120 m2 of lab space can be
filled quickly when you know what
you want. Staff at the newly created Advanced
Digital Microscopy (ADM) Core Facility
have been busy these past months purchas-
ing a wide range of advanced microscopes,
which will be soon fully operational to
support IRB Barcelona researchers in a
wide range of imaging experiments.
The new core facility, a joint collabo-
ration with the Barcelona Science Park
(PCB), will be equipped with the latest
computers and imaging technologies, set
up in a specialized environment, and will
also offer quick access to a wet bench and
culture room for critical experiments. “The
ADM will collect the largest number of appli-
cations and instruments within a single unit
available in Barcelona,” according to Julien
Colombelli, manager of the ADM. “Together
with the growth of IRB Barcelona, this trend
light microscopy imaging techniques that
will complement confocal and conventional
fluorescence microscopy, such as multipho-
ton imaging, spinning disk confocal or
self-implemented laser nanomanipulation.
The facility will also provide image analy-
sis software and processing technologies
such as 3D visualization. “The unit aims to
provide more than one solution to every
problem,” says Colombelli.
The immediate challenges of the facil-
ity are to put together a complete team of
imaging specialists to support IRB Barce-
lona scientists throughout the full process
of imaging. This starts from teaching re-
searchers how to maximize microscope us-
age, to assisting them in experiments and data
interpretation based on image processing.
Enlightening research with new imaging techniques
Julien Colombelli (right) and imaging specialist Lidia Bardia at the ADM.
Building the architecture of life New year, new beginning for Board of Trustees
IRB Barcelona Board of Trustees
got off to a fresh start for the new
year on January 15, as they met for
their annual winter meeting. Veteran
board members used the occasion to
welcome some newly appointed col-
leagues to the group.
Newly elected University of Barce-
lona (UB) rector Dídac Ramírez Sarrió
joins the Board of Trustees as second
vice-president, replacing Màrius Rubi-
ralta, who in April 2008 was appointed
Spain's State Secretary for Universi-
ties, and interim acting rector, Josep
Samitier. Joining Ramírez on the IRB
Barcelona's board is Jordi Alberch, the
UB's vice-rector for research.
Miquel Gómez, head of cabinet
of the Catalan Health Ministry since
2006, also joins the board and will
serve as president of IRB Barcelona's
Executive Board. Gómez' appoint-
ment follows the departure of José
Navas, who stepped down from his
duties with IRB Barcelona to take up
the position of General Director of the
Carlos III Heath Institute (ISCIII) in
Madrid in October of last year.
As founding members of IRB Bar-
celona, the University of Barcelona
and the Parc Científic de Barcelona,
together with the Government of Cat-
alunya, make important contributions
to help shape the development of IRB
Barcelona's activities.
“Our mission is to look for outstanding speakers. The good news is that some of our top choices have already confirmed. The program is ambitious in that it will cover numerous facets of the architecture of life. Ses-sions will include DNA and RNA, as well as proteins and cells and up to entire tissues and organisms.”
VIEWPOINT — Reflections on the work in progress
Roland Pache/ Amelie SteinSpeaker coordination
“After months of nego-tiations, we've managed to reach an agreement with CosmoCaixa to host the symposium for us. We work as the liaison between the museum and IRB Barcelona, and deal with all the venue-related aspects, including room allocation, poster ses-sion coordination, catering and communications.”
Neus Rafel/ Anna ArnalVenue coordination
“We're scientists, but we're not scared of finances! Working on budget details is a bit tedious, but defi-nitely worth it as a learning process. It's a skill that will help us in our future careers. We've been very lucky to have the commitment and support of IRB Barcelona to help us out with the financ-ing of the event.”
Mariana Vargas/Duarte MesquitaBudget coordination
The PhD student symposium committee met on January 12 to update each other on the work in progress and current challenges.
(From left to right) Dídac Ramírez, Miquel Gómez and Jordi Alberch at the Board of Trustees meeting held in January 2009.
in vivoJanuary 2009 | Issue 05
04
Getting the inside scoop on science during Science Week 2008
Ever wondered what a gigantic com-
puter could possibly have to do with
human health, how a little girl from Zamo-
ra ended up dedicating her life to looking
at really, really small things, or whether it's
possible to get a PhD degree in a day? The
week of November 14-23, 2008 was your
chance to find out as IRB Barcelona re-
searchers opened their doors to the public
and participated in activities organized for
Science Week '08.
The schedule for the week was super-
packed. Montse Soler, director of the joint
IRB Barcelona/Barcelona Supercomput-
ing Center Experimental Bioinformatics
Laboratory, explained how two seemingly
separate areas of activity - computer sci-
ence and biomedical research - can achieve
amazing things when put together. She
demonstrated how biomedical research-
ers are harnessing the power of one of the
A work of cover art
nuclear magnetic resonance to take a look
at the structures of tiny proteins. She also
animated the youngsters with stories about
how she got interested in science and de-
cided to become a researcher.
Other activities, organized jointly with
the Parc Científic de Barcelona, included
the ‘Doctorate Express’ where participants
learned how a doctoral research project is
carried out and then visited labs and scien-
tific services to hunt for clues to get their
own degrees. In a separate activity, PhD
students Carme Cortina and Elisa Espinet
from IRB Barcelona's Colorectal Cancer
Research group led a hands-on activity
about their work to identify some of the
genes involved in cancer.
Science Week is an annual event, spon-
sored by the Catalan Foundation for Re-
search and Innovation. Events are open to
the public and free of charge.
most potent supercomputers in the world
to answer fundamental questions about
human health, and then followed up with a
tour of the state-of-the-art facilities.
Group Leader Maria Macías visited a
public school in Badalona to talk about
the work she does using a method called
IRB Barcelona research
at the interface between
chemistry and systems bi-
ology graced the cover of
November 2008 issue of
Nature Chemical Biology.
The image is an ar-
tistic representation of
the human interactome.
Different constella-
tions of spheres repre-
sent proteins, multiprotein complexes and path-
ways, and their edges are physical interactions
between the elements. A second layer on top of the
intricate network includes information about small
molecule interactions. The cover was created by
Patrick Aloy (IRB Barcelona) in collaboration with
colleagues from Anaxomics Biotech SL.
Isabel Orbe Martínez Avial and María de la Mora Areitio from the Spanish Association for Cancer Research (AECC) visited
Roger Gomis and IRB Barcelona's MetLab in November to get a first-hand look at the progress being made in the group's research on cancer metastasis. The MetLab received a 300,000 euro grant in 2008 from the AECC to study the molecular mechanisms behind metastasis of breast cancer to the lung. “This project is a wonderful example of collaboration between clinical and basic research cen-ters which aims to translate research results into direct benefits for patients,” says de la Mora Areitio.
Experimental Bioinformatics Laboratory director Montse Soler (second from right) demonstrates the latest techniques in proteomics research during Science Week 2008.
AECC visits MetLab
in vivoJanuary 2009 | Issue 05
05
It was an epicurean's delight at the an-
nual IRB Barcelona Christmas Party. Re-
searchers from across the lab traded in their
lab coats for aprons and got down to some
serious cooking as part of the activities orga-
nized for the event, held on December 17 at
the Sant Hilari de Sacalm resort, located in
the nearby Montseny mountains.
Teams composed of members from
across the Institute got to know each other
as they sliced and diced learned how to make
traditional Catalan dishes. As a reward (or
perhaps punishment), the chefs-for-a-day
then sat down to a Christmas lunch where
they sampled the fruits of their labor. As per
Hey good looking, whatcha got cooking?
tradition, the lunch was followed by a ‘Caga
Tió’ led by IRB Barcelona director Joan
Guinovart, with special gifts generously of-
fered by Sigma Aldrich and the Sant Hilari
de Sacalm resort. And in the Christmas spirit
of giving, donations totalling nearly 1,300
euros were collected and given to the Casal
d'Infants del Raval.
Judging by the smiling faces - and the
absence of cases of food poisoning - the day
was deemed a great success. Thanks to ex-
pert event organizer Meritxell Gavaldà for
making it all happen. A collection of photos
of the party is available at http://picasaweb.
google.es/IRBevents/Christmas2008
Getting things off to a good start
What better way to ring in the new academic year than with a
big old fiesta? IRB Barcelona members welcomed this year's class of PhD stu-dents to the community for some fun and celebration at the PhD Student Wel-come Party, held in the Movistar tent, adjacent to the PCB buildings, on Oc-tober 16. The party provided a chance for students to get to know one another in a relaxed atmosphere and to gear up for the busy years of research that lay
ahead. Light refreshments helped get the crowd ready for performances by the musical groups L'Atelier and Brigada Cobalto, featuring IRB Barcelona's own Carles Martínez (Guinovart group) and Sergio Palomo (Batlle group), respec-tively. Dj Gwaine then entertained the crowd with his mixing skills until the wee hours. After the party, the new PhD students went straight back to the lab to start work on their theses.
Performances at the party included L'Atelier, featuring IRB Barcelona's own Carles Martínez
Photo: M
. Gavaldà
Forging new ties
Researchers from IRB Barcelona and the Institut d'Investigacions
Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) met on January 22 to mark the first in a series of seminars, organized as part of the newly created Institut d'Investigació Sanitària Clínic-IDIBAPS. The initiative aims to foster collabora-tions between scientists at participat-ing basic and clinical research centers in order to promote translational research. The first meeting focussed on projects related to cancer.
Photos: A
. Puerto, S. Serra
in vivoJanuary 2009 | Issue 05
06
FACES TO NAMES
Alan Smrcka. Visiting professor, IRB Barcelona group on Design, Synthesis and Structure of Peptides and Proteins
“Many great ideas in science are processed in the subconscious”
Alan Smrcka (New York, 1958) has taken a break from his teaching and research duties at the University of Rochester to spend a sabbat-ical year working at IRB Barcelona in the De-sign, Synthesis and Structure of Peptides and Proteins group. A professor in pharmacology, physiology, oncology, biochemistry and bio-physics, he was honored by the Wilmot Can-cer Center in 2007 for his research into protein and cell interactions targeting new therapies for cancer and heart diseases.
- Why Barcelona for your sabbatical year?
“My wife and two children wanted to go somewhere out of America where we could get not only a scientifically enriching experi-ence but also a cultural one. I started looking at the type of research that was being done in Barcelona with the idea that if I couldn't find really good science, we wouldn't take the step. I came across Ernest Giralt's work at IRB Barcelona, and I was very impressed with what I saw. It put to rest any reservations I had about leaving my own lab.”
- For instance?
“Mainly to do cutting-edge research and be able to take new research ideas back home.”
- Is one year enough time?
“My goal is to develop a new method for looking at G-protein dynamics through mass spectrometry and amino spectroscopy in or-der to target heart diseases, inflammation and pain medication. I think there's a really good chance of succeeding. We have already very exciting data showing that the methods we're using will work.”
ANNA ALSINA
- That's quick ...
“The secret in science is to be excited about what you're doing to keep your motivation going. You shouldn't give up just because it gets tough.”
- Have you ever given up?
“Sometimes you have no choice. When you get stuck for too long you have to be willing to give up on certain short-term goals to find your way around and get to where you want it to go.”
- How do you get the overall picture when all you have is scattered data?
“I'm a strong believer that many great ideas in science are processed in the subconscious outside the lab, when you stop focusing about specific problems you have to solve. It's happened to me a number of times to have come up with keen ideas after subcon-sciously thinking about them. Even when I'm sleeping the scattered data I've collected in the back of my head is being processed!”
Alan Smrcka (left) during the interview in the PCB Cafeteria.
Awarded for breakthrough research on metastasis
IRB Barcelona Adjunct Director Joan Massagué received on December 13 the “Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research” given by the American Association for Cancer Re-search (AACR). Massagué was selected for this award for the impact of his stud-ies on the metastasis of breast cancer to the lung. A leading expert in cancer metastasis and head of the Cancer Biol-ogy and Genetics Program at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Massagué has devoted more than twenty years to elucidating the role of the TGF-Beta protein in cell growth and division.
AWARDS & HONORS
Green light to study key proteins in heart diseases
The research carried out by IRB Bar-celona Principal Investigator Miquel Pons recently passed the critical eye of a panel of more than one hundred evalua-tion experts. ‘La Marató de TV3 Foun-dation’ selected Pons on November 25 to head a three-year research study on key proteins linked to abnormal heart growth. The Foundation will devote more than 7 million euros to fund a to-tal of 26 research projects that address cardiovascular diseases.
Among the most influential
IRB Barcelona Director and Adjunct Director Joan Guinovart and Joan Mas-sagué made it for a fourth consecutive year into the ranking of the top 25 most influential scientists in Spain, published this January by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Guinovart was chosen for his pioneering work on diabetes and neuro-degenerative diseases, and Massagué for his breakthrough research on metastasis.
Photo: S. Sherw
ood
in vivoJanuary 2009 | Issue 05
07
IN BRIEF
More than thirty re-searchers from the IRB Barcelona Mo-lecular Programme traveled to Vall de
Núria in the Pyrenees at the end of Oc-tober to spend two days together. The reason? The annual programme retreat, a team-building activity conceived to promote interaction among the research groups, as well as exchange of ideas and scientific goals. Full days of science were combined with time off to enjoy the mountains and breathe clean air.
Team building in the cold
IRB Barcelona press officer Sònia Ar-mengou recently put her journalistic and editing skills to
work by contributing to the December issue of the Spanish Society for Biochem-istry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM)'s magazine. Invited as a special editor, Sònia coordinated and edited the journal's special section dedicated to Women in Science.
Special guest editor for SEBBM
IRB Barcelona Di-rector Joan Guino-vart crossed the At-lantic ocean to visit the construction site
of the Faculty of Sciences at the Austral University of Chile on November 20. In-vited by the vice-chancellor as a token of thanks for the continued support received from IRB Barcelona, Guinovart took a guided tour of the facilities to see the re-construction work with his own eyes. The last time he had visited the university was in December 2007, soon after the ferocious fire had devoured the faculty.
The calm after the fire
NEWS FROM THE PARK
Inventors study how to perform tasks in
an easier, faster or efficient manner. This
objective is shared by many researchers and
especially by the two partners who set up
Sabirmedical, a start-up initiative that arose
from a friendship established during an Er-
asmus grant and that has recently joined
the PCB-Santander Bioincubator. Experts
in medical engineering, Víctor Llorente and
Vicent Ribas, set up the company in January
2007, but have been working for much lon-
ger in the development of expert systems.
These systems seek to improve methods and
instruments used for diagnosis and medi-
cal care, as well as those used to measure
physiological parameters, such as glucose
concentration in blood, blood pressure and
even the amount of milk that a newborn can
drink from each of his mother's breasts.
Like them, the team at Endor Nano-
technologies grew from a friendship, in this
case between a physicist, Joaquim Querol,
and an MBA economist, Javier Fernán-
dez. The company performs R+D projects
in the field of nanotechnology applied to
biomedicine and cosmetics, which have re-
sulted in specific applications in this mar-
ket. “One of the most significant moments
for the team —explains Querol— was the
day that Infinitec Activos showed us a
sample of anti-aging cream that they sell
and that provides the active ingredient by
means of nanoparticles that we have devel-
oped at Endor.” This entrepreneurial spirit
has also been at the heart of Transbiomed,
which arose from a hospital setting. The
initiative was taken by a team in the Bio-
From the nano scale to species hybridization
Entrepreneurial researchers undertake a vast range of projects at the PCB-Santander Bioincubator
Zhanna Shcheprova (Russia, 1981) has recently moved from Switzerland to Barcelona for personal and professional reasons. Her decision to choose the Cell Division Laboratory at IRB Bar-celona to work as a postdoctoral fellow was motivated by the lab's research direction and the working atmosphere. Her challenges
are now to get familiar working with Drosophila in order to study the mechanisms of rejuvenation and achieving immortality in certain types of cells. There's no doubt she's qualified to dig into this area of research. Zhanna's work on rejuvenation in yeast during her PhD studies was so impressive that it made it into Nature magazine last year.
Stars for a day
IRB Barcelona researchers Laura Nocito, Marc Liesa and Dèlia Za-
fra proved to be good at handling the pres-sure of being filmed on November 7. Their mentoring experience to students who had carried their research project at the Insti-tute was chosen to be part of an online video library of interviews and educational material for a new web channel the Ersilia Foundation will release this February. The three research-ers spent over two hours with the Ersilia team answering questions in front of the camera.
- What was the filming experience like?
“We were a bit shy at first—it was the first time we were taped and interviewed together! It turned out to be a fun and original experience to take a break from our routine.”
- What kind of questions were you asked?
“They digged into the details and conclusions of the research work carried out by the students we had mentored as part of the PCB programme ‘Tutoring for Secondary School Students.’
- What have you learned from tutoring?
“Participating in this kind of initiative has helped us to improve our teaching skills. It's very rewarding to see how students show inter-est and get excited about the learning process.”
- What's your advice for students?
“The key to enjoy and succeed in their work is to choose a subject they really like, always ask a lot of questions, and keep in mind that patience is the key, as experiments don't always work at first.”
Katharina Kreymborg (Germany, 1980) decided not to move to the United States to work as a postdoctoral fellow because she was convinced that research possibilities in Eu-rope were very strong. A biologist with a PhD in neuroim-munology, she has recently joined Eduardo Soriano's research group at IRB Barcelona attracted by the wide range of areas of expertise within the laboratory, and also by the challenge of working for the first time in her life in the field of neurology.
David Vilchez (Spain, 1978) has made a new year's resolution: the commitment to change his lifestyle. After five years of work to-ward his thesis in the Metabolic Engineering and Diabetes Therapy group, he's now moving to San Diego to work as a postdoctoral research associate at the Salk Institute. He's leaving with mixed feelings about saying goodbye to his coworkers and optimism about what the future holds. “Some times stirring up life is good for career advancement in science,” he says.
Sònia Saborit (Spain, 1975) has proven to be good at dealing with walk-in appointments. Since she started her new position as Project and Grant Officer in November, many IRB Barce-lona researchers have stopped by her desk searching for answers about project and grant applications. Sònia is in charge of dis-
seminating grant calls and providing support in funding applications, drawing up inter-nal procedures for project evaluation, and coordinating institutional grants. She holds a degree in Philosophy and a Master of Business Administration, and carries many years of experience in project management for research centers in Barcelona.
(Front) Marc Liesa and his two students were the first ones to stand in front of the camera. In the background, Dèlia (right) and Laura (second right).
ON THE MOVE
Marc Liesa (Spain, 1981) will be moving abroad in March to start new research work at the Boston University Medical Cen-ter. He sees his change as an opportunity to complete his training as a scientist in a city known for its high level of research activity per square kilometer. He's leaving IRB Barcelona with his Doc-
tor title under his arm after having successfully completed his thesis on the role of mito-chondrial dynamics under the supervision of Principal Investigator Antonio Zorzano.
