In Vivo - Issue 21

NEWSLETTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE

in vivoJanuary 2013 | Issue 21

Biostatisticians of the world unitefor a Barcelona BioMed Conference

An innovative approach has allowed Group Leader

and ICREA professor Eduard Batlle and associate re-

searcher Elena Sancho to look for answers to the puzzling

question: what triggers a metastasis?

The research, which earned the front page of the No-

vember issue of Cancer Cell, focused on the mechanisms

and “dangerous liaisons” which allow colon cancer to

grow in distant organs, such as the liver and the lung.

“In about five years,” declared Sancho, “we will prob-

ably have a test on the market that identifies those patients

at risk of metastasis”. Sònia Armengou reports on page 3.

“Crazy about Biomedicine”. The name

of this new educational program launched in

January by IRB Barcelona and the Fundació

Catalunya–La Pedrera is also an apt descrip-

tion for the 24 high school students selected to

participate in the year-long series of seminars

and hands-on activities in the lab.

Francisco Freixo and Benjamí Oller, both

PhD students and Student Council members

at IRB Barcelona, inaugurated the first class of

the series inside the prestigious building of the

La Pedrera, in the heart of Barcelona.

Captivated by the themes discussed in the

engaging lectures, the students flooded the

speakers with questions, leaving the organis-

ers “pleasantly surprised.”

Julia García López has the story on page 4.

A life-changingexperience

Core Facility manager

David Rossell was one of

the co-organisers of the lat-

est Barcelona BioMed Con-

ference, sponsored by the

BBVA Foundation, which

took place in December.

The organisers had two

objectives, as Rossell points

p2 First ”la Caixa” theses defended

First Students’ Day

SpotlightMeritxell Teixidó,‘shuttle creator’

ExchangesPablo Martínat Caltechp5 p8p7

“Colon cancer metastasis: a test for patients at risk in a few years”

out: “We wanted to show

how important it is to de-

velop new methodologies

and to convince scientists

that their approach should

be guided by objective nu-

merical assessments.”

More details about the

conference on page 5.

PHOTO: L.T. BARONE

PHOTO: L.T. BARONE

in vivo January 2013 | Issue 2102

After four years, the first fruits of the

”la Caixa”-IRB Barcelona Interna-

tional PhD Programme in Biomedi-

cine are ripe. Sean Doran, from Antoni Riera’s

Asymmetric Synthesis Lab, and Eva Novoa,

from Lluís Ribas’ Gene Translation Lab, both

discussed their theses in December. They are the

first students to cross the finish line.

“If it had not been for the ”la Caixa” Foun-

dation scholarship,” explains Eva Novoa, “I

probably would have left the country for my

doctorate studies. Being offered a competitive

economic support in a stimulating research cen-

tre was one of the main reasons that conviced

me to continue my education here”.

The ”la Caixa” Foundation also provides a

yearly amount of money specifically designated

to fund training and travels. “This money was

essential for me, it gave me the chance to fund

my master tuition and the participation in some

congresses, to pay for the scientific software I

needed and for some books,” she says. “I hope

that this money will keep supporting future

PhD students who unfortunately are facing

higher academic tuitions.”

Eva embarked in 2008 on a research pro-

gramme focused on designing new drugs for

malaria. “There is an old saying that goes ‘never

bite off more than you can chew’. I’m proud

that I did bite off quite a lot during the course of

my doctorate work, but without losing the main

focus,” says Eva.

“My advisor committee warned me at the

beginning that drug design can easily go wrong

and that I should not put all my eggs in one

basket,” recalls Eva. So, among the fields Eva

ventured to explore were genome evolution —

research which resulted in a publication in Cell last year —, the development of new computa-

LUCA TANCREDI BARONE

Eva María Novoa has just received the highest mark for her thesis Evolution of the protein translation machinery and its applications to drug discovery and hugs her supervisor. (Foto L.T. Barone)

The brand new webpage for the next IRB Barcelona PhD Student Symposium has been launch-

ed this month. The Symposium, the third in the series, will take place in November in Bar-

celona at the La Pedrera, one of the most

monumental buildings in Barcelona.

As usual, a team composed of PhD

students at IRB Barcelona is in charge of

all the organisational aspects, from the

choice of themes and selection of speak-

ers to all logistics.

More information here: http://www.

irbbarcelona.org/irbphdsymposium/.

Countdown to the next PhD Student Symposium

First ”la Caixa” Foundation studentsat IRB Barcelona defend their theses

The new call for the ”la Caixa” - Severo Ochoa / IRB Barcelona International PhD

Programme Fellowship is open. Talented students from across the world are invited

to apply to do their doctoral thesis work in one of the accredited “Severo Ochoa” centres

of excellence in Spain, among which is IRB Barcelona.

A total of 5 doctoral fellowships are available for the academic year 2013-2014 at the

Institute. The deadline for the application is Wednesday, 27 February 2013..

The new 2013 ”la Caixa”- Severo Ochoa / IRB Barcelona call for five PhD students now open

tional methods, and the characterisation of

new enzyme functions. “The truth is that ev-

erything I did was a lot of fun,” admits Eva.

The next step in her career will be at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She

obtained an EMBO long-term fellowship to

characterise RNA modifications in humans

in a promising project. “So far scientists have

been concentrating mainly on epigenetics

and modifications in DNA to explain disease,”

she explains, “that is, on the transcription phase.

But there’s a second step in protein synthesis,

the translation phase. I will be working on mod-

ifications in RNA that could affect this.”

Among the experiences Eva takes with her,

she emphasises the constructive relationship

with her advisor, Lluís Ribas de Pouplana. “He

knew when to encourage me, and when to take

down my excessive enthusiasm. Provided it is

not a waste of time, he is always open to scien-

tific discussion about his students’s new ideas. I

really appreciate this aspect.”

One of the people who encouraged her

to accept the position in Boston was precisely

Lluís. “I could not waste this opportunity,”

maintains Eva, who will move to the US with

her future husband, a pianist. “I will be sur-

rounded by the best scientists and will experi-

ence a different way of doing science.” .

SCIENCE BITES

03in vivo January 2013 | Issue 21

How do colon cancer cells manage to

grow in organs as distant and dif-

ferent as the liver and lung and trig-

ger a new tumour, a metastasis? Three years of

study and an innovative approach has allowed

the group headed by Eduard Batlle, ICREA re-

searcher at IRB Barcelona, and Elena Sancho,

research associate , to begin not only to offer an-

swers but also to propose new diagnostic tools

and new therapeutic targets to stop the disease

from advancing. Published in Cancer Cell in

November and recommended by scientists of the

‘Faculty of 1000’ as being of special significance

in its field, the study reveals that tumour cells al-

ter the healthy environment around them, called

the stroma, to ensure their survival and coloni-

sation of receptor

organs.

The scientists

report that the

TGF-beta molecule

is the key. When tumour cells release TGF-beta,

the cells in the tumour microenvironment pro-

duce interleukin-11 (IL11), thus causing a series

of genetic changes in the cancer cells that allow

them to survive in a foreign organ. “This study

has shown us that, instead of looking at the seed,

we need to be looking at the soil. We can predict

if a plant will grow if the ground, or substrate, in

which the seed is planted is fertilised. TGF-beta

is the fertiliser that changes the earth in which

the tumour seed grows”, explains Batlle. The sci-

entists have observed that about 15% of patients

with advanced cancer (stage III) never develop

metastasis. This finding is related to whether or

not the stroma has been modified by TGF-beta.

On the contrary, those patients with moderately

advanced cancer (stage II) who have modified

stroma are at high risk to develop metastasis

after surgery. This means that, if armed with a

diagnostic test that analyzes the genetic signature

of the stroma, doctors may be able to identify

patients at risk of developing metastasis.

Elena Sancho explains that “in about five

years, we will probably have a test on the mar-

ket that identifies those patients at risk of me-

tastasis, thus allowing doctors to fine tune their

treatment regimes.”

In the Cancer Cell

article, the researchers

also show that metasta-

sis can be prevented by

eliminating the TGF-

beta signal in the stro-

ma. Mice with aggressive colon tumours were

treated with a TGF-beta inhibitor that is already

in clinical trials for other illnesses. The scientists

observed that the tumours of these animals did

not metastasise. “Our results in mice show that

patients with activated TGF-beta and who are in

the initial phases of the disease may benefit from

taking a TGF-beta inhibitor”, explains Alexan-

dre Calon, postdoctoral fellow in Batlle’s lab and

co-author of the study with Elisa Espinet.”.

Dangerous liaisons

SÒNIA ARMENGOU

Elena Sancho, Eduard Batlle and Hans Clevers during the press conference at the Barcelona BioMed Conference last November. Elena and Eduard presented their article in Cancer Cell. (Foto L.T. Barone)

We need to look at the soil, not at the seed. TGF-beta is the fertiliser that changes the earth in which the tumour seed grows.❞

Eduard Batlle, IRB Barcelona

❝

Identifying new cancer targets with the help of the fruit fly

A study published by Marco Milán’s group in PNAS describes how a normal cell turns cancerous in experiments performed in the wing of the fruit fly. The researchers have produced an inexpensive and effective model that will allow the scientific community to scrutinise the genes and molecules involved in each step of this process. Given that the vast majority of genes in Drosophila are conserved in mice and humans, the results obtained may also lead researchers to perform similar studies in other clinically relevant models..

12,000 3D-protein interactions at your service

Interactome3D (interactome3d.irbbarcelona.org) is a new web resource that has been developed by IRB Barcelona scientists Roberto Mosca, Arnaud Ceol and Patrick Aloy. It offers the possibility to anonymously access and add molecular details of protein interactions and to obtain the information in 3D models. For researchers, atomic level details about the reactions are fundamental to unravel the bases of biology, disease development, and the design of experiments and drugs to combat disorders. Nature Methods accredits the platform on the basis of its high reliability and precision..

First epigenomes of Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia described

Modesto Orozco, Josep Lluís Gelpí and Romina Royo, all working in the IRB Barcelona/Barcelona Supercomputing Center Joint Programme in Computational Biology, have contributed to the identification of the epigenetic changes in the cells that are associated with the development of Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia. The large consortium tackling the study of this disease has published in the last 18 months three papers in Nature and Nature Genetics that help to map out genetically the mutations associated with one of the most common forms of leukemia in adults..

SCIENCE BITES

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A day to remember for 24 future scientists, “crazy about biomedicine”

“Caltech? After all, not toodifferent from IRB Barcelona”

EXCHANGES

Life for a PhD student can some-

times seem like free climbing. But

there’s nothing like climbing the Grand

Canyon, as Pablo Martín Gago from

Antoni Riera’s Lab did during his six-

and-a-half month stay at the California

Institute of Technology (Caltech), in

Pasadena, California.

In Gregory Fu’s Lab, Pablo studied

nickel-catalyzed stereoconvergent cross-

coupling reactions, which, he explains,

Pablo Martín Gago climbing the Grand Canyon on one of his excursions during his stay at the California Institute of Technology (USA). (Foto C. B. Bissemba)

“An enormous curiosity makes me

wonder about things that I still

do not know about my own

body. At school we have studied how it works,

but I still have a lot to learn.”

These words from Nerea Martín, one of the

24 high school students selected to participate in

the course “Crazy about Biomedicine,” perfectly

reflect the spirit of a new educational program

launched in January by IRB Barcelona and the

Fundació Catalunya–La Pedrera. Indeed, what

the participants have plenty of is curiosity and

eagerness to learn. The goal of this project is to

give these first-year baccalaureate students the

chance to explore the exciting world of biomedi-

cine and challenge their inquisitive minds. More

than 400 students from schools all over Catalonia

applied for the programme.

Through the course’s practical and theoreti-

cal sessions, the participants will have the oppor-

tunity to take a step back from their textbooks

and experience what science is all about. Work-

ing alongside researchers from the Institute, they

will learn what the latest questions in biomedi-

cine are – and also see how scientists are figuring

them out. “This is a hands-on course that will

let them explore what working in a lab is really

like. Hopefully, through inquiry-based learning,

they’ll discover how exciting science can be,”

says Joan J. Guinovart, IRB Barcelona director.

The opening session of the course took place

on 12 January at La Pedrera, with talks by PhD

students Francisco Freixo and Benjamí Oller.

Though the topics were complex, by the end the

young participants were bombarding speakers

with insightful questions. Even during the coffee

break, the 16-year-old students huddled together

over lively conversations about microtubules,

peptides and antibodies. “We were truly pleas-

antly surprised by their level of knowledge and

interest,” says course organiser Sarah Sherwood.

“They are proving to be a highly motivated

bunch and it’s clear they will take advantage of

the opportunity they have before them.”

Initiatives such as this one are meant to help

boost interest in science among youngsters,

thereby combating the worrying decline in scien-

tific vocation across Europe. As Salvador García,

Director of Knowledge, Education and Research

at the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera, told the

participants during the opening ceremony:

“Maybe in 10 years you will remember today as

the day that you chose to follow a degree in sci-

ence and led you to become a researcher.” .

Challenging the world’s best computa-

tional researchers to demonstrate the power of

their methods to exploit genomic information

to extract predictive and clinical indicators

that are reliable and verifiable. This was the

objective of IMPROVER (Industrial Method-

ology for PROcess VErification in Research)

launched in May by IBM Research and Philip

Morris International (PMI) R&D. In the first

challenge, “Diagnosis Signature,” the team

led by David Rossell and Patrick Aloy (IRB

Barcelona) and Anaxomics Biotech achieved

fourth place, in a competition that saw the

participation of 54 groups, mainly from Eu-

rope and the US. The IMPROVER project

was announced in Nature Biotechnology. .JULIA GARCÍA LÓPEZ

Among the best bioinformatics

Francisco Freixo captivated the 24 brilliant students during his 2-hour lecture on microtubules and cytoskeleton in the inaugural class of the Crazy About Biomedicine course at La Pedrera. (Foto L.T. Barone)


A day to remember for 24 future scientists, “crazy about biomedicine”

L ong live bioinformatics, a fundamental

tool to guarantee reproducible advanc-

es in science. David Rossell, together

with Donald Berry (University of Texas MD

Anderson Cancer Center, USA) and Omiros

Papaspiliopoulos (Universitat Pompeu Fabra,

Spain) organised the latest BioMed Confer-

ence, on Bayesian Methods in Biostatistics and

Bioinformatics in collaboration with the BBVA

Foundation. He is convinced that only by “be-

ing able to navigate wisely the huge amount of

data available today can we make sense of them

and find out which relevant fraction is truly

useful for scientific advancement.”

An obvious field where biostatistics can

play a powerful role is personalised medicine.

“In this field, it is common to be faced with

huge databases, including the expression of

thousands of genes, patients’ clinical histories,

genetic anomalies, etc,” says David, head of the

Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Unit at IRB

Barcelona. “The hope is to be able to use the

collection of these data to discover the disease

subtype or prognosis for the next patient.”

The same happens with epidemiology, an-

other of the many topics covered in this espe-

cially interdisciplinary Barcelona BioMed Con-

ference. “When you have to make a prediction

about the way a disease, say the flu, will devel-

op, or if it will ever become pandemic, statistics

becomes an objective, rational tool for policy

making,” explains David.

When preparing the conference, the or-

ganisers had a clear idea in mind. “We wanted

to show how useful it is, and how important

it is, to develop new mathematics and new

methodologies. But we also wanted to spread

a philosophy: scientists need to adjust the way

they interpret their data. In addition to evaluat-

ing them in a purely intuitive manner, their ap-

proach should be guided by objective numerical

assessments. And an important means to do so

is to make use of Bayesian methods, a set of sta-

tistical tools that allow you to consider a high

number of hypotheses, each of which with little

data. For example this is the case when we are

looking at whether the expression of our 20,000

genes is associated to a disease, or whether a pair

of genes will interact directly. In these cases,

combining knowledge from multiple sources

greatly aids the statistical analysis.”

Probabilities are “tricky,” admits the sci-

entist, and it is often easy to be misled by our

intuition, especially if we have to take into ac-

count the combined probability of dif-

ferent events. “In day-to-day life as

in science, many events that look

extraordinary

are actually

statistically ex-

pected,” warns

David. “Like

the relatively

high probability that in a room two people

will celebrate their birthday on the same date,

or that you will observe patterns in a huge da-

tabase. We have to able to discriminate when

these patterns are random and cannot be repro-

duced and when they are due to a scientifically

relevant factor.”

The feedback received by the organisers of

this conference has been especially enthusias-

tic, and some participants compared it with the

most prestigious world congresses in the field.

When asked for a challenge for bioinfor-

matics, David does not hesitate: “We need to

make the transition from the 20th century, with

small volumes of data, to the intensely data-rich

science of the 21st century.”.


are “extremely powerful tools for the construction of carbon–carbon

bonds in asymmetric synthesis.” At IRB Barcelona he studies the

polar-π interactions between aromatic amino acids, which are funda-

mental in determining both the architecture and function of peptides

and proteins.

“The stay enriched the asymmetric synthesis we do here,” admits

this chemist from Salamanca, “and I had the rare opportunity to stay

long enough to develop a project which will end up in a publication.”

Pablo, whose thesis is due in June, found a very stimulating envi-

ronment. “People spent a lot of time in the lab, and even outside the

campus we spoke about science all the time. But, fortunately, I also

found a very warm group of friends to explore California and the sur-

roundings with. And the fantastic weather there was clearly a plus!”

Besides learning to play baseball and beginning to appreciate

Mexican food, Pablo is taking home important experiences. “At least

twice a month, the main pharmaceutical companies come to the cam-

pus to hire. You constantly feel an environment of positive competi-

tion. People help you, but you are pushed to do your best. I also

have to say that I noticed how Caltech is not too different from IRB

Barcelona as far as infrastructures go. We are very lucky here.”.



“Tricky probabilities” gather world experts in Barcelona in December

From left to right, Omiros Papaspiliopoulos, David Rossell, and Donald Berry, the three organisers of the Barcelona BioMed Conference on Bayesian Methods in Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, held on 17-19 December. (Foto J. Cosialls, Diario Médico)


If you ask any high school science teacher

for their wish list of things that would make

their job easier, most would concur: more

direct links between the classroom and the re-

search laboratory.

These days, scientific discoveries are hap-

pening at an incredible pace, but the knowledge

and techniques that arise from this research of-

ten take too long to trickle down through the

curriculum and into a teacher’s textbook. What

is needed is a fast track – a direct link between

teachers and scientists to bridge this gap and get

them up to speed on what is really happening in

the world of research. Direct contact with prac-

tising researchers also has another clear benefit:

it gives teachers a chance to rekindle their pas-

sion for science so that they can do what is most

important – pass it on to their students.

With this in mind, IRB Barcelona, in col-

laboration with the Fundació Catalunya-La

Pedrera’s “Professors and Science” programme,

organised the second edi-

tion of the course “On

the Fly: A Practi-

cal Course for

Teachers on De-

velopment in

Drosophila melanogaster” on 30 November – 1

December, 2012.

Over the two-day course, 18 teachers from

across Catalonia attended lectures and learned

first hand from IRB Barcelona scientists Jordi

Casanova, Marco Milán and Cayetano González

how they are using the fruit fly as a model to

understand how organisms develop, and what

goes wrong in diseases like cancer.

They also had a chance to roll up their

sleeves and try their hand at the molecular biolo-

gy, genetics and microscopy techniques used ev-

eryday by IRB Barcelona researchers, all under

the guidance of the expert hands of PhD student

instructors. A tour through online resources for

Drosophila research provided an important tool

that the teachers will be able to take back directly

into the classroom.

A final round table session where PhD stu-

dents provided perspective on their career choic-

es and motivations left the teachers with plenty

of food for thought and examples to take back

to their classrooms to inspire the next genera-

tion..

IN BRIEF Science week at the PCB On

22 and 24 November, the Barcelona Science

Park (PCB) organised a number of science

dissemination activities to celebrate the 17th

Science Week. Helena González and Oriol

Marimón guided a group of high school stu-

dents through a 2-hour tour in which they

had to do an ‘Express PhD’. The activities

focussed on the topic: “How do we identify

the genes involved in cancer?”, presented

by Francisco Barriga, researcher in IRB

Barcelona’s Colorectal Cancer Lab.

Under parental supervision Families

of IRB Barce-

lona members

visited the

the Institute

for the sec-

ond edition of

‘Family Day’

on 8 November. As usual, a group of keen

volunteers guided the group of curious

relatives to discover how each one of their

family members contributes to successful

research. IRB Barcelona director Joan J.

Guinovart welcomed them with an inspir-

ing speech.

A helping hand for kids in need As per tradition at IRB Barcelona,

during the annual holiday party at the end

of the year, a raffle was held to raise funds

for the “Casal dels Infants del Raval” in

Barcelona, a non-profit institution devoted

to helping children, young people and fam-

ilies at risk of social exclusion. 158 more

tickets than last year were sold, amounting

to a record 2,160€. We express our thanks

to all IRB Barcelona providers who donat-

ed gifts offered in the lottery.

GRANTS & PRIZES

High school teachers kindle passion for science

Two teachers dissecting embryos during a practical session of the ‘On the Fly’ course. (Photo S. Sherwood) Further up, Begoña Cánovas intrigues participants with her explanations during the Family Day. (Photo L.T. Barone)

Alzheimer’s grant The

Alzheimer’s Association, the largest

non-profit funder of Alzheimer’s

research, has awarded 100,000$ to

a 2-year project led by Natalia Ca-

rulla, research associate in the Pep-

tides and Proteins lab, to study the

toxicity of the amyloid-β oligomer.

Colon cancer marathon TV3’s La Marató Foundation has

awarded a 300,000€ grant to Eduard

Batlle’s Colorectal Cancer Lab to

explore the regeneration and trans-

plantation of organs and tissues.

Metastasis in colon cancer Jelena Urosevic, a post-

doctoral fellow in the Growth

Control and Cancer Metastasis

Lab, has received 60,000€ from the

Fundación Olga Torres to develop

a project on the identification and

characterisation of genes associated



Researchers at IRB Barcelona who

want to get their business savvy on

are in luck. In November, the Inno-

vation team launched a new series of training

activities geared towards increasing awareness

about the potential for technology transfer at

the Institute, and providing the know-how to

get started.

The first session, “From the idea to the

product at IRB Barcelona,” was held on No-

vember 20, and attracted a healthy group of 40

future innovators.

Through the sessions, Cristina Horcajada

and her team aim to instill within research-

ers at IRB Barcelona a keen awareness about

the potential of their basic research results to

translate into innovation, and the knowledge

and skills necessary to help make the jump.

“It’s an important skill set,” says Cristina, “and

one that we can’t assume that young scientists

have. With these sessions we hope to give our

researchers the one-up in an area that has such

huge potential. In the end, it’s in all our inter-

est. It helps our researchers, it helps the institu-

tion and in the long run it helps society.”

This first session provided the broad

strokes about the process of technology trans-

fer and future meetings will bring in experts to

focus on specific themes, such as intellectual

property protection, market research and busi-

ness development. The next appointment will

be scheduled for before the summer. .

No ordinary day for students

Training to transfer

Ki Woo Kim, of the School for Ecol-

ogy and Environmental Systems, Kyungpook

National University, visited IRB Barcelona’s

Functional Genomics Core in November. The

Korean government sent the scientist on as-

sigment to collect information on how to set

up a successful core facility, how to optimally

incorporate it into the organisational structure,

and on how to promote effective interactions

with researchers on one side and with private

companies for technology development on the

other. Core Facility manager Herbert Auer em-

phasised the importance of taking good care of

the working conditions for the personnel. .

Students at IRB Barcelona woke up to

a different kind of day on Thursday,

November 29. No experiments in the

lab, no papers to read, no meetings with their

Group Leaders. Instead they grabbed their

notebooks and headed to the Barcelona Sci-

ence Park’s auditorium for Stu-

dents’ Day. The event provided

a full day of talks, presenta-

tions, poster sessions and other

opportunities for scientific and

social exchange, all geared to-

wards letting students know

about the exciting research

they are working on, as well

as possibilities for their careers

and life after their degrees.

Former PhD student, Oli-

vera Vujatovic, from Ferran

Azorín’s lab and now at the

Centre for Genomic Regulation, kicked

things off with a keynote lecture on how her

experience at IRB Barcelona has been useful

for her postdoc. Students from across the

research programmes followed with short

highlight talks, intercalated by coffee breaks

and poster sessions, which gave students

plenty of time to showcase their research

projects and discuss their science.

The schedule was rounded out by a

cross-generation round table where partici-

pants discussed different aspects of life as a

scientist, from the keys to success in science

to the effect that science can have on your

relationships with others. Opportunity for

more informal exchange continued well into

the evening with a lab-wide Cool-Off ses-

sion.

Students’ Day was organised by the PhD

Student Council and was the first of what

will become a regular fixture in the IRB Bar-

celona annual calendar..

SARAH SHERWOOD

SARAH SHERWOOD

Scouting visits

with metastasis in colon cancer.

INNPACTing research Fernando Albericio has received

380,000€ of funding from the IN-

NPACTO programme that fosters

collaboration with private indus-

tries. Together with PharmaMar and

UAM, they will develop antibody-

drug conjugates of marine origin.

Congratulations to IRB

Barcelona adjunct director, Joan

Massagué, who received the 36th

Lluís Carulla Prize of Honour for

2012, for “his institutional leader-

ship, scientific rigour and work

ethic;”to group leader Roger Gomis,

who got the “Valdés-Salas” Prize for

Applied Biomedicine; and to Ipro-

teos, a spin-off of IRB Barcelona and

the University of Barcelona, award-

ed the “2nd RedEmprendia Univer-

sity to Business Spin-off Prize 2012.”


Students sharing their latest scientific results with one another during Students’ Day (Foto L.T. Barone)

Tiago Oliveira Botelho (Lisbon, 1979) is the new

Industrial Liaison Officer, and he joins the Innovation team.

His passion for business began after his degree in applied

science, when he patented a method for a biodegradable

plastic. Before coming on board the Institute, he was a

researcher at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Im-

munology, Porto, at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Lisbon, and at the University

of Barcelona, where he did a PhD in biotechnology. He worked for a year in the company

Salupharma Biosimilars, where he was research project manager and business developer.

“I came to IRB Barcelona to help convert ideas into money,” he states enthusiastically.

Stem cell expert Enza Lonardo (Naples, 1980) joined Eduard Batlle’s Colorectal Cancer Lab in Novem-

ber with a postdoctoral fellowship. “I began studying

plant stem cells for my undergraduate thesis, then moved

on to mouse embryonic stem cells for my PhD in Naples;

for my first postdoc at CNIO in Madrid I studied stem

cells in pancreatic cancer, and now I am going to study these cells in colon cancer,” she

summarises. “I chose IRB Barcelona because of the positive feedback I have always re-

ceived on its scientific level, the quality of its seminars and its research freedom.”

Genetist Ivan Burkov (Novosibirsk, 1986) is going to

face an important scientific challenge with Raúl Méndez and

Roger Gomis as a Marie Curie COFUND postdoc fellow:

he will study for the first time the role of the CPEB4 protein

in cancer metastasis. Ivan studied in Akademgorodok, the

“Academic city,” 20 km south of the Siberian capital. He

loves art, music (he is a DJ), and extreme sports.“I wanted to expand my scientific hori-

zons,” he says, “and turned down Yale and ETH Zürich. IRB Barcelona is very competi-

tive, scientifically and geographically. Plus, the topic of my research is more stimulating.”

NEW AT IRB BARCELONA

Imagine yourself facing the Great Wall of China.

Another barrier, equally impenetrable, protects our

brain from intruders. Just as the Great Wall, the

Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) is also lined with doors that

only those who have the right key will be able to enter.

The goal of Meritxell Teixidó, research associate in Ernest

Giralt’s Peptides and Protein Laboratory, is to find those

precious keys.

“98% of the potential therapeutic molecules against

diseases of the central nervous system cannot cross the

wall, and therefore they never hit the target,” explains

the researcher. “We develop peptides with the capacity

to open the doors of the barrier and act as shuttles when

attached to a therapeutic molecule. The idea is that the

shuttle helps the active molecule enter the brain.”

She has been working with peptide shuttles to cross

biological barriers for almost ten years. “I really love what

I do. It is important to have a good atmosphere in the lab.

A smile makes everything flow better and fills the work-

ing area with positive energy that fosters creativity.”

Besides with energy and a good mood, how do you develop these peptide shuttles?

One option is look for them in nature. Certain natural

toxins affect the brain, which means that they are able to

cross the BBB. We can reduce their toxicity and transform

them into shuttles. Another option is a combined use of

peptide libraries and mass spectrometry techniques to find

candidates that can cross the barrier.

Once you have found a possible shuttle, what do you do with it?

After developing and optimising the peptide shuttle,

we work in collaboration with other labs or companies

which have a therapeutic molecule that they want to bring

into the brain. This is a technology with a great future and

IRB Barcelona has substantial potential to develop it. For

sure, there are groups in the Institute with molecules that

can be used to treat neurological diseases, but which can’t

enter the brain. We can collaborate with them to make it

possible..

ON THE MOVE

In vivo, issue 21. Published by the Institute for Research in Biomedicine. Office of Communications & External Relations. Barcelona Science Park. c/Baldiri Reixac, 10. 08028 Barcelona, Spain.

Web: www.irbbarcelona.org - Facebook: www.facebook.com/irbbarcelona - Twitter: @IRBBarcelonaEditors: Luca Tancredi Barone and Sarah Sherwood. Contributors: Sònia Armengou, Julia García

López. Graphic Production: La Trama. Legal deposit: MU-29-2012. This document has been printed on recycled paper.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from in vivo, email: [email protected]. © IRB Barcelona 2013.

After three years as a research associate in the Metabolic Engineer-

ing and Diabetes Therapy Lab, Joaquim Calbó (Barcelona, 1974) has transferred his expertise to the Centre for Genomic

Regulation (CRG), where he takes up the post of Scientific Project

Manager. “I am going to manage European projects coordinated

by CRG,” he explains. “At IRB Barcelona I learnt to manage and

coordinate research on the metabolism of glycogen, and I was

looking forward to making a leap in my career. I am excited to have the opportunity

now to help the researchers for an entire scientific institution.” The first large-scale

European project he faces is called Infrastructure for Systems Biology Europe (ISBE).JULIA GARCÍA LÓPEZ

SPOTLIGHT

Meritxell Teixidó,the molecular key hunter

Crossing the impenetrable Blood Brain Barrier

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In Vivo - Issue 21