10/08/2020 - Covid-19
The project is one of 12 selected by the evaluation committee and will receive the second highest amount of money, 250,000 euros. The study, which involves the University of Girona, the University of Vic-Central-University of Catalonia and the Foundation for Higher Studies in Health Sciences, the Trueta and Santa Caterina hospitals and the University Institute for Primary Health Care Research (IDIAP-Jordi Gol), with the company Gen inCode and several healthcare centres in the United States also showing an interest, will analyse genetic predisposition to coronary risk as a prognostic element of severity in the event of contracting COVID-19. The CARGENCORS study, or CARdiovascular GENetic risk score for Risk Stratification of patients positive for the SARS-CoV-2 (COvid19) virus, was selected by the FONDO SUPERA COVID-19 (Beat COVID-19 Fund) evaluation committee, organised by the association of Spanish Universities (CRUE), the CSIC, and Santander Bank. With a pot of 8.5 million euros, the fund will finance projects in various fields with the aim of minimising the impact of the current pandemic, focusing on three priority areas: applied research, projects with social impact and profitability, and strengthening the ICT capacity of the state university system.
03/08/2020 - General information
The Innovation Radar, a European Commission initiative to identify high potential innovations and innovators in EU-funded research and innovation framework programmes, has selected two innovations developed by the GRIB in the project eTRANSAFE to be included on the Innovation Radar platform: Preclinical text mining solution for treatment response Advanced in silico modelling to predict toxicity These innovations, stemming from the project work, have been classified by the Innovation Radar as Exploring innovations in the early phases of technological readiness and have been published on the EU-funded innovations website on July 20th 2020, thus joining the 3600+ EU-funded innovations already showcased on the platform.
27/07/2020 - Press release
World-Wide FINGERS (WW-FINGERS) is the first global network of clinical trials for risk reduction and prevention of dementia and Alzheimer´s disease through multidomain interventions. Spanish researchers from the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and the CITA Alzheimer Foundation participate in this network which convenes research teams from over 30 countries. The main scope, scientific strategy and activities of the WW-FINGERS network have been recently published in Alzheimer´s & Dementia. WW-FINGERS builds upon the successful experience of FINGER study: the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability, led by Prof. Miia Kivipelto and her team (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; University of Eastern Finland; Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare and Imperial College London, UK). This pioneering randomized clinical trial (RCT) demonstrated that a 2-year multidomain lifestyle intervention consisting of nutritional guidance, exercise, social stimulation, cognitive training, and control of vascular risk factors benefitted cognition in seniors at increased risk of dementia (Lancet 2015).
28/07/2020 - Covid-19
The main goal of the European project EHDEN: European Health Data & Evidence Network, is to carry out large-scale analysis of European clinical data (Real-World Clinical Data), using bioinformatics tools and standards based on the international OHDSI initiative and the OMOP common date model (CDM). EHDEN will speed up studies and research related to characterising patients with COVID-19 and other diseases, and evaluate the best treatments and clinical management for these patients, using millions of clinical records from all over Europe.
24/07/2020 - Institutional news
In the first edition of the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in Health Awards organised by ISCIII and promoted as part of the European project ORION (Open Responsible research and Innovation to further Outstanding kNowledge) three proposals from three different Health Research Institutes (HRI) have been honoured out of a total of 26 proposals received. One of these three proposals is an IMIM project: The name of the successful project is "Co-creation and citizen participation in the design of the PENSA Study on the Prevention of Cognitive Impairment in People with Subjective Memory Complaints". Presented by Natàlia Soldevila and Laura Forcano from the Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience research group at the IMIM, this work stands out for its application of citizen participation in the design of a clinical trial, an added value that allows the project to be reoriented to better adapt to the needs and expectations of the participants.
24/07/2020 - Press release
One simple call to go over colonoscopy preparation instructions 48 hours before an appointment increases test success by 11.5%. This has been demonstrated in a multi-centre study led by doctors and nurses from the Digestive Tract Service at Hospital del Mar and researchers from the Clinical and Translational Research Group on Colorectal Neoplasia at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). The work, published in the journal Endoscopy, analysed data from 657 patients from 11 Spanish hospitals. This is the first multi-centre study to analyse how an educational approach can improve colon preparation in people at high risk of not achieving this.
14/07/2020 - Press release
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRS) are one of the key elements mediating basic stimuli like our response to mosquito bites or to this last-minute goal scored by our favorite football team. In fact, these proteins are the target of almost 40% of the currently approved drugs. However, until now, researchers did not have access to a tool employing molecular simulations to achieve a better understanding of GPCR function. Therefore, a consortium of researchers from 23 different institutions of 10 different European countries and the United States have joined forces to design and build a tool that will help improve our understanding of the function of these receptors, which are responsible of transmitting signals to the interior of cells. The GPCRmd platform is the result of this work, lead and coordinated by the GPCR Drug Discovery group from the Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics (GRIB) of the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), the Pompeu Fabra University, and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland, with support from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
08/07/2020 - Press release
Cannabis use can lead to behavioral changes, including reduced social interactions in some individuals. To better understand the phenomenon, Inserm researcher Giovanni Marsicano and his team from NeuroCenter Magendie (Inserm/Université de Bordeaux), in collaboration with University of Salamanca (Spain) professor, Juan P Bolaños and his team, have identified for the first time in mice the cerebral mechanisms underlying the relationship between cannabis and reduced sociability. Their findings have been published in Nature. Dr. Arnau Busquets, currently a Ramon y Cajal researcher in the IMIM's Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience Research Group is one of the first authors of this work. He has been responsible for carrying out the in vivo part of the project in mice, during his postdoctoral period in Dr. Marsicano's team in Bordeaux. Dr. Busquets started his own group last September (https://www.imim.cat/programesrecerca/neurociencies/grfh/cell-type_mechanisms_in_normal_and_pathological_behavior/index.htm)
Més informació "Star-Shaped Brain Cells Shed Light on the Link Between Cannabis Use and Sociability"
30/06/2020 - General information
The successful projects are "Obtaining antioxidant active substances from the carob pod and validating their therapeutic potential", which involves the company Euronutra, the IBIMA (Malaga Biomedical Research Institute), the IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute), and the CRG (Centre for Genomic Regulation); and the project "Development of a new therapy for Fragile X syndrome", in which the company Connecta Therapeutics, the IMIM, and the CRG are participating. The Spanish Innovation Agency call for these grants is part of the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2017-2020. The goal is to finance cooperative projects between companies and research bodies in order to carry out joint R&D projects that are close to the market and that, due to their subject matter, are aligned with the priorities established in the challenges of the State R&D Programme Oriented to the Challenges of Society. This year's call has a budget of 260 million euros and one of the requirements is that the coordinator applying for the grant must be a company.
29/06/2020 - General information
This month Sifted, the technology magazine of the Financial Times, has contacted various experts in the technology industry and in analyzing data on investments, has concluded that the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem has high quality healthtech startups, ranging from drug discovery to novel virtual reality therapies. In its latest edition, Sifted has published a list of the top healthcare start-ups in Spain, including Chemotargets, the IMIM's spin-off founded in 2006 by Dr. Jordi Mestres, coordinator of the Systems Pharmacology research group at IMIM. Chemotargets is a company that offers state-of-the-art methodologies with predictive capabilities that allow the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to accelerate the design and optimization of drug candidates and improve cost efficiency and safety. Its CLARITY® platform covers the entire field of drug discovery and development, from the de novo design of molecules for new targets to pharmacovigilance in the drug market stage.
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