19/10/2020 - Press release
Last Friday, the FERO Foundation announced the winners of the 19th FERO Grants and the winner of the 2nd FERO-Mango Breast Cancer Research Project. The grants, worth €80,000 each, are intended to help young researchers develop their translational cancer research projects over a two-year period. "It is expected that 277,394 people will be diagnosed with cancer before the end of 2020. We cannot allow the pandemic scenario in which we find ourselves to detract from the treatment and survival opportunities of the thousands of patients who are currently struggling with cancer. That is why at FERO we are doing everything we can to ensure that COVID-19 affects doctors and patients as little as possible, and that resources continue to reach researchers and centres. One way of achieving this is by continuing to support projects through our grants", explains Sol Daurella, president of the institution.
15/10/2020 - Press release
They believe that the treatment currently used in many cases, based solely on short-acting bronchodilators like the well-known Ventolin, may increase the risk of severe asthma attacks. This is revealed by a study published in the journal Archivos de Bronconeumología. They advocate the use of inhaled corticoids, which is also the treatment recommended by the international Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). Asthma is increasingly prevalent and affects 5-10% of the general population. Unfortunately, the decline in associated mortality has slowed in recent years. In the current context, characterised by the COVID-19 epidemic, there is no evidence that suffering asthma implies a more severe form of COVID-19.
14/10/2020 - Press release
Chemotargets, a global leader in predictive analytics solutions for the pharma and biotech sector, has appointed Dr. Scott Boyer as new CEO with the aim to consolidate its transition from a software business to a key player in the biotech sector. Dr Boyer joins Chemotargets from Swedish drug development company Klaria, where he has been CEO/CSO since 2015 and will continue as a member of the Board of Directors and as a scientific advisor. Prior to joining Klaria, he was Chief Scientist at AstraZeneca (Sweden), with global responsibility for molecular and investigational toxicology across the company, and a member of the company's senior management team. Prior to AstraZeneca, Dr. Boyer was a senior scientist at Pfizer Central Research in the US.
Més informació "Dr. Scott Boyer joins Chemotargets as new CEO"
08/10/2020 - Press release
Doing 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (fast walking or dancing, for example) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (running or other sports) a week, as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), reduces your mortality risk by 16%. At the same time, cardiovascular mortality risk drops by 27% and cardiovascular event risk falls by 12%. This is highlighted in a study published by the Revista Española de Cardiología led by doctors from Hospital del Mar and researchers from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), the University of Vic-Central Catalonia (UVic- UCC), and the CIBERCV and CIBERESP. The work also reveals that doing three to five times more physical activity than the recommended amount maximises the benefit.
Més informació "Following physical activity recommendations can reduce mortality risk by 16%"
15/09/2020 - Press release
The research group of GPCR Drug Discovery at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, has deciphered how nature adjusts the response of the human cell to abundant extracellular stimuli (e.g., smell, taste, light, hormones, etc.). When a cell receives an extracellular stimulus, it initiates a signaling process that can result in major physiological changes. This process is mediated by cell membrane proteins such as G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Depending on the stimulus, those receptors regulate cell activity through different molecular mechanisms. Extracellular stimulation of GPCRs leads to its activation and subsequently to the phosphorylation of its long intracellular tail. Interestingly, there are multiple phosphorylation patterns of the receptor tail - each of them linked to a specific signaling response. The phosphorylation code is read by intracellular proteins known as β-arrestins. In response, they typically silence the receptor and modulate intracellular kinases, which have a global impact on cell behaviour related to gene expression, cell survival and cell death. "Until now, the phosphorylation code and the involvement of arrestins in deciphering it has been an open question" explains Dr. Selent. "We have discovered the underlying molecular mechanism of how arrestin reads and translates a specific phosphorylation pattern into a cellular response" she adds.
Més informació "Decryption of a molecular code that regulates the behavior of the cells"
03/09/2020 - Press release
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Dr. Arnau Busquets García, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), with a prestigious ERC Starting Grant. This recognition includes 1.5 million euros to develop a 5-year project. Grants from the ERC, which are part of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, are the main source of European funding for research excellence. They support highly innovative projects led by outstanding and internationally renowned researchers, with the aim of helping them to build their own teams and carry out pioneering research in Europe. In this year's edition, 3272 applications were submitted and 436 grants were awarded, for a total of 677 million euros. The recipients have 40 different nationalities and the projects will be developed in 25 different EU member states. The countries awarded the most grants are Germany (88 grants), the UK (62), the Netherlands (42), and France (38). Spain secured a total of 23 grants, 7 of which are going to Catalan research centers.
17/08/2020 - Press release
The journal is dedicating a prominent position to research on cannabis and its derivatives, its recreational use, the associated risks, and potential medical applications. It features articles by some of the most prominent figures in the field, under the editorship of Dr. Torrens and Dr. Maldonado. The July issue of the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology is dedicating a special section to the controversy over the globally growing trend to legalise the use of marijuana for certain recreational and medical uses. This has been edited by Dr. Marta Torrens, director of the Addictions Process Group at the Hospital del Mar Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Addictions (INAD) and coordinator of the Addictions Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and Dr. Rafael Maldonado, head of the Neuropharmacology Laboratory at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (CEXS) at Pompeu Fabra University and the IMIM. Together they authored an editorial on the subject for the journal.
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).
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.
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