NEWSLETTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE in vivo July 2012 | Issue 19 p3 Exchanges A. Dyaschenko back from Israel Mischa Dohler cheers up scientists’ spirit Y sios Capital and Inbiomotion SL, a spin-off company based on IRB Barcelona research, have just signed an important agreement that will result in the injection of two million euro in the company, which was founded by IRB Barcelona Group Leader Roger Gomis. The deal was signed in June and it represents a “significant milestone in the promotion of Inbiomo- tion,” declares the researcher. It is the first time that Ysios Capital has invested in a company that has arisen from basic research. According to Gomis, this confirms that “cutting-edge innovation and science help give a solution to unmet medical needs, especially regarding cancer diagnosis and prognosis.” More on the agreement on page 2. Nature Genetics’ editor suggestions for researchers The Catalan government, following a pro- posal by Catalan Minister of Economy and Knowledge Andreu Mas-Colell, announced that the prestigious 2012 Narcís Monturiol Plaque will go to IRB Barcelona. First created by the Catalan Government in 1982, these awards recognize significant contributions made by people and organi- sations toward the advance of science and technology in Catalonia. Two other institutions, the Obra Social ”la Caixa” and the Fundació Fero, likewise received the award in 2012. The presentation ceremony will be held in October in the Palau de la Generalitat, seat of the Catalan Government. Prestigious recognition awarded The Initiative for Sci- ence in Europe (ISE) held its second conference in Barcelona last May. The theme of the three- day conference was, ‘What does science need to flourish?’. European Research Council (ERC) President Helga Nowot- ny considers excellence and independence the most important assets that guarantee that ERC maintains its reputation among scientists throughout Europe. The coordination of the initiatives and research programmes in the Eu- ropean Research Area (ERA) is one of the key issues that scientists and policy makers have to face. More on this on page 4. ERC President praises excellence at ISE Conference Octavi Quintana Trias, Director of the ERA, with ERC President Helga Nowotny PHOTO: LUCA TANCREDI BARONE An IRB Barcelona spin-off obtains important funding Interview John Petrini BioMed Conference p5 p8 p6
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NEWSLETTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE
to flourish?’. European Research Council (ERC) President Helga Nowot-
ny considers excellence and independence the most important assets that
guarantee that ERC maintains its reputation among scientists throughout
Europe.
The coordination of the initiatives and research programmes in the Eu-
ropean Research Area (ERA) is one of the key issues that scientists and
policy makers have to face. More on this on page 4.
ERC President praises excellence at ISE Conference
Octavi Quintana Trias, Director of the ERA, with ERC President Helga Nowotny
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An IRB Barcelona spin-off obtains important funding
InterviewJohn Petrini BioMed Conferencep5 p8p6
in vivo July 2012 | Issue 1902
First CancerTec call launched
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Whoever said that you shouldn’t stick
your nose into your neighbours’
business might have a thing or two
to learn from recent goings on at the Barcelona
Science Park.
Two of its prominent tenants, IRB Barcelona
and Ysios Capital – whose offices are across the
corridor from one another – have just tightened
their links whereby Ysios will lead a 2-million
euro round of financing for Inbiomotion SL, a
spin-off company founded in October 2011 by
IRB Barcelona and ICREA researcher Roger
Gomis. The collaboration with Ysios Capi-
tal, together with additional investments from
the Fundació Vila
Casas and JVRisk
Technologies, will
support Inbiomo-
tion in its efforts to
develop biomarkers
to predict whether
tumours from breast
cancer patients will metastasize to the bone.
Currently, no diagnostic tools are available
to specifically predict bone metastasis in early
stage patients. The basis of Inbiomotion is a bio-
marker, discovered in Gomis’ Growth Control
and Cancer Metastasis group, that codes for a
nuclear protein that is able to determine which
patients will relapse to the bone. It is a powerful
tool and a step beyond what is currently avail-
able clinically. With it, physicians will be able to
classify their patients according to their risk for
bone metastasis, better helping them to mark the
patients’ course of therapy. The proceeds of the
financing will be used to fund the validation of
this marker in various clinical studies in Barce-
lona and England and to advance its development
in order to achieve official approval.
“This financing round marks a significant
milestone in the promotion of Inbiomotion be-
cause it involves risk capital enterprises devoted
to the life sciences sector,” says Gomis. “In ad-
dition to providing capital, however, these in-
vestors bring essential know-how for business
development and immediate visibility in the
sector.”
“Inbiomotion has arisen from one of the
leading laboratories in metastasis research. Its
technology confirms that cutting-edge innova-
tion and science can
effectively give a solu-
tion to unmet medical
needs, especially re-
garding cancer diagno-
sis and prognosis, thus
helping to determine
the most efficient treat-
ments to prevent metastasis. Ysios will provide
the experience and industrial contacts to build a
reference company, together with the founders
of Inbiomotion,” says Joël Jean-Mairet at Ysios
Capital.
“This is the first time that Ysios Capital has
invested in a biotech company that has arisen
from basic research. This achievement indicates
that at IRB Barcelona we are performing cutting-
edge science that is attractive to investors and
that has the capacity to improve patients’ quality
of life,” explains Joan J. Guinovart, Director of
the institute..
❝This achievement indicates that at IRB Barcelona we are performing cutting-edge science that is attractive to investors and that has the capacity to improve patients’ quality of life.❞
SARAH SHERWOOD
Good neighbours make good business partners: Ysios Capital’s Joël Jean- Mairet and IRB Barcelona’s Roger Gomis seal the deal for a two-million euro round of financing for Inbiomotion SL, based on research developed at IRB Barcelona.
Two-million euro cash injection for IRB Barcelona spin-off, Inbiomotion SL
IRB Barcelona’s Innovation De-
partment has launched the first call
for project proposals included in the
CancerTec Programme, a seed fund
scheme promoted by IRB Barcelona
and supported by the Obra Social ”la
Caixa”.
CancerTec is a new platform
which aims to fulfill the potential of
research into early-stage cancer of the
type conducted at the Institute.
The programme will support sci-
entists as they try to develop future
diagnostic tools and therapies for
cancer and get them into the market.
CancerTec will allow to boost the
transfer of selected promising results
to the market, thereby increasing the
quality of life of cancer patients.
This represents an important new
step in a long-standing collaboration
with the Obra Social ”la Caixa” that
continues to produce excellent, inno-
vative research.
03in vivo July 2012 | Issue 19
Cells store glucose as glycogen (a poly-
mer of glucose), which is produced
by the enzyme glycogen synthase. In
the brain, glycogen is almost exclusively found
in cells called astrocytes.
IRB Barcelona scientists propose that, under
specific circumstances, neurons synthesize gly-
cogen and that it is essential for the functions of
these cells, but that excessive accumulation in-
duces apoptosis and neurodegeneration. Lafora
Disease (LD), a progressive myoclonic epilepsy,
and Adult Polyglucosan Body Disease (APGB)
are the most striking examples of the unhealthy
consequences of glycogen accumulation in neu-
rons. The process has also been described in
Alzheimer’s disease, diabetic neuropathy and
aging.
An IRB Barcelona collaborative research
line headed by Joan J. Guinovart and Marco Mi-
lán, ICREA researcher and a specialist in Dro-
sophila, has led to a publication in the journal
EMBO Molecular Medicine which documents
the toxic effects of the accumulation of glyco-
gen in fly and mouse neurons. These two ani-
mal models will allow scientists to address the
genes involved in this harmful process and to
find pharmacological solutions that break down
glycogen accumulations or limit glycogen pro-
duction. Advances in this direction would sig-
nificantly contribute to studies of LD and other
APGBs.
“Our data clearly indicate that glycogen ac-
cumulation suffices to kill neurons and thus dra-
matically reduces lifespan,” explains Guinovart,
an expert in glycogen metabolism. “In the study
the only manipulation we made in the neurons
was to increase their production of glycogen.”
Including the fly Drosophila in the study
provides in vivo confirmation of the theory in
another animal model; flies show the same de-
generative symptoms as mice when glycogen ac-
cumulates in neurons.
The Drosophila model will speed up the
process of obtaining genetic data and screening
for therapeutic molecules. “Soon we will be able
to perform a massive search for genes involved
in the pathological process and to better under-
stand it at the molecular level,” emphasizes Mi-
lán. “But the flies will also be useful to identify
pharmacological molecules that can cure,” he
adds.
The IRB Barcelona teams are designing sev-
eral experiments to identify therapeutic targets
that may be useful to prevent glycogen accumu-
lation in neurons..
B idding colleagues farewell is
commonplace at IRB Barcelona.
Many students travel to institu-
tions abroad to conduct part of their re-
search in another lab as an important stage
in their training.
Andrey Dyachenko, a ”la Caixa” PhD
fellow in Ernest Giralt’s Design, Synthe-
sis and Structure of Peptides and Proteins
Lab, got back in May from a five-month
stay at the Structure and Function Analysis
of the Protein Degradation Machinery Lab
at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.
“Dr. Michal Sharon is a world expert in
biological mass spectroscopy,” explains the
young Russian scientist. “She studied with
Carol Robinson, the pioneer in the field in
Oxford. To be in her lab was an invaluable
opportunity for me.”
During his stay, Andrey studied the in-
teraction between GroEL, a protein mem-
ber of the chaperonin family, proteins that
Harmful consequences of glycogen accumulation in neurons
“A fantastic opportunity for my scientific career”
SÒNIA ARMENGOU
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in a foreign country was very stimulating.
“Twenty percent of Israel’s population is
of Russian origin, and even I have part of
my family there,” he says. “In general, it
was really easy to make friends. People
there say that since Jews were guests in
other places for such a long time, today
they want to be good hosts. I guess it must
be true.”
Israel also gave Andrey the oppor-
tunity to practice his favorite sport, rock
climbing. And when his family joined him,
they all went to explore the country.
“Ernest Giralt gives all his students
the opportunity to go abroad to further
their research,” concludes Andrey. “I be-
lieve this is a fantastic opportunity for the
career of a scientist. And for the lab it is
an excellent way to foster long-lasting col-
laborations.”.
assist in the correct folding of other pro-
teins, with the ATP molecule, commonly
referred to as the “cellular energy source.”
“One GroEL molecule can bind 14
ATP molecules, get energy from this proc-
ess and use it to develop its functions,” says
Andrey. “This is a very complex process
because each of 14 molecules binds with a
different strength, or ‘affinity.’ And study-
ing the process with mass spectrometry can
be tricky. This is why it was so important
to gain first-class experience in Sharon’s
lab.”
Besides the scientific benefits, living
EXCHANGES
Andrey Dyachenko with his daughter Alisa at an excursion to the Sinai peninsula next to the Red Sea
IN FOCUS
in vivo July 2012 | Issue 1904
The issue of “What does science need
to flourish?,” the title of ISE’s (Initia-
tive for Science in Europe) Conference held on
3-4 May at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and
co-organized by IRB Barcelona, is central at a
time of declining investment in research and
development, especially in countries like Spain.
Helga Nowotny, President of the Euro-
pean Research Council (ERC), was one of
the guests of a meeting that involved other
distinguished speakers, such as the Director
of the European Research Area, Octavi Quin-
tana Trias, the current President of ISE, Maria
Leptin, who is also Director of the European
Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO),
Pär Omling, President of the European Sci-
ence Foundation (ESF), Iain Mattaj, Director
General of the European Molecular Biology
Laboratory (EMBL), and Peter Tindemans,
Secretary General of Euroscience. Others who
took part in the discussion were the Catalan
Minister of Economy and Knowledge, Andreu
Mas-Colell, and Catalan Secretary of Univer-
sity and Knowledge, Antoni Castellà.
During the debate, the ERC emerged as a
reference funding institution. Since its founda-
tion within the 7th Framework Programme in
2007, many
scientists
embraced
the ERC
as a model
to follow.
“We work
according
to the prin-
ciples of excellence only,” says Nowotny.
“Every scientist aspires to be excellent, it’s in
their blood. I think our procedures, our whole
philosophy is geared to emphasise excellence.
We also try to give young scientists early sci-
entific independence, something badly needed
in Europe. We have to give them the possibility
to follow their own ideas, to put together their
teams.”
Especially praised by the scientists is the
independence shown by the Council. “This is
very important for us. From day one, we in-
sisted to the European Commission that we
alone select the panel members who evaluate,”
points out the Austrian-born sociologist. “In
order to fund according to excellence, you
need excellent panel members and evaluators
LUCA TANCREDI BARONE
DNA damage response and human health appraised in the lastBarcelona Biomed Conferencewho can rec-
ognize it. Inde-
pendence and
excellence are
our most pre-
cious assets,”
insists Now-
otny.
Another
element that
characterizes
ERC has to do
with the hu-
man side of this
even and deter-
mined woman. “I read and reply to every mail,
and I take the complaints that I get - not many,
actually - very seriously. Sometimes the com-
plaints are unfounded, but I always go and find
out what happened, and then decide what can
be done to improve the situation if improve-
ment is needed. This is very important. We live
in different parts of Europe and we have differ-
ent scientific communities to which we belong,
so it’s very important to listen and respond to
their needs.”
Although the rejection rate for ERC grant
proposals stands at around 88%,
most European scientists are still
happy with the way ERC man-
ages its funds. “I think this is
because we try to give applicants
useful feedback,” says Nowotny.
“Several applicants have told me
that even if they don’t succeed,
the exercise in itself is a valuable
one. This is the right spirit.”
One of the results of the discussions within
the scientific community, discussions to which
ERC is very receptive, is the creation of a new
type of grant: the Synergy Grant.
“Among scientists, there is a genuine desire
to collaborate,” explains the ERC President.
“But they want to do so under conditions they
set themselves, that arise from their needs rath-
er than from the abstract principles of funding
agencies or of the commission. Synergy Grants
cover collaborations of up to four individuals.
Of course, the idea has to be an exception-
ally good one. Scientists have to prove to the
evaluators that a project can be carried out
only in the particular configuration that they
have designed. We have money for only up to
15 grants for this and the coming year, but we
received 710 applications. So we hit a nerve, we
identified a real need. For the future, depend-
ing on the budget for Horizon 2020, the next
Framework programme, which is currently
under discussion, we will have more money.”
Nowotny does not forget to praise IRB
Barcelona for its stunning number of ERC
Advanced Grants obtained a few months ago.
“Three out of 15 in Spain is a great result, it
lifts the scientific standing, and it boosts moral.
Once you start getting ERC grants, you keep
on getting them. This is my best wish for IRB
Barcelona.” .
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“Excellence and independence,our most precious assets,” declares ERC President
Helga Nowotny, heads the European Research Council since 2010. She took part in the ISE meeting in Barcelona last May
IRB Barcelona Director Joan J. Guinovart discussing with ISE President Maria Leptin
Méndez new PhD chairIRB Barcelona’s Internal Scientific Com-
mittee nominated Group Leader Raúl Méndez
as Chair of graduate training. These functions
were previously held by IRB Barcelona Direc-
tor Joan J. Guinovart.
Méndez’s tasks will be to supervise gradu-
ate training activities and act as the students’s
interface to mediate with the Institute. The
new Chair will sit on the Internal Scientific
Committee.
Clara Caminal and Patricia Nadal keep
their functions of interlocution with the stu-
dents, working in coordination with Raúl in
those issues requiring his advice or action.
05in vivo July 2012 | Issue 19
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Scientist Travis H. Stracker in the Ge-
nomic Instability and Cancer Lab is
trying to “deconstruct cancer:” to
identify the combinations of defects in the
DNA damage response that trigger tumori-
genesis in general or that are sufficient for the
development of specific types of cancer.
His group has approached this theme
by studying mutations in DNA damage re-
sponse proteins that are involved in cell cy-
cle checkpoints, apoptosis and senescence.
In particular, they investigated the complex
system that should prevent mistakes during
DNA replication and cell division and safe-
guard cell integrity.
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stracker,
together with
colleagues in
the lab of John
H. J. Petrini
in the Memo-
rial Sloan Ket-
tering Cancer
Center in New
York, pin-
points some of
these combina-
tions.
Whether
or not a tumor
develops, they
show, depends
on the phase
of the cell cycle
in which the
damage occurs, which repair pathway com-
ponents are affected, and the status of genes
that trigger apoptosis and cell cycle arrest.
“This study shows that genomic instabil-
ity per se is not sufficient to initiate a tumour
and that we cannot generalize. We need to
study the origin of different kinds of cancer in
much greater depth. Although it is as difficult
as trying to find a needle in a haystack, we are
slowly identifying the parts that we should
focus on,” explains Stracker. The detection
of the main players that cause different kinds
of cancer could be of great interest for the
design of new diagnostic tools and specific
treatments. .
How did you select the speakers
for this conference?
We combined two types of
expertise. On one hand, we chose a group
of scientists who are doing very basic re-
search into fundamental mechanisms of how
genetic material is transmitted from genera-
tion to generation, for example
through the process of matu-
ration of eggs and sperm, and
how that translates into inheri-
tance of genetic traits. On the
other hand, we invited people
who are actively studying the
mechanisms by which cancer
therapies work. Meetings like
this are extremely valuable to
both ends of the spectrum. We
learn a lot about the pathways
that underlie malignancies when
we see the way that the thera-
peutic agents work. Conversely,
scientists that are interested in
designing therapeutic agents
learn a lot about what might
work because they can better understand the
underpinning mechanisms.
Is unstable DNA sufficient to lead to
cancer?
Cancers are indeed genetically unstable.
Chromosomes are unstable, pathways that
normally respond to DNA damage are often
impaired. But the facile assumption that if you
inhibit those pathways you predispose malig-
nancy is wrong. DNA damage response mech-
anisms evolved to ensure faithful inheritance
of genetic material, and on the other hand
to ensure the survival of cells in the face of
endogenous stresses. When you have defects
in this response, you lose fertility, but also,
excruciatingly important, you allow cells to
acquire changes that internally become malig-
nant. But primarily, cells become more prone
to die. When we created a mutation in one
of the central regulators of the DNA damage
response, the animals had fertility problems.
They were also unable to respond to insults
from the environment, but they never got
tumours. The reason is that the cells died at
a much greater rate when they acquired mu-
tations that allow them to become tumours.
So it’s just a question of statistics?
There is another layer of complexity. Our
cells are built from stem cells, so not very
many cells in our body are particularly old.
If you combine a mutation in the DNA repair
mechanism with a mutation that disrupts the
ability of cells to undergo programmed cell
death, a very important aspect of how cells
deal with damage, an aggressive cancer devel-
ops rapidly. Cell death pathways are a critical
component of the pathways that need to be
inactivated for cells to become malignant. .
Deconstructingcancer
DNA damage response and human health appraised in the lastBarcelona Biomed Conference
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SÒNIA ARMENGOU
The 28th edition of the Barcelona BioMed Conference series, sponsored by the BBVA
Foundation, was chaired by Travis Stracker of IRB Barcelona and John H. J. Petrini, of the
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York (USA). Travis used to work as Re-
search Associate in John Petrini’s lab. They investigated damage response proteins and their
influence on genome stability and tumorigenesis. In vivo asked Dr. Petrini few questions.
LUCA TANCREDI BARONE
John Petrini and Travis Stracker co-chaired the last Barcelona BioMed Conference
in vivo July 2012 | Issue 1906
E very year, IRB Barcelona and the Scientific Park hold a career
opportunities event for students and young researchers. “Ca-
reer Progression in Science - options beyond the bench” took
place June 7th, and among the guests who shared their success stories was
Mischa Dohler. A polyglot fluent in six languages, with a German father
and Russian mother, he comes from Jena, an East German city famous
for its philosophers and “for the oldest planetarium in the world,” as
he notes. He has had an adventurous life, and he shares it with In vivo.
“Originally, I wanted to study piano,” he recalls. “So I enrolled in
the conservatory in Moscow, where my mom was from. But two weeks
before beginning, my mom talked me out of it. Every year there are 400
good pianists, she told me, and only one makes it.” Mischa turned his
passion to physics, but when he went back to Germany in 1995 his exams
could not be recognized, so he began a new career studying telecommu-
nication engineering in Dresden.
After becoming bored with Dresden, he moved to London “because
it was a good place for telecoms,” he says. There, he did a PhD in Tele-
communications at King’s College, where he was also offered a lecture-
ship position. After some years at King’s, his relentlessness took him to
France, where he worked in a R&D departament in France Telecom,
and finally moved to Barcelona, where he lives with his wife. She is a
famous chemist working at the Alba synchrotron. He holds a position
at the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).
There he leads a group dealing with intelligent energy and smart grids.
But Mischa combines his scientific, albeit unconventional, facette
with his extraordinary entrepreneurship. Three and a half years ago,
he founded his own company, Worldsensing, dealing with sensors and
sensor networking.
“We have different product lines. One has to do with smart cities, so
for example we produce sensors for parking lots: we put sensors in each
parking space, so we know whether and where something is free. This
We say tomato The Tomato Genome Consortium has sequenced
and assembled the genomic DNA of this fruit species using a domesticated
variety, Heinz 1706. Scientists from several European centres, including Group Leader Modesto Orozco and other researchers from the joint
programme between the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and IRB Barcelona have joined forces to obtain and analyze the sequence of this fruit, which belongs to the family Solanaceae. The work has been published in the journal Nature..
Neuron mitochondria trafficking A team headed
by Group Leader Eduardo Soriano has published a study in Nature Communications describing a new family of six genes whose function regulates the movement and position of mitochondria in neurons. Many neurological conditions are caused by alterations of genes that control mitochondrial transport, a process that provides the energy required for cell functions. The new genes are highly expressed in the nervous system and have specific functions in the activity and viability of this system..
Histone characterised Carles Bonet Costa, Marta
Vilaseca, Ernest Giralt, Fernando Azorín and colleagues have characterized the post-translational modifications of linker Histone H1 in Drosophila. Through a combination of two mass spectrometry methods, they illustrated the high structural heterogeneity of the protein, the hierarchical phosphorylation of several non-CDK sites at the N-terminal domain of the protein and its contribution to heterochromatin organization and function during mitosis. The results were published in the Journal of Proteomics in July. .
Alzheimer’s biomarker The protein ECSIT (evolutionarily
conserved signalling intermediate in Toll pathway), a signal transduction mediator, might act as a molecular sensor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. The model, developed by Patrick Aloy, Montse Soler and other colleagues at IRB Barcelona, integrates seemingly controversial hypotheses for familial and sporadic forms of the disease and envisions ECSIT as a biomarker to guide future therapies to halt or prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The scientists proposed this hypothesis in BioEssays in July and the article comes with a video abstract..
SCIENCE BITES
➲
➲
➲
➲
The selection of the new group of postdoctoral fellows supported by EU Marie Curie Actions has taken place and a new set of postdocs will begin to work at IRB Barcelona next fall.
From a pool of more than one hundred applicants, 22 candidates were short-listed and interviewed on 16-17 July by a ten-member evaluation committee. The selection panel was made up of five female and five male scientists; four were non-Spanish nationals, and one came from the private sector.
The new postdoctoral fellows represent eight nationalities and each will work on a project in one of the Institute’s labs. Their fellowships will be cofunded by EU and IRB Barcelona.
The programme will continue in the future. The proposal that the Institute presented for the 2012 Call for the new Marie Curie Fellowships has been positively evaluated and in the next months negotiations will be held to finalize the agreement..
Dohler:“We should leverage more on our potential as scientists”
Welcome to the new COFUND postdocs
as scientists”
Mischa Dohler was one of the invited speakers in June for the“Career Progression in Science - options beyond the
bench” event. This picture was taken in Shanghai.
SPOTLIGHT
07in vivo July 2012 | Issue 19
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New EMBO member Group
Leader Raúl Méndez was nominated
new EMBO member last May. EMBO
elects new members annually on the
basis of scientific excellence. Currently,
almost 1,550 life scientists can boast this
exclusive membership.
New ICREA Academia awardee The 2011 edition of the
ICREA Academia award, an initiative
to foster excellence in research among
teaching and research staff of state uni-
versities in Catalonia, has recognized
the scientific career of Group Leader
Modesto Orozco, full professor of the
University of Barcelona.
Two projects awarded in rare diseases Manuel Palacín’s
and Joan J. Guinovart’s projects on rare
diseases received funding from the Fun-
dación Ramon Areces. Palacín’s research
addresses lysinuric protein intolerance,
one of the rarest aminoacidurias that, ac-
cording to the literature, has killed about
200 people. The second project works
with the hypothesis that glycogen ac-
cumulation is the root cause of Lafora
disease, a rare type of epilepsy that af-
fects adolescents and has no cure. The
Foundation will award 100,000€ to each
of the projects.
Alba’s dawn Scientists from
Miquel Coll’s group had the privilege
to inaugurate the new macromolecular
crystallography beamline Xaloc in the
Alba synchrotron this month. The prox-
imity and accessibility of the new facility
is very promising for the future, say the
scientists. A new Director of the facility,
the Italian-born physicist Caterina Bis-
cari, has just been appointed.
European Foundation for the study of diabetes The
project “The role of glycogen metabo-
lism in the pancreatic beta-cell” in Joan
J. Guinovart’s lab will receive funding
from the European Foundation for the
Study of Diabetes and from the Danish
pharmaceutical company Novo Nord-
isk. The eight projects awarded in this
year’s edition will begin in September.
Jose Tormo prize Bryn
Fenwick will be awarded by the Span-
ish Association for Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology (SEBBM) the 1,000€
Jose Tormo prize in its next session in
September. The research that earned the
important recognition was performed in
Xavier Salvatella’s lab.
IN BRIEF
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Dohler:“We should leverage more on our potential as scientists”information in real time is
useful for the drivers and
for the city. We also produce
sensors for buildings. For
example, in the new harbor
of Barcelona, they use our
sensors to monitor possible
collapses.”
The company has been
affected by the construc-
tion crisis, but it has broken
even. “This field is growing
like computers 30 years ago,
and there is a lot of competition. Sensors will be everywhere, including
in your toilets to monitor your health or in your plants to tell you when
it’s time to water them.”
What drives a successful scientist to dive into the world of entrepre-
neurship? “Money clearly plays a role,” answers Mischa honestly. “The
prospect of having an easy life one day, and being able to do things which
before were merely a hobby, is attractive. I always tell my people, life
is not about money, life is about a lot of money! It means: be generous
on a daily basis, but have high aims. As scientists, we have an enormous
knowledge potential to leverage on and make money, and we are often
not even aware of it. Many of the rich and successful people in the world
don’t even have 10% of the know-how my guys at CTTC have!”
A previous attempt to set up a company in London failed. “It’s a
bit like an unfinished business. I still have a challenge to show that this
is doable. We do not know how Worldsensing will end up, but we are
trying. This is what makes me sleep four hours a night.”
A person with this extensive experience has suggestions for young
scientists at IRB Barcelona. “First of all, if you do something, do it be-
cause you like it. If you don’t like it, just don’t do it,” he recommends.
“Secondly, I always advise people not to collect title after title: master
after master, postdoc after postoc, just to kill time. It does not bring
anything. I know postdocs who have been ‘postdocking’ until the age
of 35-40. They suffer a lot , you have the stress of finding a new position
in a new city with a new life all the time. I say: take all the stress once at
the beginning, but then try to find a permanent position. Maybe not in
Spain, but just do it, and look for new challenges in life.”.
Some of the scientists’ fingers at the Institute are not just dexterous with tubes and pipettes.
Salvatore Bongarzone, from Miquel Coll’s lab, and Suvi Aivio from Travis Stracker’s lab have another passion outside IRB Barcelona: music. So they decided to find out if others shared their love for playing an instrument.
And they found out that music was in the veins of many colleagues at IRB Barcelona. All together, they decided to constitute the IRB Big Band. The group is now ready to start and practise.
The group is open to all who want to join. Musica, maestro!.
IRB Barcelona,hit it!
Three of the members of the IRB Big Band pose in the newly inaugurated cafeteria of the Park. From
left to right, Nareg Djabrayan, saxphone; Jesús Herraiz, drums; Salvatore Bongarzone,trumpet.
as scientists”
Mischa Dohler was one of the invited speakers in June for the“Career Progression in Science - options beyond the
bench” event. This picture was taken in Shanghai.
NEW AT IRB BARCELONA
ON THE MOVEJordi Silvestre-Ryan (Sacramento, CA, USA) is about to fly back to the West Coast of the United States. After one
year as Research Assistant in Xavier Salvatella’s Molecular Biophysics Lab, this half American, and half Catalan young bio-
engineer is about to head to the University of California in San Francisco to obtain a PhD in biophysics. “This year has been
especially good for me,” he declares. “In the lab, my work was strictly computational. I have been developing a method to
calculate the structure of disordered proteins.” Both personal and scientific reasons lead him to choose IRB Barcelona. “After
my undergraduate in Berkeley, I wanted to spend a year in Barcelona because this is where part of my family comes from. The
Institute was the best choice because it offered the best biophysics programme, and this is what I was looking for.” Jordi will begin his PhD in September.
In vivo, issue 18. Published by the Institute for Research in Biomedicine. Office of Communications & External Relations. Barcelona Science Park. Baldiri Reixac, 10. 08028 Barcelona, Spain. www.irbbarcelona.org.
Editor: Luca Tancredi Barone. Contributors: Sònia Armengou, Sarah Sherwood. Legal deposit: MU-29-2012. This document has been printed on recycled paper. To subscribe or unsubscribe from In Vivo, send an
P amela Feliciano, senior editor at Nature Genetics, visited IRB Barcelona scientists
last May. In the seminar she to students, she presented useful suggestions and tips
for publishing with her journal. Nature Genetics receives around 1500 papers per
year. Of those, 83% are returned without review, and only 13% get accepted, which, in 2011,
amounted to 196 papers.
“I usually summarize the type of papers we accept for publication with a motto: Science that changes the way many researchers think,” explains
Feliciano. “This comes from a combination of three factors: scientific advance, validity, breadth. In other words, we look for papers that bring the
field a big step forward, that are technically very sound, keeping in mind the state of the art, and that are wide-reaching, so that many types of sci-
entists will be interested.”
Feliciano is happy to be on the other side of the bench after a PhD from Stanford University on evolutionary genetics of natural variation in
three-spine stickleback fish, and a postdoc fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she worked on planar cell polarity in the
ventral epidermis of Drosophila embryos.
“I like my job, but sometimes it can be tricky. Once I very reluctantly returned a paper that I liked, but the reviewers didn’t. I had the impression
that we might have picked the wrong reviewers. I could have gone against all three referees and published anyway, but I felt uncomfortable. What
ended up happening was that the author appealed, something that a scientist can always do. I finally took the paper back – and we overruled the
referees. I think in that case the referees were setting the bar too high.”.
“To publish with us, your science has to change the way researchers think”
After five years first as a PhD student in Llluís Ribas’ lab studying the epigenetics of the malaria parasite, Valerie Margarita Crowley (Toronto, Canada, 1981) is ready for a leap forward in her career. She is about to leave for Princeton, USA,
for a postdoc. “I like my topic of research because there’s a lot of basic biology we still don’t understand,” she says, “and at the
same time malaria is a major worry for society.” The focus of Valerie’s research is the ingenious way the parasite uses to adapt
to different environments. “Ten percent of its genome is epigenetically regulated,” she explains, and “this is a common survival
strategy used by many pathogens. I studied in particular the way three genes are expressed and how their expression affects the
survival of the Plasmodium.” Valerie was impressed by Barcelona. “It was actually much better than I expected,” she mantains. Maybe less money is spent
for research in Europe than in North America. “But for good science you don’t necessarily need big money,” she affirms.
LUCA TANCREDI BARONE
Petra Mikolcevic (Zagreb, Croatia, 1982) just joined IRB Barcelona from Innsbruck, Austria, where she worked on
her PhD in molecular biology. She joins Ángel R. Nebreda’s Signalling and Cell Cycle Lab as a fresh Marie Curie COFUND
postdoctoral fellow. Her research so far was focused on a protein belonging to the cyclin-dependent kinase, CDK16. “I bio-
chemically characterized and studied the CDK16 mouse knockout phenotype,” she explains. CDK16 is essential for mouse
spermatogenesis. In her new laboratory, she will follow the same pattern of research, this time studying the RINGO A pro-
tein, a cyclin dependent kinase regulator. “What brought me to Barcelona was the finger of destiny,” says Petra jokingly. “I
wanted to study this protein, and I knew how good was Ángel’s research. When I found out he had just moved to Barcelona, the city I really wanted
to move to, I thought it was inevitable for me to come to IRB Barcelona.”