IRB Barcelona launches series to bring biomedicine to the people
<p>The episodes, each one three minutes long, introduce the scientists at the institute</p>
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine Barcelona premiered its Meet Our Scientists series in January, available through the IRB YouTube channel or its website. This initiative aims to raise awareness of biomedicine and attract talent.
The three-minute audiovisual capsules introduce scientists that work at the center, sharing their vision, passion, talent and character. This series, which will have a new episode every month, aims to be a source of information on the research being conducted in the 22 laboratories and seven science platforms at the institute.
ICREA researcher Roger Gomis, founder of Inbiomotion, was featured in the first video, "Light and credibility". The lead scientist in the Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis Laboratory believes that, for the first time, there is a real chance of changing how patients with metastasis are treated, which is his greatest challenge as a researcher. He says the tools and technology we have today are a great revolution in tackling this process.
The second episode (February) features biophysicist Xavier Salvatella, who is also an ICREA researcher and received €2 millions in 2015 from the European Research Council to develop a five-year project. "Magical Choreography", which is the name of the audiovisual piece, aims to explain what Salvatella does as the leader of the Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology program.
The metaphor of choreography in the title alludes to the signals that transmit information between proteins. This is what Salvatella is working on. Specifically, his studies focus on the androgen receptor, a protein of biomedical interest associated with Kennedy Disease (an orphan disease) and prostate cancer. Understanding how signals are passed along from one protein to the next would help identify the right place to target with drugs, which is why the research being conducted by Salvatella’s team could lead to new pharmacological solutions for these two diseases.
María Macías is up next. She will be featured in the video entitled “Insights into the puzzles of life”.