Consortium

The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) is a research institute covering most bioengineering fields, from basic research to medical applications, aiming to act as an international reference in this field. The institute has close links with international research centres, universities, hospitals and industry to exchange talent, and develop and execute projects. IBEC was established in 2005 by the Government of Catalonia, the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and is located at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) sharing also facilities with the Bellvitge University Hospital (BUH). IBEC hosts around 250 researchers and technicians, who are part of its own staff, are associated to the UB and UPC or come from external recruitment programs of research staff (e.g. ICREA and others).

Within IBEC, Prof. Ramón and Dr. Marco-Rius join forces in this FET Open project to merge two ground-breaking technologies.

The ‘Biosensors for Bioengineering’ group led by Prof. Javier Ramon integrates biosensor technology and nanotechnology with stem cell research and tissue engineering. Engineered tissues are integrated with biosensing technology to obtain microdevices for detecting cellular responses to external stimuli, monitoring the quality of the microenvironment (e.g., metabolites, nutrients), and supporting diverse cellular requirements. This research on 3D-functional engineered tissues is expected to develop knowledge of tissue construction and their functions and relation with some human diseases. Integration of fully functional tissues with microscale biosensor technology allowed us to obtain “organs-on-a-chip”. These chips could be used in pharmaceutical assays and could be a step toward the ultimate goal of producing in vitro drug testing systems crucial to the medicine and pharmaceutical industry.

In late 2018, Dr. Irene Marco-Rius joined IBEC to bring her specialised knowledge in molecular imaging and hyperpolarisation-enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to Barcelona. Via nucleus-specific detection (13C, 1H, 2H, 31P), NMR can remotely, rapidly and simultaneously quantify the concentration of metabolites. The emergence of real-time 13C NMR techniques thanks to hyperpolarization by Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation (DNP) now allows us, uniquely, to monitor metabolic fluxes “in situ” and give information about disease progression and cell response to treatment.