The Hospital del Mar Research Institute and the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University (MELIS-UPF), two of the centres of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), have launched a new cycle of joint seminars, with the aim of promoting interaction between the two institutions in the different aspects of their research.
The initiative is coordinated by Arnau Busquets, researcher at HMRI, and Olga Valverde, researcher at MELIS-UPF.
‘There has been a strong relationship between the two institutions for years, and some MELIS groups have even been part of some of HMRI’s research programmes. This means that there is already a very good interaction and many meeting points and it has been easier to set up a series of talks like this’, explains Busquets, who, as if proving this point, did his final degree project in Valverde’s laboratory. ‘In addition, the UPF and the Hospital del Mar have been jointly teaching the Degree in Medicine for some years, which has allowed a closer link between the two institutions’, adds Valverde.
The sessions will begin in September 2024, and are planned to last until June 2025. They will consist of one-hour seminars in which there will be two short project presentations, one from each institution, followed by a discussion and snack time.
‘These seminars are open to everyone and the idea is to learn more about the research being done at MELIS and HMar Research directly,’ says Busquets, adding: ’It’s great to have seminars by external people, but we also believe that we need to learn more about what is being done in the same building to stimulate interactions and collaborations that we could have internally and not have to look for them outside.
‘It’s all very well to have external seminars, but we also need to know more about what is being done in the building itself to stimulate interactions and collaborations internally’
Arnau Busquets, Hospital del Mar Research Institute
The first session, on 18 September in the Marie Curie room of the PRBB, will consist of the talks ‘Fine-tuning of haematopoiesis under stress, an inflammation tale’, by Cristina López Rodríguez (MELIS-UPF), and ‘New insights into an elusive B cell subset from the human respiratory mucosa’, with Andrea Cerutti (HMRI).
The following talks, one each month, will deal with topics such as the microbiome, stem cells, synthetic biology, circadian rhythms, the Mediterranean diet, gene regulation, or viruses and RNA.
‘It is a dynamic initiative and we will see how it evolves. At the moment we already have speakers for the entire 24/25 academic year, but we don’t rule out extending it to other centres in the park, as we believe it could enrich the science being done at the PRBB’, concludes Valverde.
