The Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) has just celebrated its open week in an hybrid format. Six intense days in which science outreach has filled the PRBB’s social media and, most importantly, its YouTube channel.
During these days we have shared content of various topics ranging from evolution, to embryonic development or urban health. Do you want to know more? Here is a summary of the activities of the #OpenPRBB 2021.
Lights, camera, action!
There was a time when it became fashionable to explain a project in the time of an elevator ride. And, this is what we have asked the park’s researchers to briefly explain their work. Thus, in just three minutes we can discover each of six projects that review the different areas of biomedical research studied in PRBB centers.
Evelise Pereira Barbosa from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) presents their project of the 1000 European cities and explains how they have studied the impact of air quality and proximity to green spaces in the mortality and morbidity of the European population.
Bárbara Sinigaglia from the Institute for Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) explains how we can learn about the history of a population by studying their genes.
Núria Somoza, scientific director of the MarBiobanc of the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and Hospital del Mar explains what a biobank is and the circuit for processing and conserving patient samples that arrive from the hospital.
Carmen Moccia from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory – Barcelona (EMBL Barcelona), was in charge of explaining how by mixing cell biology, engineering and organoids, they manage to study the formation of vasculature, in a chip.
Ivan Zadra from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) explains the changes in the skeleton of the cell during cell division; changes illustrated by beautiful videos of this vital process.
Rafael Maldonado, Andrés Ozaita and Elena Martín from the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University (DCEXS-UPF) explain how they study animal behavior.
If we can’t open the doors… we connect virtually!
In addition to these videos, we live-streamed on Youtube visits to some of the laboratories of the park. Talking to the research staff, we discovered how at IMIM they study tumor cells and their possible treatments; we saw how light sheet microscopes from EMBL enable the visualization of an entire organ or organism; we learned what proteomics is at CRG-UPF and that, at IBE, they study fossil proteins to know and classify extinct species. Thanks to the DCEXS-UPF synthetic biology laboratory, we discovered some examples of the applications of modifying the genes of skin bacteria. And finally, we discovered the BISC project, which is coordinated by ISGlobal, to find out if air quality affects the embryonic and postnatal development of babies.
Moreover, the Youtubers “La hiperactina”, “el Robot de Platón” and “Diario de una científica” joined the open week by interviewing three researchers of the park.
- Sandra (La hiperactina) spoke with Guillermo Martínez from EMBL Barcelona about developmental biology and optogenetics.
- Aldo (El Robot de platón) discovered that Javier del Campo from IBE is a master in marine microorganisms. And he knows how climate change affects them.
- Lucía (Diario de una científica) spoke with ISGlobal’s Meelan Thondoo to find out how she studies health problems in local communities in countries in the global south.
Gender perspective: not just for women
Finally, on Saturday afternoon Mara Dierssen from CRG, Gema Revuelta from DCEXS-UPF and Núria Argudo from Hospital del Mar together with Zulema Altamirano from ‘Unidad mujer y ciencia’ of the Ministry of science and innovation, disscussed about how to incorporate gender perspective in all stages of the research career.
The dialogue, moderated by science journalist Cristina Sáez, kept the audience attentive, with many questions to the speakers. But despite the interest, the day ended with a demand: that gender perspective should be a transversal issue and that both men and women should actively talk about it.
With this dialogue, the PRBB put an end to the 2021 #OpenPRBB. Remember that you can still see all content on the PRBB’s YouTube channel.
We look forward to seeing you next year – hopefully face to face!
