New grants and funding promote research at PRBB centres

In this article from El·lipse, we review some of the latest grants and funding received by centres and researchers at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB). These resources will enable new lines of research to be pursued, scientific projects to be consolidated, and talent to be attracted across various fields of biomedicine and the life sciences.

Department of Medicine and Life Sciences at Pompeu Fabra University (MELIS-UPF)

Researcher Alberto José García Jiménez, from the University of Lausanne, has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral fellowship worth €209,914.56 for the project “GENomic Signatures Associated with Vertebrate Extinction Risk”, with the aim of assessing the risk of biodiversity extinction by analysing data such as human impact, habitat fragmentation and palaeoclimate change. The project will be carried out in the laboratory of Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, an ICREA researcher at MELIS-UPF and director of the Comparative Genomics Group at the IBE, who at the end of last year received the 2025 Ramón y Cajal Medal from the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG)

Last July, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) had its Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation renewed. This is the fourth consecutive time it has received this distinction, and this year it comes with €4.5 million in structural funding which will enable the centre to implement its strategy and recruit new PhD students over the next four years.

Luciano Di Croce, recently appointed Deputy Director of the CRG, and Eva María Novoa, both principal investigators at the CRG, have been awarded FERO Grants. Sponsored by FERO Cancer, the grants aim to recognise seven projects of excellence to promote new advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Specifically, Di Croce has received the 2nd FERO-Aladina Grant in paediatric cancer – also sponsored by the Aladina Foundation and worth €100,000 – for the project “Targeting Epigenetic Vulnerabilities to Stop Diffuse Midline Glioma”. And Novoa has received the 33rd FERO Grant for young researchers, also worth €100,000 and sponsored by the Ramón Areces Foundation, for the project “Rapid and cost-effective early cancer diagnosis using native tRNA nanopore sequencing”.

Hospital del Mar Research Institute

As a research centre of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), the Hospital del Mar Research Institute has received €20,000 from the association. Furthermore, the AECC has awarded more than €1.3 million to three projects at the centre: one, led by Clara Montagut, will investigate how to improve the chances of cure for patients with colorectal cancer by personalising treatment prior to surgery; another, led by Rosa Pascual, will develop strategies for the prevention of breast cancer based on the immune system; and will explore personalised treatments administered during surgery to patients with recurrent glioblastoma, in a project led by María Martínez.

La Fundació “la Caixa” awards grants to outstanding researchers conducting their research in Spain and Portugal. In this year’s round, it has recognised three researchers from the HMRIB: Agustín Conesa and Sílvia Susín, who have received an INPhINIT doctoral grant, and Sara Mederos, who has received the Junior Leader postdoctoral grant to promote an independent scientific career through leadership and innovation.

The European Research Council (ERC) awards grants that represent one of the highest distinctions for scientific excellence in Europe. In this year’s call for proposals, researcher Sara Mederos has received an ERC Starting Grant of almost 2.5 million euros for the project “InternalChoice – Neural circuit mechanisms of flexible choice across internal states”. This research will investigate how the brain adapts to and represents the new decisions we make.

Toni Celià-Terrassa has also been awarded a €2.5 million ERC Advanced Grant from the European Union. This grant will enable his team to develop a new type of mRNA-based therapy to combat breast cancer over the next five years.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL Barcelona)

The Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP), one of the most prestigious grants in the biological sciences, has been awarded – worth 1.3 million euros – to a collaborative project led by Vikas Trivedi, a group leader at EMBL Barcelona. The project aims to understand how early-life development, one of the key processes in biology, responds to changes in temperature.

Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

The Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) has produced a report on Catalonia’s participation in Horizon Europe, Europe’s largest innovation and research programme. In this report, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) ranks amongst the top 10 best-performing institutions, both in terms of funding and the number of projects coordinated.

In the words of Quique Bassat, director of ISGlobal and, since January, a member of the Executive Committee of the Alliance of Severo Ochoa Centres and María de Maeztu Units (SOMMa), the report’s findings “confirm ISGlobal’s leading role in the Catalan global health research landscape and its ability to attract competitive European funding, as well as to lead and actively participate in international collaborative projects”.

Congratulations to all the individuals and centres that have received these grants. This funding enables us to explore new research questions, consolidate projects and continue to make progress in research at the PRBB centres.

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