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News U13

NANBIOSIS unit 13 participation at the VIII Conference of Young Researchers of I3A-UZ

Next Thurstday, June 6th, the “Aragón Engineering Research Institute” (I3A) of University of Zaragoza will hold the “VIII Conference of Young Researchers” at the Conference Room Building. R & D (block 1, 1st floor)

Researchers of NANBIOSIS unit U13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit will present their works

In the oral presentations section, Mohamed H. Doweidar will talk about Cell behavior under hypoxic conditions. Computational 3D model.

In the posters section in the area of ​​BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING the researchers of unit 13 will present the following results.

Design of a microfluidics system for the simulation of the formation of atheromatous plaque. Itziar Ríos Ruiz, Sara Oliván García, Miguel Ángel Martínez Barca, Estefania Peña Baquedano.

Mechanobiological modeling of the formation of atheromatous plaque in the carotid artery of a specific patient. Patricia Hernández López, Myriam Cilla Hernández, Miguel Ángel Martínez Barca, Estefania Peña Baquedano.

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An Eskimo in the desert

An Eskimo in the desert is the title of the talk that Ignacio Ochoa Researcher of NANBIOSIS U13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit is giving today at the Pint of Science Festival in Zaragoza at 19:00.

One of the greatest advances in biomedicine was to achieve, at the end of the 19th century, maintain human cells outside the body in order to study them. This breakthrough has allowed us, for example, to discover new drugs and evaluate the toxicity of many compounds. Unfortunately, this progress has hardly evolved over these 125 years. However, the arrival of microfluidic technology has allowed us to simulate much better what actually happens in our body. This new advance will revolutionize biomedicine, bringing it closer to the goal of personalized medicine

As Iñaki has explained to NANBIOSIS “Cells are accustomed to being in a specific environment in our body (mechanical, chemical, electrical, etc.) and, when we take them out of that environment to study them in the laboratories they stop working in a similar way as they did in vivo. This change of functioning sometimes generates false positives in the study of efficacy of new drugs and generates delays and excessive costs in the development of new treatments. Thanks to the Organ on Chip technology, we can better simulate in the laboratory the environment of the cells under physiopathological conditions (rigidities, gradients, flow or the presence of different cell types) and obtain results closer to the clinic”.

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Polymers and medical applications: Success Cases of Preclinical Research

Next May 10, a conference on “Polymers and medical applications” will be held in Vizcaya, with the participation of NANBIOSIS Deputy Director, and JUMISC Scientific Director Dr. Francisco Miguel Sánchez Margallo, as guest speaker, who will give the lecture “Preclinical Research: Success Cases

The event will count also with the expertise of Dr. Miguel Angel Martínez, Scientific Director of NANBIOSIS U13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unittalking about “Modeling and simulation in biomedical applications

Other topics that will be discussed at the Conference will be Hydrogels, Nanogels and Nanoparticles for Controlled Release of Bioactive Substances,
The Microfluidics as a Tool for the Development of “Organ-on-a-chip and the Use of Liquid Silicone in Devices for Cell Growth.

Leartiker is a team of researchers dedicated to R+D+I, specialized in Polymer Technology and belonging to the Basque Science and Technology Network (RVCTI).

Registration is free until full capacity is reached.

More information here.

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NANBIOSIS Scientific Women in the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Today February 11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a day to raise awareness of the gender gap in science and technology.

According to the United Nations, while yet women and girls continue to be excluded from participating fully in science, science and gender equality are vital to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Thus, in recent years, the international community has made a great effort to inspire and promote the participation of women and girls in science.

NANBIOSIS wants to acknowledge  the efforts made by scientific women who struggle every day to contribute their bit to Science and highlight their essential role in nowadays research. Especially we want to recognize the work of scientists women involved in our units, whatever is the nature of their contribution: technical, scientific development, management, coordination, direction, etc; just to mention some examples:
Neus Ferrer in the Scientific Direction of Unit 1 Protein Production Platform (PPP)
Pilar Marco and Nuria Pascual in the Management and Scientific Coordination of U2 Custom Antibody Service (CAbS) 
Miriam Royo in the Scientific Direction of U3 Synthesis of Peptides Unit
Laura Lechuga and M.Carmen Estevez in the Direction and Scientific Coordination of U4 Biodeposition and Biodetection Unit
Nora Ventosa and Nathaly Segovia in the Scientific Direction and Technical Coordination of U6 Biomaterial Processing and Nanostructuring Unit
Isabel Oliveira and Teresa Galán in the Coordination of U7 Nanotecnology Unit
Rosa Villa and Gemma Gabriel in the Management and Scientific Coordination of U8 Micro – Nano Technology Unit
Gema Martínez in the Scientific Coordination of U9 Synthesis of Nanoparticles Unit
Fany Peña in the Scientific Coordination of U13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit
Mª Luisa González Martín in the of Direction and Scientific Coordination of U16 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit
Gemma Pascual and Isabel Trabado in the Coordination of the U17 Confocal Microscopy Service
Mª Virtudes Céspedes in the Scientific Coordination of U18 Nanotoxicology Unit
Beatriz Moreno in the Scientific Direction of Unit 19 Clinical tests lab
Ibane Abásolo in the Scientific Coordination of Unit 20 In Vivo Experimental Platformt
Verónica Crisóstomo in the Scientific Direction of Unit 24 Medical Imaging 
Ana Paula Candiota in the Scientific Coordination of Unit 25 Biomedical Applications I 
Maria Luisa García in the Scientific Direction of U28 NanoImaging Unit from Bionand, recently incorporated to NANBIOSIS

Thanks to all of you and your teams!

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NANBIOSIS researcher Iñaki Ochoa, interviewed in the Heraldo de Aragón criticizes the administrative obstacles to science imposed by law.

Scientists of NANBIOSIS in the University of Zaragoza participated in the assembly held las week that put on the table the risks of applying rules in an incoherent way and without taking into account the reality of the work that researchers develop. The Spanish public contrat law prevents the University to spend more than 15,000 euros per provider per year, which complicates the purchases of material. The scientists ask that this legislation not be applied

More than three hundred researchers  have signed a manifesto in which they denounce that some provisions of the new Spanish law on public contracts prevent them from acquiring normally the material they need for their work. A law that originally aimed to fight corruption is criticizes by scientists becxause of it is causing a serious situation of inoperativeness and inefficiency. The main problem at this time is that the new regulation applies the limit of expenditure per provider of 15,000 euros per year without the need to process a public tender to the University as a whole (as to any public entity), prevoiusly this limit appliied to each research group but the  amount  is obviously insignificant for all the research groups of a University.

The professor of the Faculty of Medicine, Iñaki Ochoa,Researcher at NANBIOSIS Unit 13 advocates changing the rule that limits public contracts by not considering it “something reasonable”. As part of the Applied Mechanics and Bioengineering group of the Aragón Engineering Research Institute (I3A), he defended the need to protest to change things: “If I need a reagent to take samples in a patient that is going to be operated in a few weeks, I can wait two months until your purchase is authorized », alert. In your specific case, when working in the analysis of brain tumors, the opportunities to access surgeries are limited.

Ochoa assumes that research has always been “complicated,” both because of lack of funding and lack of resources. But in this case he believes that the new obstacles are completely excessive

For further information

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Manuel Doblaré, Unit 13 of NANBIOSIS, SEMNI Award O. C. Zienkiewicz

The Spanish Society of Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI) has awarded the SEMNI O. C. Zienkiewicz prize to Professor Dr. Manuel Doblaré.

The SEMNI O. C. Zienkiewicz Award is the highest award given by this company and recognizes, in this case, both the undisputed scientific curriculum of prof. Doblaré as his permanent contribution to the good functioning of this society, of which he has been a founding member and member of its executive committee until 2007, having also organized the Congress of Numerical Methods in Zaragoza in 1996.

The prize will be given during the Congress of Numerical Methods to be held in Guimarães from July 1 to 3, 2019. The Congress on Numerical Methods in Engineering takes place biennially and is jointly organized by the Spanish Society on Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI, Spain) and the “Portuguese Association of Theoretical, Applied and Computational Mechanics” (APMTAC, Portugal)

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SINO-SPAIN Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Conference with NANBIOSIS participation

Last 7 June 2018 took place in Zaragoza, the Sino-Spain Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Conference, as a result of years of cooperation with Chinese institutions, organizad by Zaragoza University  and Aragonese Foundation for Research & Development of Aragon Government (ARAID), to promote initiatives and foster bilateral collaboration in biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors between Spain and China.

The themes of the forum were:

  • Molecular engineering for biomedical products
  • Diagnoses &Design for new devices for medical uses
  • Tissue Engineering and regenerative medicine
  • Pharmacology and nanometerials for medical application
  • Advanced therapies for cancer research

 

Researcher of three units of NANBIOSIS partcipated in the Conference: from U13. Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit, Manuel Doblaré and Iñaki Ochoa who gave a talk on  “Organ On Chip: Applications for cancer research”, from  U9. Synthesis of Nanoparticles Unit, Jesús Santamaría, who spoke on “Research on nanomedicine at the Nanostructured films and particles” and from U27. High Performance Computing, Esther Pueyo, who spoke about “Patterns of cardiac aging: Mechanisms and relation to disease” and Laura Ordovas, as moderator.

 

 

 

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NANBIOSIS participation at VII Conference of Young Researchers of I3A

The I3A organizes the VII Conference of Young Researchers to be held on June 2, 2018. As in past editions, the Confernce will be addressed to all those who are doing the doctoral thesis whose director or co-director is a member of I3A.

Scientists of  NANBIOSIS Unit 13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit will participate with the following poster:

Personalized simulation of intraestromal ring insertion surgery (ICRS). Validation with clinical data. Julio Flecha, Miguel Ángel Ariza-Gracia, Jesús Zurita, Begoña Calvo
Simulation of cell populations in Organ-On-Chip devices: of the models classics to data driven simulations. Jacobo Ayensa-Jiménez, Marina Pérez Aliacar, Teodora Randelovic, Sara Oliván, Iñaki Ochoa, Mohamed Hamdy Doweidar, Manuel Doblaré.

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Microfluidic technologies to study the cardiomyopathy processes of Duchenne’s disease

Ignacio Ochoa and Luis Fernandez, researchers of the AMB group of CIBER-BBN and I3A-University of Zaragoza, coordinator of NANBIOSIS U13. Tissue & Scaffold Characterization Unit, are working on the european project “CISTEM – HEART ON CHIP BASED ON INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELL TECHNOLOGY FOR PERSONALIZED MEDICINE” . They are developing heart on a chip microfluidic devices to study the cardiomyopathy process in the Duchenne muscular distrophy using microfluidic technologies.

CISTEM Kick-off Meeting was successfully held on 24th of January 2018 at Elvesys, Paris, France. Representative of the consortium organizations including academic institutions and industry representatives were participating in this meeting: BioSense Institute, Elvesys, Cherry Biotech, Universidad Zaragoza, BEOnChip and Jagiellonian University

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Numerical models applied to the cornea to improve eye surgery

Researchers of the NANBIOSIS U13 apply numerical models to the cornea to better understand how it behaves and help in surgical planning. Data and algorithms developed through the computer, together with the 3D image, make it easier for ophthalmologists to perform eye surgery more precise and personalized treatments for each patient

The work carried out by Miguel Ángel Ariza Gracia at the Aragón Engineering Research Institute (I3A) has been recognized by the University of Zaragoza with the Extraordinary Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis of the Biomedical Engineering Program in 2017

In this line of research, framed in the European project PopCorn has been working Miguel Angel Ariza since September 2013 under the supervision of Begoña Calvo and José Félix Rodríguez Matas, the research group in Applied Mechanics and Bioengineering (AMB) of the I3A – CIBER -BBN, which coordinates the unit 13 of NANBIOSIS and the Laboratory of Biological Structure Mechanics (LabS) of the Politecnico di Milano, respectively. The Mechanical Characterization of Biological Tissues that the project needs is carried out in NANBIOSIS U13 Tissue & Scaffold Characterization UnitUnit 27 High Performance Computing of NANBIOSIS is also used in this project for the Computational Simulation of Biological Tissues.

The advances in corneal biomechanics open new ways and possibilities to create technical equipment that allow to know the mechanical properties and characteristics of the eye

Here are joined three technologies, the topography (allows to measure the geometry of the cornea), the tonometry of no contact or breath of air (deforms the cornea to obtain dynamic variables that are believed associated with the properties of the cornea) and the models in silico or numerical. The three, together with the phenoptic image technology, “can make it possible to obtain the geometry of a patient’s eye, with its personalized properties to give better advice to doctors in refractive surgeries or in the planning of another surgical intervention,” explains Miguel Angel Ariza

Begoña Calvo, who also works on the numerical modeling of other structures such as skeletal muscle, points out that this “generic” process of reconstruction, transfer of clinical data to the model and generation of a finite element model can be used to simulate other treatments or reproduce different surgical techniques. “The work of Miguel Ángel has allowed us to delve into what is now known as artificial intelligence, having the necessary algorithms to generate databases that can be used in the clinic,” he says.

Fibers of collagen in the cornea

The quality of the cornea tissue depends on the collagen fibers that we have embedded in the corneal stroma, its orientation is what gives that transparency and its links (crosslinks) structural integrity. “Our proposal is to go a step further, to work to better understand collagen fiber,” explains Ariza.

Nowadays, “there is no technical team that provides all the properties and allows to know what quality the corneal tissue has to be able to adequately respond to surgery and subsequent treatments,” recalls Dr. Calvo.

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