Spanish national TV channel RTVE are paying a visit to IBEC today to interview Ángel Raya, group leader of the Control of Stem Cell Potency group, on the subject of stem cell research for an episode of the science and technology programme ‘Tres14’.

Coverage in El País of Imaginenano, one of the largest European events in nanoscience and nanotechnology which took place on 11-14 April at Bilbao Exhibition Centre, in which IBEC took part.

IBEC associate director Josep Samitier is an expert opinion quoted in El Periodico last week regarding a story about a Japanese study that succeeded in growing an embryonic eye from the stem cells of mice.

For the next three days IBEC scientists from the Control of Stem Cell Potency group will be introducing induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells to the people of Barcelona at the 9th “Live Research” Fair at La Pedrera.

IBEC features in a Nature Jobs advertising feature, Spotlight on Catalonia, which asks how the region is coping with Spain's financial crisis, having fostered a successful research hub in a relatively short time.

IBEC researchers have found a way to measure the rate of electron transfer (ET) – an important process which is essential in many chemical and biological processes such as cellular respiration and photosynthesis – at the single-molecule level.  

The kick-off meeting of one of IBEC's EU projects, MySpine, is taking place at the institute this week. The consortium partners from the Netherlands, Austria, France, Spain and Hungary have gathered to outline the work packages for ‘Functional prognosis simulation of patient-specific spinal treatment’ and discuss the plans for the next six months.

Last week the University of Barcelona, as a coordinator of the  EU-FP7 Neurochem Project, joined with IBEC to organize the Workshop on Bioinspired Computation for Chemical Sensing, which was held on 9-11 March at the Hotel Senator in Barcelona. The focus of the workshop was on signal processing techniques inspired by the olfactory system and computational models of the biological olfactory pathway.

Wine fraud is a growing problem, with experts estimating that up to 10% of the wines offered to consumers in some European countries are of a lesser quality than the label claims. It’s an issue that affects everyone from expert collectors to average consumers, and is such a concern in some countries that drastic measures have been taken: the Italian Carabinieri Corps, for instance, has educated 25 of their officers as sommeliers.

The members of the BOND consortium met at IBEC at the beginning of last week for the 3rd technical meeting of the EU-funded international project.