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ICMAB contribution to the CSIC White Paper on Scientific Challenges for 2030
The CSIC White Paper presents the interdisciplinary approaches that the CSIC Research Centers are applying in order to face several of the scientific and social challenges of the next 10 years.
CSIC introduced the White Paper in a digital event livestreamed and now archived on YouTube, analyzing several topics across its three areas of work: Life, Matter, and Society. These documents cover the whole spectrum of research, from basic investigation to potential applications of the results achieved, in order to create helpful strategies and organization models to apply when facing the main challenges we will encounter in the coming years.
The document, published by Editorial CSIC, covers 14 main strategic topics, chosen for their impact in society:
T02. The Origins of Life
T03. Genome and Epigenetics
T04. Biomedicine and Health
T05. Brain, Mind, and Behaviour
T06. Sustainable Primary Production
T07. Global Change
T08. Safe, Clean, and Efficient Energy
T09. Understanding the basic components of the universe
T10. Complex and Digital Information
T11. Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Data Science
T12. Space, Colonization and Exploration
T13. Ocean
T14. Dynamic Earth
These themes have been promoted by CSIC’s Vice Presidency of Scientific and Technical Research with the collaboration of the Global Areas Commissions. It has involved a great collaborative effort of more than 1,100 researchers belonging to 112 CSIC centers, as well as external collaborators from other Public Research Bodies and Universities, who have contributed in the identification of these challenges for the coming years, as well as their evolution in the 2030 horizon.
ICMAB’s contribution to the CSIC White Paper
Among the researchers collaborating in the definition of these strategies were some of ICMAB’s researchers, offering their expertise in this interdisciplinary effort:
Biomedicine and Health
The 4th topic, Biomedicine and Health, is looking to use our basic knowledge of the human body in search of its medium-and-long term clinical applications. This includes the development of new treatments, diagnosis, and prevention methods for illnesses that have a big impact worldwide. Within this topic, ICMAB has helped shape our understanding of Advanced therapies and Bioengineering (Challenge #4E) and Rare diseases (Challenge #4G).
Some recent examples on this topic are:
- New fluorescent nanoparticles to see what is invisible to the eye (27/05/2020)
- Discover how ICMAB is helping face cancer on #WorldCancerResearchDay (24/09/2020)
- New 3D printed hydrogels for T-cell growth to be used in cancer immunotherapy (31/08/2020)
- Bio-membranes with ocular stem cells to treat corneal disorders (25/02/2021)
- A more effective nanomedicine developed for the treatment of Fabry rare disease designated as Orphan Drug (26/02/2021)
Safe, Clean, and Efficient Energy
The 8th topic, Safe, Clean, and Efficient Energy faces the challenge of energetic production that is mindful of people and the environment, a field with a lot of potential that encapsulates many different challenges. With the objective of energy transition towards more efficient and sustainable models, ICMAB Researchers have contributed to face challenges in Renewable Energy Production (Challenge #8A), Efficient Energy Storage (Challenge #8B), Energy Efficiency and Harvesting (Challenge #8C), and Industry Electrification and Grid Management (Challenge #8D).
Some recent examples on this topic are:
- Breakthrough in the ultrafast growth of superconducting films with high performances (20/01/2020)
- Towards green energies: new materials for biobutanol separation (27/04/2020)
- Borate-based passivation layers enables reversible calcium batteries (28/09/2020)
- New approach in laser fabricated electrodes for supercapacitive energy storage (27/01/2021)
- Machine learning to predict the performance of organic solar cells (28/01/2021)
Understanding the basic components of the universe
Understanding the basic components of the universe is the 9th topic in the White Paper and it focuses on what matter is made off, the understanding and discovery of the laws that govern the universe, and its evolution. ICMAB Researchers are developing new instrumentation and techniques for understanding the universe, its structure and evolution.
Some recent examples on this topic are:
- Extremely sensitive radiation detectors to explore the universe in the forthcoming ESA space missions (31/08/2018)
Complex and Digital Information
The 10th topic, Complex and Digital Information, covers research that is trying to understand and improve the way technology affects our lives and society. In order to reach the maximum potential on new technologies, ICMAB Researchers have aided in this topics through Intelligent and sustainable electronics, Advanced Photonics, and Quantum computing.
Some recent examples on this topic are:
- Nanoneedles to increase the capacity and robustness of digital memories (26/05/2020)
- Emulating the plasticity of synapses between neurons in a physical system by light stimuli (06/07/2020)
- Practical and versatile micro-patterning for organic electronics and photonics (17/07/2020)
- Storing information with light (18/01/2021)