The researchers from four ICMAB Research Groups will be joining another 35 groups from 14 different universities, as well as research and technology centers, with the objective of boosting the energy sector in Catalunya and turning it into a strong international referent for innovation, at the R+D+I Energy for Society Network (XRE4S).
New Projects, Project Calls, TT News, 2020
Nora Ventosa and Nathaly Segovia, from the NANOMOL Group at the ICMAB, have been selected as part of the NARTIC Project team for an incubation program by Barcelona Activa. NARTIC is a biotech project for the development of molecular therapy based on Quatsomes for diseases such as cancer.
Since the coronavirus outbreak in Spain, in February-March 2020, many of the research funding agencies, the European Commission, and private institutions have opened research project calls to face the COVID-19. Here we have collected some of this calls. Feel free to contact us if you think some of the important calls are missing.
The “Idees Innovadores Isabel P. Trabal” award is organised by the Caixa d’Enginyers and is looking for scientific enterprises to boost the development of technological and innovative projects with a focus on engineering and sustainability. The SENSORAÏM project, born at ICMAB, is now eligible for a 10.000 € grant.
A project to improve the security of the identification systems using magnetic memories, a project to enhance the duration of Zn-air batteries, and a project to treat corneal wounds with nanocellulose patches.
The FASTGRID project, in which the SUMAN group at ICMAB participates, has released a new video, shot in the premises of one of the partners (SuperGrid Institute, France) to explain in simple terms and with animations the objectives of the project. The video includes footage from the production line of the German industrial partner THEVA and from the winding process made by the French company Sigmaphi in collaboration with the SuperGrid Institute.
The kick-off meeting of FusionCAT project took place on 29 January 2020 at the UPC Rectorat and was organized by Barcelona SuperComputing (BSC), who coordinate the project. From the ICMAB, Xavier Granados and Joffre Gutierrez from the SUMAN group participate in this project, which aims in establishing an active fusion community in Catalonia.
ICMAB Awards, New Projects, 2019
On the occasion of the "Marató de TV3: Minories que fan una Majoria", which is this year devoted to rare diseases, we would like to show you a project in which we participate and which tackles a rare disease: the SMART-4-FABRY project. One of the main objectives of the project is to use nanotechnology to increase the efficiency of the current treatment for the Fabry disease, based on the GLA enzyme. Nora Ventosa and her team, from CIBER-BBN and NANOMOL group at ICMAB-CSIC, coordinate the project, in which fourteen partners from different countries participate.
The Catalan Association of Scientific Communication (ACCC), together with many research centers and universities, including the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB), have initiated an art project that will represent in a different way thw world of nanotechnology: NANOCAEDRE. Susagna Ricart, from the ICMAB, participates in this project with her expertise in the superconducting phenomena. The presentation of the project will take place at the Basilica Sants Màrtirs Just i Pastor (Barcelona), on Tuesday, 10 December, at 7 pm.
Outreach publications, New Projects, 2019
The Plant Nanohealing Technology, jointly developed by CRAG and ICMAB-CSIC researchers, is currently being tested by the company Forestal Catalana.
Websites News, Staff Awards, 2019
"SENSORAÏM: Autonomous Distributed Sensor Networks for a Smart Viticulture" is the new project led by Mariano Campoy-Quiles from the NANOPTO group at the ICMAB funded by FEDER (Fons Europeu de Desenvolupament Regional), Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) and Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, within the modality "PRODUCTE" grants (2018 PROD 00191), aimed at obtaining prototypes of the research results generated by research groups in Catalunya. These projects are excellent to reinforce the technology transfer of the Catalan research centers.
The project "Synthetic nanoparticles as an innovative treatment in sepsis (SPRINT-4-SEPSIS)" will be funded by the Ramón Areces Foundation within the framework of the XIX National Contest of Life and Material Sciences Research Grants. Anna Roig will be part of the project.
CARBAT, the FET-Open European project on Calcium Rechargeable Battery Technology, coordinated by M. Rosa Palacín at ICMAB, has a new video that explains their project! If you want to know more, check it out here!
Within the MOTHER project (Molecule-based materials and supramolecular organizations for therapy, diagnosis and tissue engineering), the NANOMOL group from ICMAB collaborates with the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), on the developement of a new nanomedicine for the treatment of high risk neuroblastoma, one of the most typical childhood cancers. Now, researchers from VHIR have identified new microRNAs that reduce the progression of this type of cancer.
The SusPlast platform was officially launched on March 2019. The "Interdisciplinary Platform for Sustainable Plastics towards a Circular Economy" platform counts with the participation of 15 research groups from CSIC centers. From the ICMAB, from the Supercritical Fluids and Functional Materials group (SFFM) participates in the platform.
Each year on 4 February, World Cancer Day empowers all the world to show support, raise their voices, take personal action and press the governments to do more. We would like to show you our projects on cancer research. Take a look at our projects!
The E-MAGIC (European Magnesium Interactive Battery Community) research project is a European H2020 FET-PROACTIVE recently funded with 6.5 million euros. Its aim is to develop new magnesium-based batteries, more powerful, cheaper and safer than lithium-ion ones. The project could pave the way for the establishment of a competitive battery cell production landscape in Europe.
With the participation of 9 academic institutions and 2 industrial organisations in 6 countries, the SEPOMO European H2020 MSCA-ITN network is training 15 early-stage researchers during a 3-year period in the fields of Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science and Engineering for efficient photovoltaic devices based on organic molecules. Two of these fellows are supervised by ICMAB researchers: Francesco Silvestri, supervised by Esther Barrena, and Rana Adel Abdelaleim Mohammed, who is doing her research at Eurecat, co-supervised by Mariano Campoy-Quiles.
Resarchers from the NANOMOL group at the ICMAB-CSIC and from CIBER-BBN, led by Dr. Imma Ratera, have been awarded with a project from Fundació La Marató de TV3 for the coordinated-project about prevention of infections related with vascular catheters: "Prevenció d’infeccions relacionades amb els CATèters vasculars mitjançant la FUNcionalització de catèters impregnats d'hidrogels activables tèrmicament amb antimicrobians d’ampli espectre (FUNCATH)".
The paper Direct and converse piezoelectric responses at the nanoscale from epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films grown by polymer assisted deposition published this October in the Nanoscale journal, has received funding from the EU-H2020 research and innovation programme, having benefitted from the access provided by the ICMAB-CSIC in Barcelona, within the framework of the NFFA-Europe Transnational Access Activity.
Watch here the video of the ULTRASUPERTAPE project, the ERC Advanced Grant project awarded to Teresa Puig, explained here in plain words for everyone to understand!
Dr. Lourdes Fàbrega, from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), leads the development in Spain of a special type of sensors that can detect very small changes in temperature and that will be used in the forthcoming European space missions.
These sensors are extremely sensitive and miniaturized microcalorimeters, like small thermometers, that can detect even the energy of one single photon.
This year the ICMAB counted with 7 out of the 34 fellowships for Master students that the CSIC distributed among the five Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence of the CSIC (Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (ICMAT), Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB), Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), Instituto de Neurociencias (IN) and Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB); and the Structural Biology Unit of Excellence María de Maeztu. The 7 granted students will do their Master Thesis Project with one of our researchers during 5 months, and will receive 5,000 €.
Continuing the Strategic Vision for the Severo Ochoa programme FUNMAT ("Smart FUNctional MATerials for social grand challenges"), the ICMAB opened the call for the third edition of the Frontier Interdisciplinary Projects (FIP) earlier this year 2018. Out of all the proposals submitted, 9 projects in different fields have been granted.
The Comfuturo program (“Un Compromiso público privado con la ciencia y el Futuro”) has granted the research project "NANOingeniería de ÓXIdos para el mayor aprovechamiento de la energía SOLar usando rutas no convencionales (NANOXISOL)" (Oxides nanoengineering for improvement of photovoltaic efficiency using non-conventional routes) presented by Ignasi Fina in this second edition.
On April 5, 2018, the first CARBAT project meeting was celebrated. The meeting was held at the CARBAT coordinator's research institute, Prof. M. Rosa Palacín, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) in Bellaterra. CARBAT is a FET Open research and innovation action in the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, funded over the H2020-FETOPEN-2016-2017 call, which started on October 2017.
A new European-funded project that started in February 2018 is enabling greater cooperation between SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and research centres in the Spain-France border regions. Coordinated by the Basque company BihurCrystal, the ICMAB researcher Dr. Xavier Torrelles is contibuting to the project. Here we present the official press release.
The week 12-18 March 2018 is the Brain Awareness Week (BAW), a global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Every March, BAW unites the efforts of partner organizations worldwide in a celebration of the brain for people of all ages.
Bacterial cellulose biopolymer
Wounds in plants can be caused by several agents like weather events (hail, wind…), predators (herbivores, insects) or humans (pruning, grafting), among others.
This post features one of the articles published at CORDIS about the EUROTAPES project, which main goal is to develop superconducting tapes to improve energy efficiency in Europe. The SUMAN group, here at ICMAB, has actively participated in this European project, in a consortium that consists of 20 partners from 8 member states - 6 universities, 6 institutes, 1 technological center and 8 industrial companies.
