The Sant Pau Institute for Biomedical Research (IIB Sant Pau) with the Research Group on Metabolic Bases in Cardiovascular Risk, coordinated by Dr. José Julve, are organizing the seminar “Mitochondrial dynamics and its role in metabolic diseases” by Antonio Zorzano, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Barcelona, coordinator of the Molecular Medicine Programme at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and head of the CIBERDEM Programme: “Cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the development and progression of type 2 diabetes”. The seminar will be held on the 26th in the conference room of the Hospital.

The Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau and the company Psious have signed a collaboration agreement through which clinical researchers at the Hospital de Sant Pau will have at their disposal virtual reality equipment to carry out clinical trials with their patients. Within this collaboration framework, the use of VR in clinical trials of approximately 12 to 24 months duration is foreseen, with a variable number of patients (between 200 and 300) depending on the study and covering a range of diverse pathologies. The collaboration begins with the study Efficacy of virtual reality as a pain and anxiety distraction strategy in hysteroscopy, led by the team of Dr. Josep Estadella, from the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Hospital de Sant Pau.

Next Tuesday 25th February, at 7 p.m., Dr. Diana Fernández and nurse M.Teresa Vilella, researchers of the Primary Care Research Group of the EAP Sardenya – IIB Sant Pau, will give a talk at the Guinardó Civic Centre. The session will focus on “Telemedicine in heart failure patients: An innovative experience from the primary care centre (PCC)”. This is an activity of the Sant Pau Research Institute within the Aula 141 cycle.

More information here

Dr. Daniel Guisado, researcher of the Cerebral Vascular Disease Research Group at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau Research Institute – IIB Sant Pau, and assistant doctor at the Neurology Service of the Hospital de Sant Pau will be giving the conference “The shortcuts of blood” next Tuesday 18 February, from 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. This session is part of the “Science and Medical Research” cycle of talks at the Navas Civic Centre. Admission is free.

When a stroke occurs due to a blockage of an important artery in the brain, treatments must be carried out as quickly as possible to try to resolve the blockage with the least possible brain damage. These treatments are possible thanks to the fact that a minimum amount of blood manages to reach the neurons that are suffering (and keep them hibernating but alive) through small paths that open up with this objective: the shortcuts of the blood.

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Sant Pau joins the International Day of Women and Girls in Science
Tomorrow, February 11, is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This initiative promotes activities that, making visible the work of female scientists, commemorate this day, foster scientific vocations in girls and help close the gender gap in science. This fourth edition hosts more than 1,700 through February 15.

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 11 February as International Women’s and Girl’s Day in Science. The goal is to achieve full and equitable access and participation in science for women and girls, as well as the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

This platform was created by a group of women scientists and teachers, who propose activities that “help visualize the work of female scientists, create female roles in the fields of science and engineering, and promote practices that favor the gender equality in the scientific field. ” In this third edition there are actions planned in educational centers, bookstores, cultural centers, etc.

You will find the activities https://11defebrero.org/

Learn more at http://www.un.org/es/events/women-and-girls-in-science-day/

Researchers from the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Centre for Networked Biomedical Research (CIBER) have published an article in Advanced materials, one of the most prestigious international scientific journals in the field of nanomedicine and materials science. The work describes the generation by the researchers themselves, of a new pharmaceutical form of subcutaneous administration and sustained release of cytotoxic directed protein nanoparticles, which selectively eliminate metastatic stem cells, inducing a potent metastasis prevention effect in a colorectal cancer model with no detectable adverse or toxic effects.

Publication link

The team of researchers, formed by Prof. Antonio Villaverde and Dr. Esther Vázquez, from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine of the UAB (IBB) and led by Dr. Ramon Mangues, from the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau (who have been collaborating closely for over a decade) have created inclusion bodies of amyloid and nanostructured fibres which, when administered subcutaneously in laboratory mice, are capable of releasing continuously soluble cytotoxic nanoparticles carrying the exotoxin of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which manages to maintain a stable concentration of this nanomedicine in blood and tissue.

This new pharmaceutical form of subcutaneous administration for sustained release makes it possible to administer high doses of this nanofarm, at long intervals (weeks in mice and probably months in humans) without toxicity at the point of injection or in normal tissues, while generating a powerful antimetastatic effect. The development of the drug for human administration would reduce the need for frequent intravenous injection of current cytotoxic anti-tumour drugs, requiring hospitalization.

Apart from being controlled release systems, these inclusion bodies or nanoparticles incorporate a link that interacts with the receptor (CXCR4), present at high levels in the membrane of metastatic stem cells capable of generating metastasis (MSC CXCR4 +). Once this new pharmaceutical form is administered subcutaneously in mice with metastatic colorectal cancer, this bond directs each nanoparticle released by this amyloid structure (protein aggregates of fibrillar morphology) towards the tumor tissues, increasing their uptake very considerably, to internalize specifically in the CXCR4+ MSCs and induce their selective destruction.

This effect achieves a significant reduction in the size of the tumor in the colon while blocking the development of lymph node, lung, liver and peritoneal metastases, without appreciable uptake or toxicity in healthy (non-tumor) tissues. This therapy offers a response to the urgent medical need to inhibit the development of metastases, which represents the main cause of death in cancer patients. On the other hand, the selective destruction of tumour and metastatic cells increases the therapeutic index of this nanomedicine, obtaining a powerful antimetastatic effect without generating associated adverse effects, which differentiates it from most of the anti-tumour drugs currently used, which produce frequently severe adverse effects.

It is estimated that this new therapeutic strategy will have a high clinical impact by reducing the requirement for hospital administration, which most anti-tumour drugs have, and blocking the metastatic spread, responding to an unmet clinical need. On the other hand, it is important to note that this new pharmaceutical form, which combines sustained release with guidance by the CXCR4 receptor, could be used in the treatment of at least 23 types of cancer that also express high levels of this receptor in tumor cells.

Next Tuesday, February 11, Dr. Jordi Clarimón, researcher and coordinator of the Research Group on Genetics of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau will give a talk at the Guinardó Civic Center. An activity of the Sant Pau Research Institute within the Aula 141 cycle entitled “Alois Alzheimer: a psychiatrist who made history”.

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Next Saturday, 8th february, the solidarity concert of the Laud’Ars Orchestra will take place at the Casal de Entidades Mas Guinardó in support of the project “Cholesterol and Thyroid Cancer”, led by Dr. Eugenia Mato and Dr. Juan Carlos Escolà, researchers from Sant Pau. An event organized by the Research Institute of the Hospital de Sant Pau, which will take place at 7 pm, with free admission.

http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/casalsdebarrihg/cemasguinardo/node/1551

The Sant Pau Research Institute recently received a very special donation from a family in Aiguafreda. The money collected comes from the sale of Costumama’s textile products. It was an idea of Anna Martinez, its creator, who was born with the challenge of overcoming cancer, an illness suffered by different members of her family. The refuge in sewing during the treatment process led her to create some purses that over time have become all kinds of textile objects of which she allocates all the profits to research, and which she has decided to donate to the research being carried out at the Sant Pau.

The Institute of Biomedical Research, IIB – Sant Pau, is participating in a study, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, which points to the immune response to high-density lipoproteins (HDL) as a pathogenic mechanism in the progression of the abdominal aortic aneurysm. The researchers of this study suggest that anti-HDL antibody levels may be a biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of this vascular pathology.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a disease characterized by the dilation of the abdominal aorta. It is an asymptomatic condition and difficult to diagnose in time, which can progress to the rupture of the artery, a fatal event in most cases. Therefore, it is a key challenge for research to find biomarkers that contribute to an earlier diagnosis, improving the monitoring and prognosis of the disease.

In this field, new research published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine has demonstrated the presence of circulating antibodies to high density lipoproteins (HDL) in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The results, from researchers at the University of Oviedo, from CIBER Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERCV) at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sanitarias Jiménez Díaz, and from CIBER Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases (CIBERDEM) at IIB-Sant Pau , suggest that the levels of these anti-HDL antibodies could have potential value as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker. Furthermore, they point out that the immune response to HDL could be a key pathogenic mechanism in the evolution of this blood vessel disease.

Good’ cholesterol, key to preventing aortic dilatation

AAA is usually characterized by the accumulation of cholesterol and immune cells in the aortic wall, which trigger an inflammatory immune response. Therefore, HDLs play a key role in preventing this accumulation of cholesterol on immune cells (mainly macrophages) in the artery wall.

Previous studies by the CIBERCV and CIBERDEM groups had shown that low levels of HDL cholesterol are associated with the presence of AAA and that there are modified forms of HDL in the aneurysmal wall. However, the exact mechanisms that lead to the decrease in HDL levels remain unknown. On the other hand, the research team from the University of Oviedo had previously demonstrated the presence of antibodies generated against HDL (anti-HDL) in several autoimmune diseases.

This new work, with the support of “la Caixa” Foundation, focused on investigating the presence of anti-HDL antibodies in patients with AAA and their possible association with the clinical characteristics of this disease. To this end, the circulating levels of antibodies directed against HDL (anti-HDL) in plasma and tissues of 488 patients diagnosed with AAA and 184 healthy controls were analysed.

Anti-HDL antibodies, potential diagnostic and prognostic marker

The results obtained demonstrated an increase in the levels of these anti-HDL antibodies in plasma from patients with AAA, independent of risk factors. Likewise, anti-HDL antibodies were negatively associated with HDL cholesterol levels and positively with aortic size, a marker used to follow the evolution of these patients. Both results point to the potential value of this indicator as a biomarker for both diagnosis and prognosis of this vascular disease.

In addition to these data, the authors detected the presence of these antibodies in the arterial wall of patients with AAA, suggesting an immune response to HDL in the aneurysmal wall as one of the mechanisms of progression of this disease.

Regarding its usefulness as a biomarker, José Luis Martín Ventura, CIBERCV researcher at the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Jiménez Díaz, states that “the presence of these antibodies may provide additional clues for understanding risk stratification in these patients, which represents a key aspect in clinical treatment”. On the other hand, Javier Rodríguez Carrió, first signatory of this article, points out that “antibody detection is a relatively simple, objective, reproducible and feasible technique in most hospitals, which provides additional advantages over more sophisticated and less accessible techniques”.

However, the researchers point to the need for further studies in this field: “From a clinical point of view, further research is warranted to elucidate the exact role of anti-HDL antibodies as biomarkers for patient stratification and clinical management, as well as their contribution to the mechanisms of abdominal aortic aneurysm,” they conclude.

Reference article:

Rodríguez-Carrio J, Lindholt JS, Canyelles M, Martínez-López D, Tondo M, Blanco-Colio LM, Michel JB, Escolà-Gil JC, Suárez A, Martín-Ventura JL. IgG Anti-High Density Lipoprotein Antibodies Are Elevated in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm and Associated with Lipid Profile and Clinical Features. J Clin Med. 2019 Dec 26;9(1). pii: E67. DOI: 10.3390/jcm9010067

The Gastrointestinal Surgery Unit of the Hospital’s General and Digestive Surgery Service has published, in the prestigious British Journal of Surgery, a randomized clinical study on the superiority of intracorporeal anastomosis in direct laparoscopic cancer collection. The study has been directed by Dr. Jesús Bollo, from the Servei de Cirurgia General de Sant Pau, in collaboration with the Institut de Recerca de l’Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau.

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A group of Catalan researchers, led by the director of the Digestive Endoscopy Unit of the Digestive Pathology Service of the Hospital de Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau, Carlos Guarner Argente, have published an article in Gastroenterology which demonstrates that antibiotic prophylaxis is not necessary for ultrasound-guided endoscopic puncture of pancreatic cystic lesions.

You can read the article  here

The work consisted of a clinical trial with a group of 226 patients who underwent an evaluation of cystic lesions of their pancreas and required puncture through ultrasound-guided endoscopy. The incidence of infections was shown to be less than 1% and, in addition, did not vary significantly between patients receiving a placebo and the control group, which was given ciprofloxacin prophylaxis. These results may change the established standard procedure in these cases, thus avoiding prophylactic administration of the antibiotic, possible side effects and possible resistances associated with these drugs. The multicenter study involves the Digestive Pathology Service of Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic – IDIBAPS, the University of Barcelona, the Digestive Pathology Service of the Hospital Universitari Mutua de Terrassa – Terrassa Mutual Research Foundation, the Hospital Joan XXIII of Tarragona, the Hospital de Bellvitge – IDIBELL, and the Center for Networked Biomedical Research on Liver and Digestive Diseases (CIBERehd). This work has been supported by the Carlos III Health Institute, the Spanish Society of Digestive Endoscopy and the Catalan Society of Digestology.

The Sant Pau Institute for Biomedical Research (IIB Sant Pau) with the Haematological Diagnosis Research Group, coordinated by Dr. José F. Nomdedéu, is organising the seminar “Cellular Competition and Tumourogenesis”, led by Ginés Morata, researcher and research professor at the CSIC-UAM Molecular Biology Centre (Madrid) and Foreign Member of the Royal Society and Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

On January 27th, the conference “H2020: Working Session and Workshop” will be held by Dr. Juan Riese, scientific-technical advisor specialized in H2020 Health calls from the European and International Research Projects Unit, General Sub-Directorate of International Research Programs and Institutional Relations of the ISCIII.

This conference, organized by the Research Institute Foundation of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau, is aimed at all researchers and project managers interested in applying for H2020 funding and / or need support to improve their proposals.

Attendance, in the Sala Pau Gil of the Sant Pau Modernist complex, is open to all institutions, both public and private. It will be a good opportunity to create future collaborations.

Register for the Conference here

On 27 January there will be another Monday science session, led by Dr. Jordi Surrallés, director of the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and professor of Genetics at the UAB. The session is entitled “Genetics and health in the 21st century” and will take place at 6.30 pm in the amphitheatre of the Residence for Researchers, CSIC-Generalitat of Catalonia.

More information

The Catalonia 2020 Blood Donor Marathon starts on Friday 10th and will last until 17th January in the main hospitals of Catalonia (also in Sant Pau). Friday 10th and Saturday 11th it will be possible to donate blood in a big tent and two buses at Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona. The aim is to increase donations after the Christmas holidays.

On the other hand, the Catalan trap singer Lildami puts the soundtrack to the Donor Marathon, from a personal story about blood donation with a video recorded in Sant Pau: https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v = cF5ErekZVBA. The Blood and Tissue Bank, within the framework of this Donor Marathon, opens its Whatsapp channel, a mobile number (677071756) where any citizen can make queries and receive information.

10,000 donations are needed to care for the sick after the holidays

The Blood Bank activates the largest donation campaign of the year, the Catalan Blood Donor Marathon, which is held from 10th to 17th January. The aim is to get 10,000 people to donate blood during these days and to reach optimum levels of reserves after Christmas, when donations have fallen by 25%.

During these days it will be possible to donate blood in the main Catalan hospitals and on 10 and 11 January in a large donation tent in Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona, where there will also be two buses to receive more donors.

In addition, during the Marathon they will organize about forty donation campaigns in different towns and cities, such as those that will be held by the city councils of Tarragona and Girona.

From the website www.maratodonants.cat donors can sign up to give blood these days in Plaza Cataluña and the main hospitals. Registration is not essential, just a way to facilitate the donation and make a reminder by email the day before to the donors.

Whatsang, the new Whatsapp service of the Blood Bank

One of the main novelties of the Blood Bank this 2020 will be launched on the occasion of the Marathon. It is the Whatsapp service of blood donation that has been renamed as Whatsang.
The Blood Bank will be the first organism of the Generalitat with an official account of service to the citizen through Whatsapp. Through the telephone number 677071756, any person will be able to make queries to the Blood Bank and have a fast and close communication channel. Whatsapp conversations with the Blood Bank are individual, in the same way that communications can be made by email or telephone.

Lildami and the Blood Donation Trap

The other great novelty that comes with the Blood Donation Marathon is the new ‘soundtrack’. The popular Catalan trap singer Lildami has composed a song about blood donation with lyrics that explain the experience of the singer’s brother, who needed blood and a bone marrow transplant.

The song will be released on 7 January to coincide with the presentation of the Marathon in the city councils of Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona, and will be available on the main digital platforms. In addition, in the video clip of the song Lildami is accompanied by a dozen blood recipients who have participated in the recording, made outside the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona.

Friday and Saturday, donation and special activities in Plaza Cataluña

The special donation campaign in Plaza Cataluña on January 10 and 11 will include other special activities for all audiences.

Support from entities

The Catalan Blood Donor Marathon is also possible thanks to the involvement of the main Catalan City Councils, the Catalan Federation of Blood Donors and the Red Cross, among other entities.
Related information:

What is blood used for? www.bancsang.net/blog/que-servir-sang

Testimonies of people who have needed blood:

www.bancsang.net/blog/blog-recull-agraiments-dels-receptors-sang-posa-cara-destinacio-donacions

Researchers from Sant Pau, CIBER (CIBER-BBN) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (IBB-UAB) have developed a new type of protein biomaterial that allows for the continuous release in time of therapeutic proteins when administered subcutaneously. in laboratory animals.
Precision medicine is gaining prominence today, delivering more effective personalized therapies for each patient and innovative pharmacological developments. In the field of oncology, for example, different approaches to the directed and controlled release of drugs are being developed, reducing their toxicity to the body.
“These structures, measuring just a few microns in diameter, contain functional proteins that are released in a manner similar to the release of human hormones in the endocrine system,” says Antonio Villaverde, a researcher at CIBER-BBN / IIB-UAB and one of the work coordinators.
The work is the result of stable scientific collaboration between Antonio Villaverde’s group and the Oncogenesis and Antitumor Research Group, led by Dr. Ramon Mangues at the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau – IIB Sant Pau and has had the participation of the Institute for Biological and Technological Research of the National University of Córdoba -CONICET, in Argentina .
Dr. Mangues, also a CIBER-BBN researcher and co-author of the work, explains that “the new biomaterial mimics a common bacterial product in biotechnological processes called ‘inclusion bodies’, of pharmacological interest, which in this artificial version offers a wide range of therapeutic possibilities in the field of oncology and in any other clinical setting that requires sustained release over time. ”
Researchers have used common enzymes in biotechnology as a model and a nanostructured bacterial toxin targeted at metastatic human colorectal cancer cells, which has been tested in animal models. “In this way we have been able to generate both immobilized catalysts and a new long-acting antitumor drug,” said those responsible for the research.

Huge potential in the clinic
Developed artificial protein granules, previously proposed as ‘nanopills’ (tablets of therapeutic material on a nanoscopic scale), mimic bacterial inclusion bodies and offer enormous potential in the field of vaccology and as a clinic controlled drug release systems.
Developed artificial protein granules, previously proposed as ‘nanopills’ (tablets of therapeutic material on a nanoscopic scale), mimic bacterial inclusion bodies and offer enormous potential in the field of vaccology and as a clinic controlled drug release systems.
“We have seen that natural inclusion bodies, administered as medicines, can generate unwanted immune responses due to inevitable contamination with bacterial materials,” say researchers. However, in the new work, the development of secretion-capable artificial inclusion bodies “avoids many of the regulatory problems associated with the potential development of bacterial ‘nanopills’, and offers a cross-platform for component production. in cosmetics and in clinics. ”
This work points to artificial inclusion bodies as a new exploitable category of biomaterials for biotechnological applications, as a result of simple fabrication and forecasting of clinical applications.

Reference article
Julieta M. Sánchez, Hèctor López‐Laguna, Patricia Álamo, Naroa Serna, Alejandro Sánchez‐Chardi, Verónica Nolan, Olivia Cano‐Garrido, Isolda Casanova, Ugutz Unzueta, Esther Vazquez, Ramon Mangues, Antonio Villaverde. Artificial Inclusion Bodies for Clinical Development

Dr. Susan Webb, senior consultant at the Endocrinology Service of Sant Pau has recently received the Rolf Gaillard Award from the European NeuroEndocrine Association, for her contribution and trajectory in the field of Neuroendocrinology.

Prof. Laurent Duca’s seminar, scheduled for next Wednesday 11 December, is cancelled due to the general transport strike in France. As soon as we know the next date from the seminar we will communicate it to you.