The UAB has organized a conference dedicated to the challenges of university hospitals, with the participation of more than a hundred professionals from the research institutes of the affiliated hospitals and from the University itself.
The activity, with nearly 120 people registered, has been organized with the aim of creating a space for the exchange of knowledge, challenges and shared objectives to enhance scientific and healthcare impact. The conference has been promoted by the UAB and the hospital Research Institutes: the Parc Taulí Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT), the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute (IGTP) and the Sant Pau Research Institute (IR Sant Pau), with the support of the UAB Vice-Rectorate for Transfer, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
The vice-rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship, Rosa María Sebastián, welcomed the attendees, recalling that this is an initiative “that has been going on for more than a year”. According to the vice-rector, “we must take advantage of the full potential of hospitals to work together. The UAB is multidisciplinary, and a day like today is a push to generate opportunities for innovation. Hospitals need the university and the university needs hospitals”.
The rector, Javier Lafuente, highlighted that we are "at a good time. We have a level of multidisciplinary that will allow us to go very far. The conference is a turning point to connect and work as a macroorganism, taking advantage of all resources to respond to the challenges of society."
Lluís Blanch, former director of the I3PT, encouraged strengthening links between institutions to develop joint projects with scientific and social impact. He also introduced the speaker of the inaugural conference, Alfonso Valencia, ICREA researcher and director of the National Institute of Bioinformatics (INB-ISCIII). Valencia, an international reference in bioinformatics and data sciences, leads the Department of Life Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). During his presentation, he explained the BSC's Digital Twins project, aimed at generating digital twins to model cities, planet Earth, mechanics, quantum computing, and human beings. In this latter area, Valencia explained how software has been developed to generate digital twins of parts of a complex biological system, the difficulties in carrying out the project with international patient data, and how AI is being applied to develop it. "The only great success of AI has been in the field of proteins, with consequences for the entire biotechnology industry," Valencia remarked, "20% of the drugs approved in the last year have a substantial computational part."
Afterwards, professionals from the UAB and the participating institutes presented various research challenges. Researcher Eric Voltà, from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the UAB, presented a work on recombinant proteins for the sustained release of drugs. Jordi Pujols, also from the IBB, explained the NANOBLOCK project, a biotechnology platform for the detection and treatment of infectious pathogens. The technology aims to be a multifunctional molecular tool: a protein that self-assembles into a multifunctional ring that can be modified to have different functions, “very homogeneous, stable, safe and patentable”, summarizes Pujols.
On behalf of the IR Sant Pau, Victor Najas, speech therapist at the Hospital de Sant Pau, presented research into the detection of oral fragility, a deterioration in physical skills such as chewing, salivation or swallowing. “This is a fragility that can also lead to problems with the neck down, but there is no diagnostic tool,” recalls Najas, “we are considering generating the first tool and the first digital solution for the diagnosis of oral fragility.”
The director of the Intensive Care Medicine Service at the Hospital de Sant Pau, Arantxa Mas, spoke about the continuous recording of the respiratory pattern during spontaneous breathing to obtain data of clinical value. “Respiratory failure is the cause of 10% of hospital admissions, 10.000 people die in Catalonia every year from this type of failure”, explained Mas. Knowing the respiratory rate and breathing pattern are very important tools, but it is not common to monitor them outside the ICU. “We introduced a sensor into the usual Ventouri masks to be able to measure these parameters and it has provided us with a lot of information. Now we need a lighter and easier to use system and an instant intuitive analysis”, poses Arantxa Mas as a challenge.
Then, the researcher of the translational research group in the critical patient of the I3PT Antoni Artigas presented the challenge of proposing new personalized treatments and diagnostic techniques for sepsis and acute respiratory failure, with more than 50 million patients worldwide. “The WHO has recommended that governments invest in finding new treatments and diagnostic methods”, recalled Artigas. The research focuses on “early detection and cell therapy without cells, with vesicles that encapsulate the therapeutic agents. Now we need to analyze the application characteristics of these vesicles”.
Víctor M. Martínez González, director of the Genomic Medicine Center at Parc Taulí, spoke about the detection of somatic mosaicism in routine diagnosis and hidden variants in undiagnosed patients. He focused on “somatic mosaicism that occurs in early stages of embryonic development.” The challenge is to develop a methodology that allows detecting this type of mosaicism in routine diagnoses, with mutations that are not present in all cells of the body.
Representing the VHIR activity, Rafael Navajo, director of Innovation and Technological Transformation at the institute, spoke about the valuation of assets in the pre-seed, seed and spin-off phases. “From the time a project starts until it reaches the market there is a very long journey, business opportunities, regulatory issues, etc. have to be identified,” explains Navajo. “If in the final phases of development and transfer we cannot properly assess the value of the scientific and technological asset, we will not have enough return,” he added.
Anna Santamaria, Director of Internal Strategy, presented the challenges of research on the impact of environmental pollution on the mental health of urban communities. For Santamaria, “pollution is linked to mental illness, and we will study the mechanisms behind these relationships to create healthier environments.”
Regarding the IGTP, Josep Manyé, from the Liver and Digestive Diseases Research Group, spoke about digestive health, and more specifically about the use of extracellular vesicles as a therapy for immune-mediated diseases. “We focus on inflammatory bowel diseases: ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. They are genetic in nature, but the intestinal macrobiota is involved,” Manyé highlights. “We have focused on developing a new therapeutic strategy based on stem cells. We have managed to reduce inflammation by up to 200 times and with a very durable anti-inflammatory effect.” Now, the challenge they face is “to get the therapies to the patient, optimize the release matrix and apply the strategy to other diseases.”
Finally, Marc Jante, researcher at the Nurecare-IGTP research group, presented the UPPLong project, in the field of community health, to facilitate valuable care in the management of pressure ulcers. The problem affects one in 10 patients admitted worldwide. “UPPLong is a device that analyzes the characteristics of the lesion using images, thermography and ultrasound,” explains Jante, “the objective is to integrate machine learning to have a predictive algorithm with the capacity to offer specific treatment to each patient.”
Vice-rector Rosa María Sebastián closed the event and encouraged attendees to share their challenges to foster new collaborations.
📰 [News developed by the Communication Unit of the Autonomous University of Barcelona]
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