At the IGTP TODAY
An international macro-study in which researchers from the GCAT|Genomes for Life project of the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) have participated has located 11 new chromosomal regions involved in susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and in severity COVID-19 clinic. The work is published in the journal Nature.
Since 2019, around 1,000 immigrants from endemic countries have participated in a new model of diagnosis and management of viral hepatitis that has been designed by the Clinical Virology and New Diagnostic Approaches Research Group of the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), in the Microbiology Service of the Germans Trial Hospital (headed by Dr. Elisa Martró), along with the Public and Community Health Team (eSPiC) of Drassanes-Vall d'Hebron International Health Unit.
The COST Programme (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) has approved 70 new actions and Spain is coordinating nine of them, making it second in the ranking of countries leading COST Actions after Italy, which is coordinating ten. Three of the Spanish projects are from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) and two of these are being led by the IGTP. COST Actions run for four years and this round will start in the coming autumn.
The of Fundación Épica of La Fura dels Baus Project, in collaboration with the Institut Germans Trias i Pujol and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology will take place from 11-24 July at the old CACI factory in Badalona.
Researchers from the ICREC Group (Cardiac Insufficiency and Regeneration) in cardiovascular diseases at the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) continue to work on therapeutic technologies to repair cardiac tissue after a heart attack. In an article published in Theranostics, they present a study of extracellular vesicles from mesenchymal stem cells combined with tissue engineering as a therapy to repair the heart after a heart attack. They have carried out the study on a porcine heart attack model at the Centre for Comparative Medicine and Bioimage (CMCiB) at the IGTP.
The IGTP and the Microbiology Service of the Clinical Laboratory of the North Metropolitan Area led by the researcher Elisa Martró have been the first to carry out the complete sequencing of a sample of monkey pox virus in Spain. This is a milestone in itself, but will also be fundamental for epidemiological surveillance of the infection and the study of future outbreaks as it provides a description of the genetic material of the virus.
The Immunology of Diabetes group have published a study evaluating the effect of prenatal exposure to betamethasone on the risk of developing diabetes type 1 in the Journal of Diabetes Research.
The article describing the new SCA49 subtype has been published in the journal Brain Communications, and is featured as a highlight by its Editorial Board. The new ataxia subtype has been identified by studying members of one family from the island of Menorca. The finding provides a better understanding of the pathological basis of ataxia and opens the door to pre-symptomatic diagnoses and genetic counselling for people with the disorder.
A study led by researchers from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) and the Parc Tauli Hospital published in Frontiers in Immunology shows that a sample of peripheral blood can be used to identify levels of cells and molecules of the immune system that are specifically altered during the remission phase in paediatric type 1 diabetes (T1D). These can be used to monitor this phase and predict the progress of the disease.
The Hereditary Cancer Group have published a study in Cell Reports in which they describe the generation of a model system based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that is able to generate human neurofibromas in mice. These tumours arise in people with the genetic disease Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a prevalent condition occurring in one in every 3,000 people. To date, a robust method for generating human neurofibromas in mice has been lacking, and the model developed opens up the possibility of testing new treatments for these tumours.
