Anna Roig was the external examiner of the Viva Voce Examination of the Ph.D. Thesis presented by Marcela Salazar Alvarez entitled “Targeted protein adsorption on the surface of biomaterials“, belonging to the Bioelectrochemistry and Biocatalysis Group of the University of Limerick, in Ireland.
We welcome Jana Segmehl from ETH-Zurich, who will stay with us for 6 weeks for a Ph.D. Research Internship. Jana is working at the Wood Material Science Group, at the Institute for Building Materials, and her work focuses on multifunctional hierarchical cellulose scaffolds produced from native wood. The goal of her internship is to functionalize these cellulose scaffolds with different types of nanoparticles, such as iron oxide.
We hope you enjoy your stay with us, Jana!
This last Thursday, Anna May, in representation of the N&N Group, went to “Mater Brunch: Fotocataliti-qué?“, a meeting about photocatalysis that took place at Materfad, the Materials Center in Barcelona. The topic of the session was the new materials based on photocatalysis that are being developed to improve the quality of life and of the urban environment.
Materfad organized a meeting between professionals, which counted with the experience of Breinco, Active Walls, FYM-Italcementi Group and the Iberian Association of Photocatalysis (AIF).
The program consisted of four presentations and a networking session accompanied by a buffet:
14:00: “Introducing the AIF (Iberian Association of Photocatalysis)” by David Almazán (Iberian Association of Photocatalysis).
14:15 h: “Photocatalysis inside buildings” by Jesús Serra (Active Walls).
14:30: “Key issues on cement-based photocatalytic products” by Rafael Jurado (FYM-Italcementi Group).
14:45 h: “Technology AirClean®: flooring and facades that reduce air pollution” by Gemma Pages (Breinco).
Although the meeting was basically dedicated to materials for construction (either indoors or outdoors), it is always good to know the priorities, state of the market and companies interested in photocatalysis, since our group is also working in this field.
Some interesting facts that were mentioned were the high degree of contamination in big cities, such as Barcelona; the consequences of this high pollution in people’s health (high mortality), although people are not aware of it, or the fact that Barcelona does not comply with the existing NOx limits.
Another think to take into account is that the air of our houses or workplaces (indoors), where we spend more than 95 % of our time, is also polluted, although we do not notice it.
The speakers mentioned that there are not conclusive results about the diminishment of the pollution when using these photocatalytic materials: experiments outdoors show results from 15 to 40 % of reduction of NOx, whereas experiments indoors show results up to 90 % reduction.
We congratulate Anna May for obtaining the Extraordinary Ph.D Award (Premi Extraordinari de Doctorat) for her thesis entitled “Insights into nanomaterials: from surfactant systems to meso/macroporous materials and nanoparticles“, carried out at the Chemical Engineering Department of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), and supervised by José María Gutiérrez and Montserrat Porras.
The awards ceremony took place today, February 11, at the UB Paranimf, and was also the ceremony to award the epidemiologist and oncologist Francesc Xavier Bosch with the honorary doctorate (doctor honoris causa). Dr. F. Xavier Bosch is well-known for participating in the development of the HPV vaccine.
The N&N Group has been granted the project entitled Engineering Bacterial Cellulose Nanocomposites (E-BCN), MAT2015-64442-R. The three years project will be funded with 180.000 € and a Ph.D. scholarship grant.
The Research Group that will participate in the project is formed by Anna Roig (IP), Martí Gich, Anna Laromaine, Jordi Faraudo, Dino Tonti, Laura Asturias and Anna May.
Congratulations!
The image, showing the surface modification of bacterial cellulose, is from Zeng et al. J. Mater. Chem. C, 2014,2, 6312-6318.
Next Sunday, February 7, 2016, is Chinese New Year’s Eve (除夕), and the next day, February 8, 2016, is the Chinese New Year’s Day (初一), the “First One” on the Chinese Calendar.
This next year will be a year of the Monkey. There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac cycle, and Monkey is the 9th of it. Every 12 years there is a Monkey year. Interestingly, Monkey years are all multiples of 12 (since 12 AD up to now).
We wish everybody a Happy Chinese New Year, especially for Qianzhe, who will have to work during the Chinese holidays!
Today we welcome three undergrad students that will be part of the N&N group for the next 6 months to carry out their Bachelor’s Degree Final Project (Treball Final de Grau).
They are, from left to right in the image, Adrià Gordillo, Miquel Torras and Judit Fuentes. Adrià and Judit are studying Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and Miquel is studying the double degree in Physics and Chemistry, all of them at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
Adrià and Miquel will be under the supervision of Anna Roig, and will be working with iron oxide nanotriangles. Judit will be under the supervision of Anna Laromaine and will be working with composite materials formed by bacterial cellulose and silver nanoparticles.
We hope they enjoy their stay with us!
The beginning of the year is always time for new incorporations in the N&N group. This year we are pleased to welcome Irene Anton, master student in Biomedical Research (UPF), and Sebastià Parets, master student in Advanced Biotechnology (UAB). They will carry out their Master’s Thesis with us for the next 6 months. Sebastià will be under the supervision of Anna Laromaine, and working with bacterial cellulose; and Irene, under the supervision of Anna Roig, working with polymeric nanocapsules for biomedical applications. Welcome to both of them!
Anna May, from our group, is also a lindy hop dancer. She and some of her colleagues from the SwingCats dance school participated in the opening dance of the Gaudí Awards Ceremony. This ceremony, in which awards are given to the best cinematographic productions of the year, is organized by the Catalan Cinema Academy. Rossy de Palma was the host for this year’s show.
You can find the video of the opening dance here. Congratulations!
Laura Go
nzález is going for an internship at King’s College London for three months (February 1st – May 1st, 2016) in the framework of her Ph.D. She will be in the Toxicogenomics Group with Prof. Stephen Sturzenbaum. Laura will study whether the treatment with iron oxide and gold nanoparticles alters gene expression (at the transcriptome level) of certain genes involved in oxidative stress responses, and in heavy metals detoxification mechanisms, using C. elegans as a model organism.
Collaboration with other Universities and Research Centers is always a welcoming and positive experience, both for the graduate students and for the Group. We wish Laura all the best and success in this new adventure!
The N&N group participates in the @NextGEM_eu project, for which we prepared this video explaining how we work with c.elegans. 🪱
👉 Dr. @PolAlonso1 explains how we use these nematodes and why they are useful for assessing biological effects.
#BioEM #5G
