Sofía Rubio, Ph.D. student of the Inorganic Nanoparticles Group at ICN2, presented the thesis “Increasing the resolution at the nanobiointerface with engineering inorganic nanoparticles”, which was supervised by the Group Leader, Víctor F. Puntes. The presentation took place on September 23, at 11.30 am at the ICN2 Seminar Room.
Anna Laromaine was part of the Thesis Defense Committee.
A new paper entitled “Alignment under magnetic field of mixed Fe2O3/SiO2 colloidal mesoporous particles induced by shape anisotropy” (Jheng-Guang Li, Giulia Fornasieri, Anne Bleuzen, Martí Gich, Alexander Gloter, Frédéric Bouquet, Marianne Impéror-Clerc, DOI: 10.1002/smll.201602272) has been publised in small this last September 14, 2016. Congratulations Martí!
Today during the group meeting we said goodbye to Iván, who is leaving to continue his Ph.D. thesis in Colombia. Iván is a great chemist, who works with magnetic graphene for water decontamination. We wish him a lot of success in his thesis and in his future endeavours!
On the other hand, Esther Dalfo gave us a nice talk on biomedical applications of C. elegans “Investigating neurodegeneration by using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans”. Esther is an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience of the UAB, specialized in neurodegeneration and human genetics. Thank you!
Anna May and Irene Anton have attended the Campus Gutenberg for scientific communication and culture during September 12-13, at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) – Campus Mar and at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB).
The conference consisted of some interesting debates on “How to measure the excellence and the impact of science”, “Great discoveries and controversy in the media”, or “Science museums and schools: how to develop mutual relations”. The other sessions consisted of different workshops about science, education, communication, social media, etc. A special mention to the session by Ignacio Morgado (from the Institute of Neuroscience of the UAB) on “Perceptual illusions: is the world how we see it?“, in which he made the audience realize that a lot of what we see, smell, hear… is only in our brain.
Also, a special mention for Escolab, a platform that organizes visits to Catalan research centers for secondary students, and Pendulum, an association that brings the kids to the nature for a scientific picnic in the middle of the Montseny Natural Park, among other scientific workshops and activities.
Campus Gutenberg is organized by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)-Barcelona School of Management and Obra Social “la Caixa”. Collaborators of this edition are “Centro de Estudios de Ciencia, Comunicación y Sociedad” (CCS-UPF), the “Associació Catalana de Comunicació Científica” (ACCC), the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), and the Department of Experimental and Health Science of the UPF.
For more info follow: #CGutenberg16 @beerforscience @ACCC_ @ccupf
Download the program of the conference here.
We release this new section today: Remember when…
And we start the section with Anna Laromaine. When she was a postdoc at George Whitsides Research Group at Harvard University (2008-2011), Pere Estupinyà interviewed George Whitesides for the monography “Nano: transforming the world with nanotechnology” from the magazine “Mètode“, the science outreach magazine written in Catalan from the University of Valencia.
Apart from interviewing the professor, Pere Estupinyà visited the lab and talked to the Ph.D. students and postdoc fellows that were working there. This is when he talked with Anna Laromaine about the projects she was developing: 3D cells culture, and paper strips as biosensors for diagnosis.
You can find the interview here: http://metode.cat/revistes-metode/entrevista-monografic/george-whitesides.html (available in Catalan, Spanish and English)
And the PDF in Catalan: NANO: Transformant el món amb la nanotecnologia
Anna also appeared in Pere Estupinyà’s blog “Apuntes científicos desde el MIT”: http://blogs.elpais.com/apuntes-cientificos-mit/2009/10/page/2/
In the last paragraph, Pere says “But I cannot end this post without mentioning the conversation with Anna over lunch. Anna perfectly represents the Spanish scientist eager to return home to do research, file patents, and help in the generation of both knowledge and wealth. After budget cuts a couple of weeks ago, she sees it increasingly difficult.” But she is back! Anna managed to go back to her country and be a scientist! Congratulations.
Laura González has obtained a fellowship to do an internship in a start-up company in Latin America or Portugal for a period of 6-12 weeks for her entrepreneurship project GMP Nanotech, within the BoosterWe progam.
The GMP Nanotech project she presented consist in the business plan of the manufacture of inorganic nanoparticles for biomedical applications with pharmaceutical quality.
The BoosterWe program supports entrepreneurs from universities in Latin America, Spain and Portugal to put in place innovative business initiatives. The program offers hands-on learning experience and business management through stays in small and medium consolidated companies that operate in another country and in complementary sectors than the entrepreneurs projects. These stays will last for 6 to 12 weeks. The beneficiaries will have a grant to help cover travel expenses and accommodation in the country of destination, as well as personalized mentoring of their new projects. The overall objective of BoosterWE is to energize the university entrepreneurship in the Ibero-American region, promoting the creation of highly innovative companies, and especially promoting the incorporation of female talent within the university entrepreneurship with scientific and technological base.
BoosterWe progrma is supported by RedEmprendia y BancoSantander.
Today is Pol’s last day in the N&N Group. In the group meeting we gave him a little present and he brought some delicious pastries from his hometown, Manresa.
We will miss him, but we are happy that he has been accepted to the International Master in Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion (MESC) with an Erasmus Mundus scholarship.
https://youtu.be/z_-1YKc3ud0
This Master is a 2-years education program in the field of Energy-related Materials. During the first year, Pol will study in Toulouse (France) and in Warsaw (Poland); and in the second year in Córdoba (Spain). The last semester is dedicated to an internship. After successful completion of the curriculum, Pol will graduate with a multiple Master degree awarded by all universities of the consortium and recognised in each of the countries visited.
Congratulations Pol! Good luck and see you soon!
More info: https://www.u-picardie.fr/mundus-mesc/
Anna Roig gave a nano-lecture on nanomaterials at UIMP (Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo) within the course “Nanotecnología: luces y sombras del control de la materia a escala atómica“ (Nanotechnology: lights and shadows of the control of matter at the atomic scale) on July 11th 2016.
Afther the lecture, she showed the ICMAB Nano-Kit to the students, who really enjoyed the explanations and enjoyed having the opportunity to have a close look at real materials fabricated at ICMAB, such as silica aerogels, gold nanoparticles, grafene, carbon nanotubes, superconductors, bacterial cellulose or AFM tips.
This Nano-Kit is used in the program “Un investigador a la teva aula” (A researcher in your classroom) to show high-school students the research carried out at ICMAB and increase their passion for science. The Nano-Kit contains samples of up to 11 nanomaterials synthesized within different research groups at ICMAB, together with an explanation card of each one of them. 
Pedro Serena, researcher at the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid at CSIC and organizer of the UIMP course, posted a couple of the images on his facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PedroASerena/posts/10209970119192355?pnref=story
Related posts:
Good news! One of our last published articles in Nanoscale was the main star of the inside cover of the journal (Issue 30, Volume 8, 2016).
Anna Laromaine will give the talk “Multi structures using bacterial cellulose films” (Muling Zeng, Anna May-Masnou, Anna Roig, Anna Laromaine) in the Advances in Funcional Materials (AFM) Conference in Jeju, South Korea.
The talk will be on Tuesday, August 9th, at 4.05 pm, within the Symposium 1: Advances in Multifunctional Composite Materials, at the International Convention Center (ICC) in Jeju (South Korea). Anna will also be Chair of a previous session of the same Symposium.
Good luck!
For further information, visit the conference website: http://afm2016.functionalmaterials.org/
Or the conference program: http://afm2016.functionalmaterials.org/wp-content/uploads/AFM16-Conference-Plan.pdf
And the book of abstracts: http://afm2016.functionalmaterials.org/wp-content/uploads/Abstract-Book-2016.pdf
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
