A new urban development plan, promoted by the BIST, amongst others, has been approved this week. The building assigned to BIST will be the largest.
A development plan for building a new complex for research and innovation in biomedicine, biodiversity and planetary wellbeing has been approved this week. Promoted by the Barcelona City Council, the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the Barcelona Institute for Science and Technology (BIST), it has been presented to the media in an event to which members of the mentioned institutions, including Andreu Mas-Colell (President of the BIST Board of Trustees), participated.
The BIST building will be the largest and first to be constructed, with the aim to house more than 500 researchers and 50 research groups over 25,000 square metres. It will permanently host research groups from four BIST centres: The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). Researchers from the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE), and Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) working on specific projects will also join.
The studies that will be carried out at this new research space will focus on high-impact pathologies such as cancer and metastasis, as well as on other medical issues including ageing and responses to pathogenic agents. Researchers will also work on the design and validation of new approaches to personalized medicine, based on cell and tissue biomechanics, cell reprogramming, nanomedicine, immune response modulation, and tissue regeneration.