UB

University of Barcelona

Information
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585

addictions, Alzheimer's, Antarctica / Arctic, astrobiology, astrophysics, big data, bioethics, climate change, cancer, behavioural sciences, natural sciences, climate, quantum computing, pollution, covid-19, embryonic development, diabetes, gene editing, education, energy, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, rare diseases, ageing, epidemiology, STDs, physics, immunology, language, mathematics, microbiology, nanoscience, neuroscience, new materials, oceanography, palaeontology, chemistry, robotics, mental health, AIDS / HIV, sociology, supercomputing, transgenics
Contact
Ester Colominas
Head of Institutional Communication Unit
premsa@ub.edu
934035544

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SMC participants

Doctor in Biology and research professor in the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Barcelona.

Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Neurosciences at the University of Barcelona

PhD candidate in the Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona

ICREA Research Professor and Coordinator of the Regenerative Medicine Programme at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), member of CIBER-BBN, Director of the Clinical Translation Programme in Regenerative Medicine in Catalonia, and Professor of Physiology at the University of Barcelona.

Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Barcelona and member of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology

Associate professor at the University of Barcelona, ICREA Academia fellow, and member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.

Senior Consultant at the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, Professor of Public Health and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Barcelona

Professor of Microbiology, University of Barcelona

Researcher at the Applied Research Group on Neuromuscular Diseases at the Sant Joan de Deu Research Institute in Barcelona; at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the University of Barcelona; and at the Biomedical Research Network Centre for Rare Diseases (CIBERER)

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

Brainlab, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona (UB).

UB Institute of Neuroscience

Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute

Lecturer of the Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology at the University of Barcelona, researcher at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and CIBERSAM

ICREA research professor and leader of the QSBio research group at the University of Barcelona

Head of Microbiology at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, associate professor at the University of Barcelona, and researcher at ISGlobal Barcelona

Deputy Head of the Tobacco Control Unit at the Catalan Institute of Oncology and lecturer in the Department of Nursing, Public Health, Mental Health and Maternal and Child Health at the University of Barcelona

Lecturer  at the University of Barcelona (UB) and head of the Laboratory of Neural Stem Cells and Brain Damage at the Institute of Neurosciences of the UB

Director of the BCNatal maternal-fetal medicine center (Hospital Clínic-Sant Joan de Déu) and professor at the University of Barcelona.

Head of the Arrhythmias and Physical Activity research group at IDIBAPS, cardiac electrophysiologist at Hospital Clínic Barcelona, associate professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and researcher at CIBERCV.

Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Barcelona, Head of the Psychiatry and Psychology Department at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, and researcher at the Biomedical Research Centre in Mental Health (CIBERSAM)

Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Barcelona 

Lecturer in the Department of Fundamental and Clinical Nursing at the University of Barcelona and member of the research group ‘Bioethics, Law and Society: Interdisciplinary analysis of ethical, legal and social issues of biomedicine, biotechnology and emerging technologies’

Professor at the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona. Principal Investigator IBUB and CIBEROBN.

Geologist and professor at the Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Barcelona

Gemma Marfany, Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona (UB) and a member of CIBERER, IBUB-IRSJD
 

Serra Húnter Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media of the University of Barcelona

Neuropathologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Barcelona

Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Barcelona, Director of the Fabra Observatory RACAB

Professor Emeritus of Ecology at the University of Barcelona

Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and coordinator of the Central Sensitisation Unit at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

Associate Professor, Brainlab, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona (UB)

UB Institute of Neurosciences

Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute 

Clinical psychologist in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at Clínic Hospitaland researcher at IDIBAPS, University of Barcelona

Researcher in the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology

Scientific coordinator of the National Health System Cancer Strategy, director of the Catalan Oncology Plan and Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Barcelona

Professor of financial economics and accounting at the University of Barcelona

Researcher in the Human Anatomy and Embryology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Barcelona

Ramón y Cajal Research Professor, Department of Pathology and Experimental Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

Head of the Research Department and the Technology Department at the Duchenne Parent Project, Spain, and holder of the Chair in Rare Diseases at the University of Barcelona

Physician at the Gynecological Oncology Unit at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, ​​scientific coordinator at the Clinical Institute of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Neonatology (ICGON) and associate professor at the University of Barcelona

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona. Principal Investigator IBUB and CIBEROBN.

Associate professor al University of Barcelona and member of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Institut of Neuroscience

Professor of Ecology at the University of Barcelona

Serra Húnter Lecturer in the Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology at the University of Barcelona and co-director of Research at the Jane Goodall Institute Spain and Senegal

Head of Medical Oncology at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), head of the Colorectal Cancer Research Group, Oncobell programme (IDIBELL) and associate professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona

 

ICREA research professor of Cosmology and Theoretical Physics at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona, visiting professor in the Astrophysics group at Imperial College London (United Kingdom), and researcher at the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology (ICIC)

Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Barcelona 

Theoretical physicist and ICREA professor at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona

Lecturer Serra Húnter, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona

Professor in the Department of Electronics and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Barcelona and group leader at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

Contents related to this centre
Nobel Medicina

The Karolinska Institute has awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their discoveries regarding light-activated ion channels and optogenetics. This method, which makes it possible to activate or deactivate individual neurons in a living brain, “is currently used in laboratories around the world to unravel the mysteries of the brain,” the institute announced. 

bacteria

In 2024, some 2.3 million new cases of cancer worldwide were linked to infections — 12 per cent of all cases diagnosed that year — according to a study published in the journal The Lancet Oncology. Almost all of these cases are linked to five pathogens: the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori, the human papillomavirus (HPV), the hepatitis B and C viruses, and the Epstein-Barr virus. Low- and middle-income countries account for 77 per cent of all infection-related cancer cases.

helicobacter pylori

Infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is a known risk factor for stomach cancer. Its link to colorectal cancer, however, remains an unconfirmed hypothesis. An international team has reviewed 43 studies on this subject and found that 22 per cent of colorectal cancer cases could potentially be linked to this infection, although when they selected the 14 most reliable studies, the figure fell to 12 per cent. According to the authors, exposure to Helicobacter pylori could be contributing significantly to the number of cases of colon cancer worldwide, but they point out that their study is only exploratory and that more robust research, such as clinical trials, is needed to establish a causal link. The results have been published in eGastroenterology.

EFE

Following the publication of the results of the PISA 2025 report, the question arises as to how to interpret them and explain the possible causes of the decline in reading and maths results, both internationally and in Spain. We have sought the views of experts in education, sociology, inequality, educational technology and pedagogy.

migrantes

Among the migrants who have been in Ceuta for several weeks, there are confirmed or suspected cases of tuberculosis, chickenpox, scabies and gastroenteritis. Specialists in public health, epidemiology and infectious diseases explain to SMC España the basic recommendations that must be followed when providing care for this population.

Microbioma

A team of researchers in South Korea has analysed the oral and faecal microbiomes of just over 507 volunteers and has concluded that, in patients with gastric and colorectal cancer, there is a greater transfer of microbes from the mouth to the gut. Furthermore, not only does this transfer differ between tumour types, but, according to their findings, an analysis based on oral samples is capable of detecting colorectal cancer with greater sensitivity than the standard faecal occult blood test. However, “before it can be used in practice, clinical trials would need to be carried out in real-world screening populations”, the authors explain. The study is published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

 

Duchenne

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a serious genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and atrophy, including of the heart. There is currently no cure, and it mainly affects boys and young men. A cell therapy called Deramiocel could slow down muscle weakness in children and young people with advanced-stage DMD, according to a phase III clinical trial published in The Lancet, the first of its kind. The study involved 106 children and young people aged between 10 and 22 with advanced DMD. According to the results, after one year, participants who received the drug lost mobility in their arms 54 per cent more slowly than those in the placebo group, although this did not result in a clear difference in the heart’s ability to pump blood.

hospital

In 2025, a six-year-old Chinese girl named Mei (not her real name) became the first person in the world to undergo gene-editing therapy targeting the brain. She had a developmental delay associated with a rare genetic syndrome, Snijders-Blok-Campeau syndrome. According to Science, her parents had raised $860,000 to partially fund the treatment at Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai (China), led by Zilong Qiu, one of the neuroscientists competing to apply base editors — a version of CRISPR — in children with rare diseases. Now, Science and Retraction Watch have exclusively revealed that Mei died from a severe immune reaction seven days after receiving the treatment, a story that had been kept hidden. The entry on clinicaltrials.gov has not been updated since 2025; and when Qiu and his team published animal studies related to the trial in the journal Nature in early 2026, according to the journalistic investigation, they omitted any reference to Mei and her family.

spucell

The team led by scientist Kate Adamala of the University of Minnesota has released the news—under an embargo—to several media outlets regarding the creation of a synthetic cell capable of feeding, growing, and replicating, which they have named Spudcell. Their work, which, according to Science News, was rejected by the journal Cell, is published on the team’s website, pending peer review.

migrantes

Society prefers immigrants who are women, young, highly educated and in skilled employment – even though there is greater demand in the labour market for low-skilled workers – according to a meta-analysis that brings together data on more than 140,000 people from 36 countries. Respondents also expressed a preference for immigrants who do not come from Muslim countries and who migrate to escape violent situations rather than for economic reasons, according to the article published in Science Advances.