Eusja-studieresa till Barcelona 19–22 maj 2014

EUSJA with the help of the European network CommHERE (http://www.commhere.eu ) is organizing study trip to Barcelona (May 19 -22, 2014), the city, which hosts cutting-edge research facilities that join forces on many common projects to understand the complexity of life – from the genome to the cell to a whole organism, and the mechanisms that underlie genetic diseases. This study trip will take the journalists on a journey to explore these four complementary research institutions in Barcelona, one of the research hot spots in Europe:

The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG – http://pasteur.crg.es/portal/page/portal/Internet/ ) is one of the leading fundamental research institutions in Europe at the moment: researchers benefit from world-class facilities to dive more deeply into the mechanisms that regulate the genome, and how it influences human development, and human health.

In addition to the traditional tools used for genomic and cellular biology studies, research at CRG can also use the cutting-edge infrastructure of the neighbouring Institute of photonic Research (ICFO – http://www.icfo.eu/ ). There, innovative technologies allow them to visualise biological processes at unprecedented high resolution and precision.

However, both genomic research and imaging technologies produce increasingly immense amounts of electronic data that need to be processed, analysed, and stored. The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC – http://www.bsc.es/es ) is providing the research community with powerful computers and resources to help solve this challenge and avoid its limitations.

Can a good understanding of genomic and cellular biology help us live healthier? We certainly hope so, and scientists at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO – http://www.vhio.net/ ) are actively working to translate the latest knowledge gained in fundamental labs into more efficient treatments and diagnostic tools for their patients.

20 EUSJA journalists are invited. The participants have to take care of their travelling and the organizers will cover the accommodation for 3 nights (19, 20, 21 of May), the meal and transfers during the trip.
Applications must be sent via national delegate
mailto:kaianders.sempler@nyteknik.se
by April 7.

Preliminary programme

19 May 2014

Evening: Welcome reception at CRG and introduction lecture by Luis Serrano, Director general of CRG

20 May 2014

All-day: visit of CRG

– Visit of the Microscopy and of the Proteomics core facilities

– Visit of the labs and presentation of the 4DCellFate and of the SysteMTb projects

– Short lectures by several CRG researchers

– Science café with scientists from several institutions

Evening: guided tour of Barcelona and dinner in a tapas restaurant

21 May 2014

Morning: visit of BSC

– Presentation on high-performance computing and e-Sciences by Mateo Valero, Director of BSC

– Presentation on bioinformatics by Modesto Orozco, Director of the Life Science department at BSC

– Visit of the MareNostrum infrastructures

– Presentation and visit of projects on electronic and atomic protein modelling ( by Victor Guallart), computational genomics (Pancancer project), and on heart simulation (Alya Red project)

Afternoon: visit of ICFO

– General tour of ICFO, including the clean room and the biology lab

– Visit of the Super-resolution Light Microscopy & Nanoscopy Lab

– Presentation and visit of various labs, depending on availability – possible topics: advanced fluorescence imaging, medical optics, plasmo nano-optics, single-molecule biophotonics

Evening: dinner in a tapas restaurant

22 May 2014

Morning: visit of VHIO

The program of the visit at VHIO is still being developed: it will involve a general presentation of the institution as well as the visit of several labs and the presentation of the most important projects.

Noon: return to the hotel and end of the trip

Logistics

20 rooms are pre-booked at the Banys Oriental Hotel in Barcelona (http://www.hotelbanysorientals.com/en/ ).

Travelling to and from the airport will be reimbursed, based on the fare of the shuttle.

Travelling to and from CRG will be done by metro (tickets provided).

Travelling to the other institutions will be organised in private buses.