From 12 to 16 September, and under the framework of the project "PhasAGE: Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders", the Protein Folding and Conformational Diseases Group at the Institut de Biotecnologia i de Biomedicina (IBB) will be holding the first edition of the "Barcelona Protein Aggregation Training School". The meeting will provide some thirty young researchers with the chance to delve deeper into the field of protein aggregation, involved in many age-related diseases.
The Barcelona Protein Aggregation Training School forms part of the project entitled PhasAGE: Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders, an international network on molecular biology and age-related diseases created to increase competitiveness in different aspects of systems biology, bioinformatics and advanced biophysics with the aim of strengthening its research and innovation potential.
The objective of this training course is to offer specialised knowledge on fundamental aspects of protein aggregation. This process lies behind a growing number of diseases affecting humans, mainly those age-related such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, and represents a major bottleneck in commercialising protein-based therapies.
The course, which will be attended by 28 PhD students and PhD graduates from 8 different countries, will provide them with the basic concepts of protein aggregation and explore both in vitro and computational experimental research methods. Students will learn about aspects such as solubility and the screening of anti-aggregant molecules of particular therapeutic interest. Moreover, the programme also includes practical sessions with international researchers from PhasAGE and several industries.
The course is organised by the Protein Folding and Computational Diseases Group of the Institut de Biotecnologia i de Biomedicina, made up of Salvador Ventura (director), Susanna Navarro, Irantzu Pallarès, Javier Garcia-Pardo, Michal Burdukiewicz and Carlos Pintado.
The lecturing team is made up of Fabrizio Chiti (University of Florence), Xavier Fernández-Busquets (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia and Barcelona Centre for International Health Research), José María Valpuesta (Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology, CSIC), Rafael Giraldo (Spanish National Centre for Biotechnolog, CSIC), Ariadna Laguna (Vall d'Hebron Research Institute), Pedro Martins (University of Porto), Daniel Otzen (University of Aarhus) and Susanna Navarro, Irantzu Pallarès, Jordi Pujols, Carlos Pintado and Nerea Roher from the UAB.
