CRG Barcelona - Technology and Business Development Office (TBDO)

🎉 Happy 20th Birthday to Addgene – Founded in 2004 by Melina Fan and colleagues, Addgene provides a global platform for researchers to access and share plasmids—critical tools in biology research. Since its inception, Addgene has grown into a library of over 147,000 plasmids, shipping more than 2 million samples to scientists in 111 countries. Its impact is far-reaching, enabling breakthroughs in fields such as CRISPR gene editing, cancer therapies, and COVID-19 research.🧬 The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) has been a key contributor to the Addgene community. Through our office, CRG actively shares its innovations, depositing plasmids and receiving requests from third parties. Notably, CRG gives more than it receives, with 752 requests and 107 deposits to date. Addgene has redistributed 1,028 CRG plasmids to other labs, amplifying CRG’s impact.🧪 This exemplifies CRG’s commitment to advancing technology transfer and supporting the global scientific community. Thank you Addgene! Here’s to a further 20 years impact! 🔬 #Addgene  #Research #TechTransfer #CRG 

🌟 Internship Highlights at the CRG's TBDO 🌟 Last month, Farwa Batool, completed her Masters´ in Health and Science Management at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) - Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca. As part of this Masters´, Farwa completed an internship with the CRG Barcelona - Technology and Business Development Office (TBDO) where she worked on royalty distribution management: the processes by which we distribute royalites - obtained from licensing intellectual property - to inventors at the CRG. This internship gave Farwa real, hands-on experience in the world of innovation management and intellectual property commercialization. We asked Farwa to share her top 3 learnings from the experience and this is what she said: 🔑 Gained hands-on experience in royalty distribution management, working with Information Management Systems and understanding legal frameworks. 💡 Engaged in discussions on invention disclosure, supporting inventors and research institutions in bringing their innovations to market. 🤝 Developed key skills in effective communication between researchers and business professionals, aligning scientific insights with commercial strategies. "This internship has been an invaluable learning opportunity, providing practical skills in #technologytransfer and highlighting the critical role of IP management in driving innovation. For anyone interested on embarking on a technology transfer journey in Barcelona, I recommend getting in touch with the TBDO at CRG!" Here is Farwa, enjoying a meal out with her colleagues. Best of luck for the future, Farwa!!! #internship #innovationmanagement #intellectualproperty #technologytransfer #CRG #royalties

#IndustryatCRG | Last month we had the pleasure to host various Spain-, US- and UK-based delegates of AstraZeneca at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), taking advantage of their attendance at ESMO 2024, here in Barcelona, to present various lines of research in #tumour biology, early-stage #drugdevelopment and #personalizedmedicine being conducted in our institute to help in the fight against #cancer. The CRG is producing truly excellent science in this space, and we are excited to continue discussions with AZ and to build projects that can have a benefit to patients suffering with cancer. A big thank you to Sara Sdelci, Lars Velten, Fatima Gebauer and Luciano Di Croce for the great representation of the CRG and thank you to Asaf Rotem, Maurizio S., César Velasco Muñoz, Margarete Fabre and Fernando Calero Nieto for your attention and engaged discussion with our scientists. Thanks to Viia Valge-Archer, for the coordination on the AZ side and for making this happen! We look forward to the future and we hope you had a productive ESMO! #CRG #AstraZeneca #oncology #pharma #drugdiscovery #IndustryatCRG

#IndustryatCRG | Recently, we had the pleasure to host ONO PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD. Discovery Research Alliances team to the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), where our scientists introduced the great work they are doing in probing fundamental biological mechanisms and how this knowledge can be used for clinical and drug discovery applications. Thank you to our Group Leaders for the great presentations which showcased the platforms and knowledge that the CRG has to offer in development of new therapies within oncology and beyond. This team of Ono is responsible for building research partnerships with biotech and academia throughout Europe in cancer, CNS, immunology and speciality disease areas, where they already have many established. The CRG looks forward to continuing discussions with a company that values collaboration and we are excited for the further discussions to come! Thank you for the visit Jun Kida, Satonori Higuchi and Ryohei Miyata. #CRG #Ono #pharma #drugdiscovery #publicprivatepartnerships #IndustryatCRG

#CRGEW2024 | 💊 Into the Clinical Path 💊 Yesterday, we heard from Héctor Pérez Montoyo, COO of Ability Pharmaceuticals, SA, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies to harness autophagy for the selective targeting of cancers such as endometrial and pancreatic. Hector described the journey of their clinical candidate molecule, ABTL0812, and the hurdles faced in translating a preclinical candidate drug molecule into the clinical path. Here are some key takeaways from Hector’s talk: 💰 Varied funding sources: A biotech startup/scale-up can fund it’s work through many revenue streams, not just VC investments, but through crowdfunding and public grants. ☎ Relationships with regulatory agencies: Hector described that the relationship with regulatory agencies should be viewed as collaborative and, in their experience, the dialogue with the FDA/EMA has been open where they are eager to guide. It does not have to be a formal submission of a regulatory dossier, but a constant conversation! 🤝 Collaboration is key: as you move from the preclinical to clinical stages funding demands increase and as well as demands on the evidence you must produce, not to mention considerations around CMC. Hector stressed that working with experts and building a good network is key to pushing a biotech drug discovery project forward. Thank you, Hector, for sharing your experiences moving into the clinical path. #CRGEW2024 #CRGBBS2024 #entrepeneurship #IntoTheClinicalPath

Tuesday saw the second seminar of the #CRGEW2024 where we had the opportunity to hear from Marina Rigau, CEO and co-founder of MiMARK Diagnostics. Marina shared her entrepreneurial journey from the lab to biotech arena emphasizing the importance of building a multidisciplinary and unified team to navigate entrepreneurial uncertainties. Marina and the audience engaged on an active discussion about fundraising strategy and learnings, management skills and the importance of building a robust company portfolio. Thank you Marina for sharing with us #CRGEW2024 #CRGBBS2024 #entrepeneurship #MeettheEntrepeneur

👨🔬 Yesterday’s #CRGEW2024 keynote session was a fantastic opportunity to hear from Miquel Vila-Perello, CEO of SpliceBio, a cutting-edge biotech company revolutionizing gene therapies through protein splicing. Miquel shared insights into his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of a strong patent portfolio, addressing real unmet needs while creating value, and attracting top and highly committed talent. SpliceBio's focus on using inteins to overcome unmet needs in AAV-gene therapies, with a particular focus on ophthalmology and CNS indications, was emphasised by Miquel as an important success factor for the company. Excited to see the future impact of their work and thank you again Miquel! #CRGEW2024 #CRGBBS2024 #entrepeneurship #ScientistsJourney

Michael Potter, PhD from our office will be representing Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), an affiliate institute of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, will be attending #MilnerSymp24. We are looking forward to a great day connecting with the Milner community and discussing synergies! See you all there!

#CRGEW2024 | Today kicks off the CRG Entrepreneurship Week 2024, an annual event organised by the CRG Barcelona - Technology and Business Development Office (TBDO) that brings together budding entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and seasoned professionals to foster #innovation and #entrepreneurship. During the week, the community at CRG will hear from fantastic speakers such as Miquel Vila-Perello, CEO of SpliceBio, Marina Rigau, CEO of MiMARK, Daniel Oliver, Partner at Capital Cell and Héctor Pérez Montoyo, COO at Ability Pharmaceuticals, SA who are going to delve into their experiences at the intersection of science and business. #CRGEW2024 also means we also have the Biobusiness school #CRGBBS2024 taking place; a highly interactive, activity-driven workshop that takes scientists through a concentrated entrepreneurial immersion experience, delivered by Simon Gifford of Mashuari. Participants will work in teams to take initial problems and convert them into business ideas learning concepts the key concepts of #entrepeneurship along the way. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner later this week! Entrepreneurship week promises to be an exciting and informative experience for the CRG community where new connections will be made and new insights gained. #CRGEW2024 #CRGBBS2024 #entrepeneurship

🖐 Meet the CRG Researcher – Noelia Ferruz Noelia Ferruz, Group Leader of the AI for Protein Design Group, and her team at the CRG are developing computational and experimental approaches to understand and design protein functions in a range of protein classes. Their lab uses methodologies, such as #languagemodelling, to #designproteins, such as enzymes, which they then experimentally validate to refine and train their models. Language models trained on protein sequences have shown remarkable capabilities at generating proteins with nature-like properties and more recently, they have been adept at generating enzymes tailored for user-defined catalytic reactions, a primary research line being pursued by Noelia. 🔦 Technology Spotlight Noelia and her collaborators recently developed #ZymCTRL (“enzyme control”) a model that uses a GPT2-like architecture to design enzymes with specific functions that works by generating a sequence based upon a user-defined catalytic activity prompt. This was developed in collaboration with Basecamp Research and is the world’s first open-source, text-based enzyme generation model. A user may design an enzyme simply by inputting a code for desired activity, much in a similar way to Chat-GPT. You can read more in in this PR Newswire article: https://lnkd.in/dgZ8NX53 Noelia’s work can be applied to various areas of protein design such as the: -         Design of biologics, such as antibodies, for the treatment of disease. -         Design of enzymes for industrial and environmental applications. Please reach out if you want to learn more or wish to connect with Noelia! #AI #proteindesign #enzymedesign #programmablebiology