Over one hundred professionals participate in the UAB conference on challenges facing university hospitals

The activity, with nearly 120 people registered, was organised with the aim of creating a space for the exchange of knowledge, challenges and shared objectives to enhance scientific and healthcare impacts. The event was promoted by the UAB and the hospital research institutes: Parc Taulí Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT), Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute (IGTP), and the Sant Pau Research Institute (IR Sant Pau), with the support of the UAB Vice-Rectorate for Transfer, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship Rosa María Sebastián welcomed the attendees, reminding them that this is an initiative “that has been running for more than a year now”. According to the vice-rector, “we must take advantage of all the potential of hospitals to work together. The UAB is multidisciplinary, and a conference like today's is a boost to generate opportunities for innovation. Hospitals need the university and the university needs hospitals".

Rector Javier Lafuente emphasised that we are “at a good moment. We have a level of multidisciplinarity that will allow us to go very far. The conference is a turning point to connect and work as a macro-organism, taking advantage of all the resources to respond to the challenges of society.

Lluís Blanch, former director of the I3PT, encouraged the strengthening of links between institutions to develop joint projects with scientific and social impact. He also introduced the speaker of the inaugural conference, Alfonso Valencia, ICREA researcher and director of the National Institute of Bioinformatics (INB-ISCIII). Valencia, an international leader in bioinformatics and data science, heads the Department of Life Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC). During his presentation, he explained the BSC's Digital Twins project, aimed at generating digital twins to shape cities, the planet Earth, mechanics, quantum computing and human beings. In this last area, Valencia explained how software has been developed to generate digital twins from parts of a complex biological system, the difficulties in carrying out the project with international patient data, and how AI is being applied to carry it out. “The only great success of AI has been in the field of proteins, with results seen in the entire biotechnology industry,” remarked Valencia, ”20% of the drugs approved in the past year have a substantial computational part.”

Following the speeches, professionals from the UAB and participating institutes presented several research challenges. Researcher Eric Voltà, from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the UAB, presented a work on recombinant proteins for sustained drug release. Jordi Pujols, also from IBB, explained the NANOBLOCK project, a biotechnology platform for the detection and treatment of infectious pathogens. The technology aims to be a multifunctional molecular tool: a protein that self-assembles into a multifunctional ring that can be modified to have different functions, “very homogeneous, stable, safe and patentable,” Pujols summarised.

On behalf of IR Sant Pau, Victor Najas, speech therapist at the Hospital de Sant Pau, presented the research on the detection of oral fragility, a deterioration of physical skills such as chewing, salivation and swallowing. “It is a fragility that can also cause problems from the neck down, but there is no diagnostic tool,” said Najas. He continued to explain: "we propose to generate the first tool and the first digital solution for the diagnosis of oral fragility".

Next, Arantxa Mas, director of the Intensive Care Medicine Department at the Hospital de Sant Pau, spoke of the continuous recording of the respiratory pattern in spontaneous breathing to obtain data of clinical value. “Respiratory failure is the cause of 10% of hospital admissions, 10,000 people die each year in Catalonia due to this type of failure,” explained Mas. Knowing the respiratory frequency and the way of breathing are very important tools, but it is not usual to monitor them outside the ICUs. “We have introduced a sensor in the usual Ventouri masks to measure these parameters and it has provided us with a lot of information. Now we need a lighter and easier-to-use system and an instant intuitive analysis,” Arantxa Mas posed as a challenge.

Next, Antoni Artigas, researcher in the translational research group on the critically ill patient at I3PT, presented the challenge of proposing new personalised treatments and diagnostic techniques for sepsis and acute respiratory failure, with more than 50 million patients worldwide. “The WHO has recommended that governments invest in the search for new treatments and diagnostic methods,” said Artigas. Research is focused on “early detection and cell therapy without cells, with vesicles that encapsulate the therapeutic agents. Now we need to analyse the application characteristics of these vesicles".

The director of the Centre for Genomic Medicine of Parc Taulí, Víctor M. Martínez González, spoke about the detection of somatic mosaicism in routine diagnosis and hidden variants in undiagnosed patients. He focused on “somatic mosaicism that occurs in early stages of embryonic development”. The challenge is to develop a methodology to detect this type of mosaicism in routine diagnostics, with mutations that are not present in all cells of the body.

Representing the activity of the VHIR, Rafael Navajo, director of Innovation and Technological Transformation of the institute, spoke about the valorisation of assets in the pre-seed, seed and spin-off phases. “From the time a project starts until it reaches the market there is a very long way to go, business opportunities, regulatory processes, etc. must be identified,” explains Navajo. “If in the final stages of development and transfer we cannot evaluate the value of the scientific-technological asset properly, we will not have sufficient return,” he added.

Anna Santamaria, director of Internal Strategy, presented the challenges of research into the impact of environmental pollution on mental health in urban communities. For Santamaria, “pollution is linked to mental illness, and we will study the mechanisms behind these relationships to create healthier environments”.

As for the IGTP, Josep Manyé, from the Liver and Digestive Diseases Research Group, spoke about digestive health and, more specifically, the use of extracellular vesicles as a therapy for immune-mediated diseases. “We focus on inflammatory bowel diseases: ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. They are genetically based, but the intestinal macrobiota is involved,” emphasised Manyé. “We have focused on developing a new therapeutic strategy based on stem cells. We have managed to reduce inflammation by up to 200 times and with a long-lasting anti-inflammatory effect”. Now, the challenge they face is “to get the therapies to the patient, optimise the release matrix and apply the strategy to other diseases”.

Finally, Marc Jante, researcher from the Nurecare-IGTP research group, presented the UPPLong project, in the field of community health, to facilitate value-based care in the management of pressure ulcers. The problem affects one in every 10 in-patients worldwide. “UPPLong is a device that uses imaging, thermography and ultrasound to analyse the characteristics of the lesion,” explains Jante, ”the goal is to integrate machine learning to have a predictive algorithm with the ability to offer specific treatment to each patient.”

Vice-Rector Rosa María Sebastián closed the event and encouraged the attendees to share their challenges in order to promote new collaborations.