IDIVAL, in collaboration with the Nursing Department of the Marques de Valdecilla University Hospital, has opened the 19^th Edition of the National Call for Research Projects “Nursing Valdecilla” a pioneering call in this field, which has acquired considerable prestige in our country, after 18 previous editions.

This call has the support of Caja Cantabria Foundation for its development, and is proposed as a call for a national scope whose specific objective and priority of this call is to encourage the participation of Nursing Professionals in the development of Research Projects.

This call presents two modalities: 

• Best project, prized with 5.000 €.
• Best Project to develop at Marques de Valdecilla University Hospital prized with 2.000 € 

Projects must have the following characteristics:

– The theme of the project should refer to the Nursing Practice in any of its aspects.

– Research projects must be original and unpublished, to be developed in our country.

– The maximum duration of the projects is 2 years. 

– The principal investigator of the project has not previously been in projects that have obtained competitive funding.

The aid granted may finance all or part of the project for which the grant is requested.

The deadline for applications is closed on June 30, 2017 at 24h.

More information on the following link: IDIVAL Funding

The Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM) opens the 5^th edition of Ideas Lab. This initiative aims to support the careers of young researchers by creating a forum for the presentation, discussion and critique of the work of scientists who are starting out in their career with the aim of promoting innovation, translational research and, especially, fostering collaborations between groups.

The 5^th edition of the Ideas Lab is about the topic: “Clinic and biomedical research” and is held in Santander at the Marques de Valdecilla University Hospital on the 1^st and 2^nd of June 2017. One of the most prestigious Spanish psychiatrists, Dr. Víctor Peralta from the Department of Mental Health Service in Pamplona and the Institute of Sanitary Research of Navarre will give the inaugural reading under the title “Research Challenges in Severe Mental Illness”. On behalf of Valdecilla, Benedict Crespo Facorro, head of the area of Psychiatry of CIBERSAM and Scientific Director of IDIVAL (pending appointment and Board of Trustees) will be the host.

The Ideas Lab asks the young researchers who are part of any CIBER, RETIC or research center to present their most relevant and creative scientific ideas, designed to solve any clinical or scientific problem.

Proposals will be presented on hypotheses and models, recruitment and samples, technology and therapeutic procedures or other scientific aspects elaborated by young researchers of CIBERSAM or jointly with young researchers of groups that do not belong to CIBERSAM. Proposals will also be presented from any research group which can be interested to applied on mental health research.

There will be more than 50 presentations and posters of basic and clinical fields involving young researchers from the best research units in the fields related to mental health in our country.

CIBERSAM is a research consortium promoted by the Institute of Health Carlos III whose main objective is to carry out research of excellence that results in the prevention of mental disorders and, therefore, in a better quality of life of the population as well as in better treatments for those who suffer some type of mental disorder.

Program

The Conference is organized by European University Cyprus, Erasmus University Rotterdam and IDIVAL and will address different topics related to Human Rights and Biomedicine:

– New reproductive technologies.

– Research in embryos and genetic editing. 

– Transplants. 

– Equality in access to health. 

The following speakers of international renown are expected to attend: 

– Christian Byk (member of the French Commission at UNESCO). 

– John Harris (Director of the Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester School of Law).

– George Serghides (Cypriot Judge at the European Court of Human Rights). 

– Rita Vassena (Scientific Director of the Eugin Infertility Clinic). 

For more information and submission of abstracts and registration (open deadline) please visit the official website of the event: http://nicosia-conference2.webnode.es/

Last session of the program of lectures Valdecilla Progress Reports 2016-2017 will take place on the 7th of May. The conference will be given by Juan Irure Ventura, 4^th year medical student in the Immunology Service of the HUMV. Graduated in Biochemistry by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Navarra (2009-2013). Author of six international publications, as well as more than 20 papers presented at national and international congresses.

The session will be about “Anti-DFS70 antibodies, a new biomarker that can discriminate ana-associated autoimmune rheumatic disease (AARD) from non- AARD patients. A cost-effectiveness study” and is briefly summarized below:

The presence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) is associated with a wide range of ANA-associated autoimmune rheumatic diseases (AARD). The most commonly method used for the detection of ANA is indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) on HEp-2 cells. This method is very sensitive but unspecific. As a consequence, ANA testing on HEp-2 substrates outside a proper clinical specialist framework may lead to inappropriate referrals to tertiary care specialists and, worst case inappropriate and potentially toxic therapy for the patient. Among ANA, isolated anti-DFS70 antibodies represent a potentially important biomarker that can be clinically used to discriminate AARD from non-AARD patients in ANA IIF positive individuals. Therefore, their presence may avoid unnecessary follow-up testing and referrals. The implementation of a new ANA workup algorithm allowing for the identification of anti-DFS70 antibodies is cost-effective through the reduction of both unnecessary follow-up testing and outpatient clinic visits generated by the clinical suspicion of a potential AARD.

This program of seminars is given by young researchers on the field of IDIVAL’s clinic and laboratories. Speakers will explain the scientific advances of their current research projects. With the idea of debating and networking, the main goal of these meetings, all the predoctoral contracts, Post-MIR Valdecilla López Albo researchers, Río Hortega and Inn-Val grants are invited to attend to these sessions as part of their training. 

The meeting will take place on the 7^th of June in lecture room 4-5, pavilion 16 of the HUMV (1st floor) and has a capacity of 30 people. The session will be given in English and will last around 30 minutes and follow by a debate.

Researchers who attend 80% of the meetings throughout the academic year will receive a certificate of assistance.

For any questions regarding Progress Reports sessions, please contact the department at gesval1@idival.org

This post-MIR contracts aim to promote the incorporation of excellent health professionals who have completed the period of specialized training in any Hospital of the National Health System, to the translational research activity and assistance innovation of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital. This call requires submitting a research project or assistance innovation.

According to the terms of the Call Wenceslao López Albo Post-MIR contract published on the IDIVAL website as part of the Valdecilla Biosanitary Program according to resolution on January 25, 2017, after evaluation by the Commission formed for that purpose and according to the same bases, the Management Direction of IDIVAL RESOLVES to the following specialists:

• Ruíz Guerrero, Luis Javier. 

PROYECTO DE INNOVACIÓN ASISTENCIAL PARA LA CREACIÓN DE UNA UNIDAD DE ENFERMEDADES CARDIOVASCULARES FAMILIARES (UECF); MIOCARDIOPATÍAS, AORTOPATIAS, CANALOPATÍAS, PREVENCIÓN DE MUERTE SÚBITA Y CARDIOPATÍAS EN EL DEPORTE.

Duración: 24 meses.   

• Velasques Rodriguez, Carlos Javier. 

NUEVOS MARCADORES PRONÓSTICOS EN GLIOMAS DE ALTO GRADO Y ESTUDIO DE FACTIBILIDAD PARA EL DESARROLLO DE UN PROGRAMA DE CIRUGÍA NEURO-ONCOLÓGICA AMBULATORIA EN EL HUMV. 

Duración: 24 meses.

• Sánchez Escamilla, Miriam.

INMUNOTERAPIA CONTRA NEOPLASIAS LINFOIDES MEDIANTE LINFOCITOS T CON UN RECEPTOR ANTIGÉNICO DE DISEÑO.
Duración: 24 meses.

Resolution

The Scientific Coffee is a Scientific dissemination talks to debate, listen and discuss ideas about Science. It is promoted and organized by the Institute of Physics of Cantabria with the collaboration of the CSIC, the FECYT and the Cultural Campus of the University of Cantabria.

This Friday, 26 May at 8.30pm at the Café de las Artes (C/ García Morato, 4), José Ramos Vivas, researcher at IDIVAL and head of the Cellular Microbiology Laboratory will give a talk about “We will die from infections, not Cancer”. 

Bacterias en un i-phone            Bacterias en una mano

This talk will be about the war that we are waging to control the increase of bacteria resistant to antibiotics; How they have been generated, and what we can do to solve this issue that is important for public health worldwide. The WHO has just published a list of the most resistant and dangerous bacteria for human health. To try to win this war, people need to be informed about the risks of inappropriate use of antibiotics, and of course, more research is needed to combat them, new drugs, etc.

Jose Ramos Vivas (Ourense, 1973) is a young microbiologist researcher (Miguel Servet II, ISCIII) at IDIVAL Research Institute and Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital (Santander, Spain) from February 2009. Doctor in Biology from the University of León in 2003 is the head of the Cellular Microbiology Laboratory (IDIVAL Research Institute, Clinical and Molecular Microbiology Group) and Associate Professor in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at University of Cantabria (Spain).

Member of scientific societies (SEIMC, SEM, ASM), his lab studies cellular and molecular mechanisms of host-pathogen (H-P) interactions, with particular focus on ESKAPE pathogens: Acinetobacter spp., Staphylococcus (MRSA), Enterobacter spp., Pseudomonas and Klebsiella. Research lines on H-P have been funded in competitive national calls or by pharmaceutical companies: Author of more than 60 scientific papers and book chapters with an active participation in national and international congresses. Hi has supervised more than 20 PhD students, Master students and other trainees.

Marqués de Valdecilla Research Institute (IDIVAL) and the Biomedicine and Biotechnology Institute of Cantabria (IBBTEC) opened a call for summer internships in their laboratories in April. 

The purpose of this call is to promote experimental training for university students from the biomedical and biotech fields. These internships allow students not only to apply the knowledge acquired in the university but also to know firsthand the daily work done in a laboratory.

These internships will be for 8 weeks in the months of July and August of 2017 in the research laboratories of IDIVAL or IBBTEC. Students selected by the evaluation committee will receive a €800 aid for the whole period.

The DEFINITIVE RESOLUTION of the selected candidates is as follows:

More information:

DEFINITIVE RESOLUTION 

Expediente 03/2017

Anuncio de licitación (Sello de tiempo)

Pliego de Condiciones Administrativas Particulares

Pliego de Prescripciones Técnicas Particulares

The Institute of Health Carlos III has funded the project “Induction of the conjugative transfer of plasmids in response to pheromones” in the call Strategic Health Action 2016, File Nº: PI 16/01535 with a budget of 74,415 €.This Project is led by Mª Victoria Francia Gil, researcher at IDIVAL Group Clinical and Molecular Microbiology.


Enterococcus faecalis is a remarkable cause of opportunistic infections in hospital patients in our environment. Clinical isolates of E. faecalis are notorious for encoding resistance to multiple antibiotics. These antibiotic resistances are acquired and frequently spread by conjugation through conjugative plasmids and transposons. A feature, apparently exclusive to Enterococcus, is the role played by peptide pheromones in the transfer of conjugative plasmids. These pheromones are synthesized and secreted by all strains of E. faecalis. Pheromone response plasmids are ubiquitous in E. faecalis (including clinical isolates) and can be transferred at frequencies approaching 100%. These plasmids also improve the transfer of other elements present in the same strain. All of this suggests its importance in the spread of antibiotic resistance. Pheromone response plasmids additionally encode virulence determinants like hemolysin and aggregation substance.

The main objective of this proposal focuses on the study of the induction of the pAD1 conjugative transfer in response to the specific pheromone. pAD1 has been found in 90% of the E. faecalis clinical isolates associated with hospital outbreaks. Specifically this proposal focuses on the analysis of the activation process carried out by TraE1. The transcription start sites on TraE1-regulated operons will be identified by RNA-seq. The TraE1 mechanism of action will also be analyzed. TraE1 three-dimensional structure will be determined. TraE1 essential residues will be identified by directed mutagenesis and functional analysis. Thus, a significant progress in understanding the regulation of conjugation in response to pheromones will be achieved, allowing the development of specific inhibitors to reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance in the hospital environment.