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By Biocat

The University of Barcelona (UB) Faculty of Medicine is home to the first combined gene and cell therapy lab in Catalonia, also called a cleanroom, at the new Research and Development Unit. During the inauguration, on 31 May, Rector Dídac Ramírez remarked that "this Unit will enable us to develop cell therapies for high-impact diseases". The facility is open to collaboration with research centers and hospitals with ties to the UB like August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (Idibaps), Hospital Clínic Barcelona, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Idibell) and the Josep Carreras Leukemia Foundation, as well as other centers in the Catalan healthcare system.

The facility occupies 300 square meters and has two cell culture rooms, a laboratory for preclinical research with stem cells, three good manufacturing practices (GMP) cell-production rooms and a room for cell and gene drugs. These rooms are characterized by their strict safety and aseptic conditions in order to avoid complications or infections in transplant patients.

Dr. Josep M. Canals: "The human and research potential is one of the program’s strengths and can make it a leader in Spain and one of the most important in Europe"

The Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness has contributed most of the funding for the facility, which cost nearly €1.5 millions, with additional contributions from the Carlos III Health Institute Cell Therapy Network and the HUBc campus of excellence.

The UB’s Cell Therapy Program (TCUB) has 24 teams involved in a total of 74 research projects in advanced therapies like gene and cell therapy and tissue engineering. TCUB Coordinator Dr. Josep Canals highlights that the aim is to make the center, which has applied for certification from the Spanish Agency of Medicines, "an international benchmark in cell therapy." To do this, it will be made available to companies that want to test new drugs in human cells or test toxicity. To start off, the facility will only be used for the new clinical trial on the AIDS vaccine being developed by Dr. Josep M. Gatell’s team (Hospital Clínic-Idibaps).

The most common applications for cell therapy are pathologies like diabetes, cancer and cardiac, infectious or neurological diseases like Parkinson or multiple sclerosis, but it can also be used for joint injuries, corneal ulcers or epithelial cells in serious burns. In all of these cases, cell therapy is based on the administration of modified cells to restore lost functions or tissue injuries and thus help cure the disease.

Last year in Barcelona, Biocat and the TCUB organized a workshop to analyze the current state and future perspectives of this emerging field of biomedicine, which brought together more than 100 scientists and professionals from the biomedical sector in Catalonia. Biocat later published the opinion article Challenges and risks of research in advanced therapies by Dr. Josep M. Canals, which we highly recommend.

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