From 14th to 23rd November, Catalonia is celebrating its 19th Science Week. The CRG is taking part with several events and activities, contributing to raising the general public’s interest in science and technology, particularly amongst young people.

All our activities are addressed to students and schools and coordinated by the Communications department. The CRG researchers Juanjo Fraire, from the Biomechanics of Morphogenesis group, and Mariana López, from Sensory Systems and Behaviour, are being sent to two different schools. They will talk to the students about their respective research projects and career paths, and will chat to the students about their work and the “scientific lifestyle”.

In the framework of this Science Week, schools are organising special workshops. So, two hundred young people from all around Catalonia will also run experiments thanks to the CRG Electrophoresis kit. The students will receive all the equipment and reagents to carry out a hands-on experiment focused on detecting a mutation in a study of genetic predisposition to cancer.

Finally, 129 secondary school students will visit our institute, have a guided tour and attend three short scientific talks. This activity, entitled “Get close to biotechnology!” involves Linus Manubens, a member of the Cellular and Systems Neurobiology group, Cedrik Magis, from the Comparative Bioinformatics group, and Lisa Johnsen, from the Organelle Biogenesis and Homeostasis laboratory.

In one week more than 300 students will get up close and personal to biomedical science thanks to our outreach activity programme and, hopefully, will get to know our exiting world of research!