The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology has awarded three outstanding multidisciplinary projects within the BIST Community with grants to continue the projects they began developing through the Ignite Program’s first phase in 2017.

The winners of this second phase of the inaugural BIST Ignite Program contribute significantly to the scientific landscape: The design of an innovative retinal prosthesis, a new methodology to study and model the organization and functions of genes in the cell nucleus, and the characterization of new catalysts that allow separation of oxygen and hydrogen from water.

The CRG postdoctoral researcher at the Reprogramming and Regeneration laboratory, Marie Victorie Neguembor, is co-leading one of the awarded projects.

GenStorm (“An integrated approach to visualize and model the spatial conformation of genes at the nanoscale level”), led by Marie Victoire Neguembor (CRG) and Pablo Dans (IRB Barcelona) aims to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the functions of genes. By combining high resolution microscopy with molecular modeling of epigenomic data (that is, how environmental factors or age influence the activation and deactivation of genes without changing the DNA structure) researchers plan to reveal the three-dimensional structures that genes adopt in the cell nucleus. Through its multidisciplinary approach, which combines cell biology, nanoscopy, genomics, and molecular simulations, the project has laid the foundations of a new methodology to achieve a much deeper understanding of the spatial arrangement and function of genes.

More information about the BIST Ignite Programme second phase, can be read in the BIST press release available here.