CBB Lab FCTE – Page 5 – Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics Lab

A new period for the CBBL

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:38:33+00:00December 21, 2014|CBBL News, Group|

The computational biochemistry and biophysics laboratory was created at the UPF in 2003 and remained there until May 2012, when I moved to the UVic-UCC. After a couple of years of strong managerial work that diverted the main research efforts of the lab, it is now rebuilding with evolved lines of research within the framework of the Bioinformatics and Medical Statistics Research Group. To make the story short, the CBBL devotes more and more to collaborative work with experimentalists, and a number of projects dealing with computational structural biology are being undertaken by the lab members. See the publications page for more details.

On the other hand, the interest of the lab to develop its own tools when needed is more than alive, and the combination between methodological development and applied research is the driving force of our members.

Jordi Villà, nou vicerector de Recerca i de Personal Docent i Investigador de la UVic

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:38:41+00:00July 1, 2014|CBBL News, Group|

A la reunió plenària del Patronat de la Fundació Universitària Balmes, celebrada dijous passat a l’Atlàntida, entre moltes altres qüestions, es va aprovar el nou equip de Rectorat amb la incorporació del Dr. Jordi Villà com a nou vicerector de Recerca i també de de Personal Docent i Investigador.
Més informació: VilaWeb

Doctorats industrials, la triple hèlix en acció (#DoctoratsIndustrials)

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:38:50+00:00June 8, 2014|CBBL News, PhD, Technology transfer|

Diari ARA, 08/06/2014

La recerca bàsica, malgrat el sotrac de la crisi, ha experimentat al nostre país un avenç sense precedents en els darrers 15 anys, i ens ha situat com a pol d’atracció de talent reconegut internacionalment. En paral·lel, el teixit industrial català surt fortament tocat d’aquesta crisi, però per la seva capacitat de resistència i regeneració comença a donar signes de recuperació. Sortosament, són cada cop més els exemples de la integració de l’R+D+I al disseny i execució de processos productius, però encara som lluny d’exemples exitosos d’altres regions. Per obtenir les sinergies necessàries en aquest procés de reflotament, és imprescindible, doncs, un major diàleg entre els mons de la universitat i l’empresa.

És en aquest context que la Generalitat de Catalunya va llançar el 2012 una proposta engrescadora per incorporar talent a les empreses allà on han de reforçar el seu creixement. El Govern va identificar que la transferència de coneixement havia de donar pas a la concurrència d’interessos entre ambdós mons, i és en els recursos humans on aquesta col·laboració universitat-empresa s’accentua.

D’aquest esforç sorgeix el programa de doctorats industrials, en el qual la UVic-UCC té una participació molt activa. De la bona entesa en la triple hèlix empresa-administració-universitat n’estan sorgint propostes que impulsen nova riquesa basada en el coneixement i la seva aplicació que, sens dubte, ens ajudaran a superar aquests moments de depressió econòmica i anímica.

#CienciaSMW

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:38:59+00:00February 21, 2014|CBBL News, Conferences|

Jordi Villà-Freixa, invited speaker at the event on “Internet i les eines de social media en la comunicació de la ciència”, during the 2014 Social Media Week at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB).

In recent years the Internet and social networks have rapidly become part of many aspects of our daily lives. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube… make it easier to stay in touch with family and friends, join conversations of interest online and have access to more audiovisual material than there are hours in the day to watch’ l! Its ability to quickly spread and amplify content and to do so in an informal environment means that the Internet and social networks have become powerful tools to use in a professional context and also to attract and involve people in different causes.

The Web is today the great platform for researching scientific information, both specialized and dissemination. However, most scientists are yet to use these platforms to communicate their research. In this sense, science communicators can also make great use of it, beyond the online portals of the media where they work or the blogs where they publish their articles. It is in recent years that Facebook and Twitter have begun to be used as tools for the promotion and dissemination of their work or scientific information of general interest.

How to communicate science to society through the Internet and which ways to use to take advantage of the full potential of the Web remains a field that needs to be explored and exploited with more knowledge and tools.

This is why the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya has organized a conference as part of Social Media Week Barcelona (#SMWBCN). Coinciding with the commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the events of 1714, this day is included in the Tricentenary programme. The commemoration, launched by the Generalitat de Catalunya under the slogan “Érem.Som.Serem”, wants to transcend the historical perspective and is presented as an opportunity to share spaces for reflection and dialogue that allow us to jointly rethink a future project.

The conference brought together experts from companies such as Google, Yahoo and the BBC as well as working scientists, journalists specializing in science, university and research center communications managers to discuss the following issues:

How can you create attractive, potentially viral content on the Internet?
What are the formats with the most possibilities for disseminating science on the Web? it is everything invented on the internet or is there still room for innovation? What are the future trends?
What possibilities do Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… offer to communicate science? How can you get the most out of it to build a name on the Internet?
How can a platform like Facebook help create and position a brand a Internet? How can it benefit a research center to disseminate its work and obtain funding for future projects?

PROGRAM

SMWBCN2014.key

Participació en la conferència sobre ‘cloud’ i ciència, organitzada per Mind the Byte

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:39:07+00:00June 13, 2013|CBBL News, Conferences|

Mind the Byte ha organitzat la primera Scientific Cloud Anual Conference (SciCloud) a Barcelona. La conferència SciCloud, que es farà anualment, reunirà experts de diferents àrees de serveis al núvol i la ciència per descobrir i intercanviar idees i avenços en aquest camp.

L’ús de tècniques computacionals és clau per optimitzar i accelerar els projectes d’R+D+I, especialment, el desenvolupament de fàrmacs. Sovint, però, suposa una forta inversió i manteniment que no són assumibles per a pimes i grups de recerca. El núvol com a infraestructura i el SaaS (Software as a Service) com a solució de programari de pagament per ús ajuden a racionalitzar aquestes tècniques computacionals a les necessitats de cada moment sense haver de comprar servidors ni infraestructura TI.

La sessió inaugural va anar a càrrec de la Dra. Montserrat Vendrell, directora general de Biocat, i el Dr. Jesús Purroy, director Científic del Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB). També hi han participat com a ponents el Dr. Jordi Villà-Freixa, director de l’Escola Politècnica de la Universitat de Vic; Hakan Gurel, Solution architect d’Amazon Web Services; el Dr. Alfons Nonell-Canals, director general de Mind the Byte, i Oscar Huertas, director de Tecnologia de SOM Biotech.

Més informació a la web de Biocat.

New model for CFTR

By Jordi Villà i Freixa|2026-09-01T09:39:12+00:00July 5, 2012|CBBL News, Publications|

The CBBL has completed part of the work of a three years long project on translational bioinformatics in cystic fibrosis (Activa). Our main role in the project was the determination of a model structure for CFTR, the chloride channel whose mutations are in the basis of the disease, as well as being a target for acute watery diarrhea drugs.

The new model, built in collaboration with Nir Ben-Tal’s lab at Tel Aviv University, proposes an open conformation of the channel, oposite to previous models, paving the way for the development of new drugs for both activation and blocking of the channel.

Janusz Bujnicki at the PRBB

By Dani|2026-09-01T09:39:18+00:00March 13, 2012|CBBL News, Group, Research|

Next Monday March 19 we will host the visit of Dr. Janusz Bujnicki , from the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland.
The conference is included in the PRBB/CRG series of conferences and is open to everybody in the PRBB interested in the subject. It will be at 12:00 in the seminar room Marie Curie on the ground floor.

Seminar Title: “New methods for Structural Bioinformatics of RNA and RNPs”
Host: Jordi Villà i Freixa, Research Group on Biomedical Informatics ( GRIB) IMIM-UPF

X Barril – UB – Structure-based drug design: Towards accurate predictions of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters

By Dani|2026-09-01T09:39:29+00:00February 28, 2012|CBBL News, Scientific outreach|

Xavier Barril is visiting the PRBB this friday to give a seminar on the title topic.

Here it comes a short abstract of the talk:

The combination of increased availability of structural information, major boosts in computational power and methodological developments is
taking structure-based drug discovery to a higher level. I will present the main research lines of the group, focussing on the development of a new type of docking scoring functions and the elucidation of structure-kinetics relationships. Together with new experimental methods, these type of tools will enable the discovery of drugs with more diverse and effective mechanisms of action.