Roger Gomis and Xavier Salvatella appointed ICREA Research Professors

Xavier Salvatella

Xavier Salvatella heads a group of nine people in the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, which forms part of the Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Programme. The research undertaken by Dr. Salvatella seeks, on the one hand, to develop methods to study protein flexibility by combining experimental data with molecular simulations, and, on the other, to understand how changes in the movements are associated with the molecular recognition between proteins, with the function of these molecules, and with the molecular basis of disease. With regard to the latter, the laboratory is carrying out several projects focused on a protein known as the androgen receptor, which is associated with Kennedy’s disease—a rare neurodegenerative disorder—and with prostate cancer.

Brief CV

Xavier Salvatella holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona and an MSc in the same discipline from the University of London. In 2003, he started a post-doctoral period at the University of Cambridge under Christopher Dobson, working on the dynamics and structural characterization of proteins. In 2008 he joined IRB Barcelona through a junior ICREA position to set up his current lab. He now holds an ICREA research professorship. Xavier Salvatella is also one of the group leaders of the Joint Biocomputational Programme between IRB Barcelona and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

Latest news from the laboratory:

• 6 June 2013
  ScienceGeist
  Salvatella: “IRB is a bit like Janelia Farm on the Barcelona's Diagonal Avenue”
• 26 March 2013
  Science news
  Proteins in detail

Roger Gomis

The scientist Roger Gomis heads the Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis Laboratory, which forms part of the Oncology Programme at IRB Barcelona. The research conducted by Dr. Gomis focuses on cancer metastasis, the last stage of 90% of lethal solid tumors, and therefore a serious public health concern and a field of considerable interest to the pharmaceutical sector. The groups studies the ways in which growth factors, signalling pathways and gene expression programmes control normal cell proliferation and the metastasis of cancer cells. Roger Gomis manages a group formed by nine people, including post-doctoral fellows, PhD students and lab technicians.

Brief CV

Roger Gomis was awarded a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2002 and then spent a 4-year post-doctoral period in Dr. Joan Massagué’s lab at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. There he studied the growth factor TGF-beta and its involvement in breast cancer metastasis. In 2007 he joined IRB Barcelona through a junior ICREA researcher position to head his present lab. At the end of 2011, as a result of his work, the third spin-off company of IRB Barcelona, Inbiomotion, was set up. This company is devoted to the development of a predictive test for metastases to bone. In mid-2012, Inbiomotion received 2M€ of investment from the capital risk enterprise Ysios Capital.

Latest news from the laboratory:

• 7 August 2013
  Onda Cero
  Cancer's sleeping cells
• 28 June 2012
  Institutional News
  Ysios Capital leads a two million euros investment in Inbiomotion