Three ISGlobal Infectious Disease Research Groups Tapped to Join CIBER

Three ISGlobal research groups, led by Carlota Dobaño, Jordi Vila and Quim Gascón, have been selected to join the new infectious diseases area of the Biomedical Research Networking Centre (CIBER) consortium at the Carlos III Health Institute. The new area will join 11 existing areas at CIBER and will have an initial budget of nearly €4 million and 46 networked research groups. With its focus on infectious diseases, the new area will be tasked with “specifically addressing one of the most important fields of biomedical research”.

The provisional decision is a great success for the Barcelona-based institute, given that all three ISGlobal groups that applied to join the new CIBER area were selected for inclusion.

Money received through CIBER will be used to fund the groups’ main lines of research, which focus on global health, COVID-19 and other infections with pandemic potential, AIDS and opportunistic infections, and antimicrobial resistance and hospital-acquired infections.

These lines involve research in clinical, molecular and genetic epidemiology, the development of new diagnostic, monitoring and assessment methods, the development of new molecules, therapies and control methods, and studies and clinical trials, among other activities.

The new three ISGlobal CIBER groups add to three pre-existing, led by Jordi Sunyer, Cristina Villanueva and Clara Menéndez, in the areas of childhood and environment, non-communicable diseases and maternal, child and reproductive health.

The aim of CIBER, a public research consortium created as an initiative of the Carlos III Health Institute, is to “promote excellent research in biomedicine and health sciences carried out within the framework of the national health system and the science and technology system”.

The Carlos III Health Institute has also awarded grants to other ISGlobal projects: the health technology development project “New Gold (III) Complexes Against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria”, with Sara Soto as principal investigator, and the health research projects “Using the Exposome to Elucidate Cardiovascular-Risk-Promoting Factors in Urban Settings (EXPLICA)”, with Cathryn Tonne as principal investigator, “The Impact of Maternal-Foetal Steroid Metabolome Exposure on Infant Growth and Neurological Outcomes (IGRO)”, with Martine Vrijheid as principal investigator, and “Air Pollution, Gut Microbiota and Neurodevelopment in the First 24 Months of Life (ALTER Project)”, with Mireia Gascón as principal investigator.