News
30.04.2025
Seven new equipments to support research
Within the Call for Aid for the Acquisition of Scientific-Technical Equipment, the Ministry of Science and Innovation has granted the University of Barcelona a subsidy of 2.5 million euros. Seven of the projects that will receive this funding will be managed by the CCiTUB.
The Bellvitge Campus Biology Laboratory will be strengthened with the purchase of a spectral cell sorter with imaging that will improve research in areas such as immunology, transplants, oncology, or drug development. The lack of similar equipment in a strategic environment, such as that of the Bellvitge Hospital, highlights the importance and uniqueness of this acquisition.
For its part, the Diagonal Campus will strengthen the area of Elemental and Molecular Chemistry through the Molecular and Isotopic Elemental Characterization Unit. The gas chromatography-mass spectrometry laboratory, with a GC/MS system with a triple quadrupole analyzer (GC/MS2(TQ)), will contribute to One Health knowledge, enabling advances in studies on chemical contaminants to which we are exposed, their properties, and interactions with biological systems, essential for achieving sustainable development. Additionally, the isotopic analysis laboratory will be strengthened with a multi-elemental analysis system (NCHSO) coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (EA-IRMS), which will allow opening new frontier research lines in the environmental field, such as studies on the eutrophication of surface waters and the relationship between the biogeochemical cycles of N and P. The system will also contribute to advances in studies in other fields of biology and food science, with the development of new isotopic analysis methodologies for S and H that are scarcely available at the national and international level.
Also at the Diagonal Campus, the Resonance and Magnetism Unit will be strengthened with two new pieces of equipment. The NMR laboratory will have an NMR system for online reaction monitoring, an essential system for flow chemistry, an emerging area of chemistry that requires systems capable of monitoring, identifying, and quantifying in real-time the different molecular species present in a reaction. Furthermore, it will allow the development of automatic reaction optimization systems, especially necessary for designing the translation of chemical systems to an industrial scale. The Magnetic Measurements Laboratory of the same Unit will incorporate unique equipment in Spain, a physical property measurement system (PPMS) with a dilution refrigerator. This new equipment will complement the recently acquired pulsed EPR spectrometer by the CCiTUB (EQC 2021). The uniqueness of both pieces of equipment will make the CCiTUB a reference center in the study of the magnetic and electrical properties of new materials with applications in spintronics, quantum technologies, biomedicine, environment, ecological transition, or food health, among others.
The Proteomics Laboratory of the Biomolecular Analysis Unit of the CCiTUB will incorporate a high-performance mass spectrometry system for in-depth detection of the proteome (proteins) of different species of interest. It will be complementary to equipment already available for studying the distribution of molecules within tissues (MALDI-IMAGING) and can be very relevant in studies of neurodegenerative diseases, nephritis, cancer, etc.
On the other hand, also at the Diagonal Campus, the Molecular Spectroscopy Laboratory will renew the current Infrared Micro-spectroscopy System to improve the analysis and characterization of micrometric samples and, automatically, will allow obtaining chemical maps overlapped with their visible image in sample sections in a shorter analysis time. This improvement will allow serving and going further for the scientific community, public sector, and private sector, in current and new research lines in study, from the field of environmental research, chemistry, biosciences, medicine, passing through materials science, artistic and cultural heritage, archaeology, among others.
The capabilities provided by these pieces of equipment, some of which are unique in Catalonia and Spain, combined with those of the large singular equipment installed recently at the CCiTUB, will enable the center to have the necessary infrastructure to conduct more targeted, optimized studies with more comprehensive results. Additionally, like the rest of the CCiTUB equipment, these will be integrated into the ISO 9001:2015 quality management system to ensure the reliability and traceability of the results and offer the best possible service.