Javier Ramón Azcón

Since 2017, ICREA Professor Javier Ramon has been Junior Group Leader at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Barcelona, Spain. The group he is leading, ‘Biosensors for Bioengineering’ is focused on several lines of research with the common goal of integrating sensor technology and nanotechnology with tissue engineering. This integration of fully functional tissues with microscale biosensor technology allows the obtention of organs-on-a-chip (OOC). The group is currently formed of 16 members (4 post-docs, 6 PhD students, 2 specialized technicians, 3 master students and 1 visiting researcher) with multidisciplinary backgrounds ranging from Industrial Engineering to Biotechnology and Biology. One highlighted project is the ERC starting grant project “DAMOC”, the aim of this project is to overcome the existing limitations in the field of OOC with a revolutionary technological approach, that allows it to engineer tissues in a multi-organ-on-a-chip platform that mimic the physiological characteristics of in vivo tissues (e.g., contractibility and insulin secretion) to open new areas of research on human type 2 diabetes (T2D) and muscular dystrophy diseases. Another highlighted project is the project “TATAMI” funded by Fundación Bancaria "La Caixa" – CaixaHealth programme. In this project, the group is developing a platform to perform drug screening analysis in human engineered microtissues in close collaboration with Professor Ruben Artero from Instituto de Investigaciones Clínicas de Valencia (INCLIVA) and medical doctor Vilchez from Hospital de la Fe (Valencia). He is also collaborating in the framework of different projects with more clinic groups and hospitals, e.g. Hospital de Sant Pau (Barcelona), with the group of senior professor Isabel Illa Sendra they are developing human microtissues to study the myasthenia gravis neuromuscular rare disease. He has also stablished contacts with the industry to develop new technology with a high impact in the field of clinical diagnosis and drug development, specifically they are collaborating with Multiwave (Switzerland) and Oxford Instrument (United Kingdom). The idea of the project is to develop a new NMR sensing platform that will be integrated with OOC technology. In this project, he is also working with senior professor Anna Novials and Doctor Joan-Marc Servitja from Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) research institute that belongs to the Hospital Clinic (Barcelona).