A total of fifty people took part in the outreach visits organised by the Fundació La Marató de 3Cat in collaboration with the Southern Catalonia Biomedical Research Institute (IRBCatSud, by its Catalan acronym) with the aim of explaining some of the projects funded through this solidarity programme.
The Visits to Research, held on Tuesday 14 April at the IRB CatSud facilities at Hospital Universitari Sant Joan de Reus (HUSJR), helped bring current research projects closer to the public and showed how laboratory work is transformed into advances that improve people’s health.
The visits were led by research staff from IRB CatSud and Hospital Universitari Institut Pere Mata (HUIPM). They allowed participants to understand, in a visual and accessible way, how biomedical research progresses and what future challenges lie ahead.
During the tour, visitors explored several areas of the Institute, such as the construction site of the future Clinical Research Unit (CRU)—where advanced clinical trials will be carried out and innovative therapies will be made available to the population—as well as the cell culture room, research laboratories and the biobank, where human biological samples are processed for the research community. In these spaces, the work being carried out was explained, and participants were able to observe cells using a microscope.
The project presented during the visit was Inscription, led by Gerard Muntané from the Research Group in Genetics and Environment in Psychiatry (GAP). This project, which received funding from the 2021 edition of La Marató focused on mental health, proposes a new approach to improving the prediction of schizophrenia by integrating biological and clinical data from different levels. Through a multicentre study involving people at different stages of risk or disease development, the project aims to identify combinations of factors that allow for better prediction of its onset. The final goal is to move towards more personalised medicine, supporting early prevention and improving the treatment and management of schizophrenia.
These visits bring research closer to society, strengthen scientific culture and highlight the importance of solidarity in making these projects possible. Through initiatives like this, the Fundació La Marató de 3Cat and IRB CatSud reaffirm their commitment to transparent, open research that is aligned with the needs of the local community.
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