Winners of the UB Board of Trustees and Bosch i Gimpera Foundation Prizes announced

The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December
The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December
(18/10/2010)

The awards panel of the University of Barcelona Board of Trustees has chosen the winners of the 6th José Manuel Blecua Prize, for the best article published in a major journal in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Ramon Margalef Prize, for the best article published in a major journal in the field of Experimental and Health Sciences. The winners have also been announced for the 3rd edition of prizes awarded jointly by the Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG), which include the Antoni Caparrós Prize for the best knowledge and technology transfer project and the Senén Vilaró Prize for company innovation. The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December.

The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December
The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December
18/10/2010

The awards panel of the University of Barcelona Board of Trustees has chosen the winners of the 6th José Manuel Blecua Prize, for the best article published in a major journal in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Ramon Margalef Prize, for the best article published in a major journal in the field of Experimental and Health Sciences. The winners have also been announced for the 3rd edition of prizes awarded jointly by the Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG), which include the Antoni Caparrós Prize for the best knowledge and technology transfer project and the Senén Vilaró Prize for company innovation. The prize-giving ceremony will be held in early December.

The José Manuel Blecua Prize was awarded to Dr. Álvaro Choi de Mendizábal for his article “Sequential educational expansion, equality, and growth in the Republic of Korea”, published in KEDI Journal of Educational Policy. The panel considered the paper to be of particular interest in its field, describing the study and simulation of education and its impact on the economic development of the Peopleʼs Republic of Korea. The paper represents exhaustive theoretical and empirical work, and the journal in which it was published is listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index.

 
The Ramon Margalef Prize went to Dr. Fàtima Crispí Brillas for the article “Fetal growth restriction results in remodeled and less efficient hearts in children”, published in the journal Circulation. The article describes a developmental anomaly in the hearts of underweight newborns (below the 10th percentile) and the impact on the cardiovascular system, potentially manifested in a series of side effects (obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc). The clinical and image analyses have proved to be highly accurate and promise to have an important impact on prevention in this area.
 
Winners of the prizes awarded by the Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation
 
The Antoni Caparrós Prize was awarded to the researchers behind the project “Formoterol: una nova estratègia terapèutica en el tractament de la caquèxia”, and the Senén Vilaró Prize was won by the company Intelligent Pharma, S.L.
 
In awarding the Antoni Caparrós Prize to the project of Sílvia Busquets, a lecturer with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the UB Faculty of Biology, the panel valued the status of Formoterol as the subject of an advanced phase-2 patient study and the continuity shown in the collaborative work and publication record of the project. The partner in this knowledge transfer initiative was a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge (UK), which develops products for treating the symptoms of cancer patients. The company, which obtained the patent license in June 2008, is now conducting a phase-2 clinical trial with patients from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh to verify the drugʼs anti-wasting effect in human cancer sufferers.
 
Intelligent Pharma, S.L. was selected as the winner of the Senén Vilaró Prize for company innovation. The firm was created in 2007 with the support of the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation and is based in the PCB-Santander Bioincubator. The company currently employs a team of 13 highly-qualified professionals and offers computing solutions to pharmaceutical and life science firms based on its proprietary Helios software. Intelligent Pharma, S.L. saw its turnover double in 2010 and opened its first international subsidiary at Technologiepark Heidelberg (Germany). A second subsidiary in Cambridge (UK) is planned for 2011, and a third office is scheduled to open in the United States.

In addition to considering the overall business results, the awards panel valued the companyʼs presence in the national and international markets and the strength of its team of entrepreneurs. The company has created a spin-off, SOM Biotech, also based in the PCB-Santander Bioincubator, which uses Intelligent Pharma technologies for drug repositioning in the pharmaceutical sector.
 
The prizes awarded jointly by the Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation are aimed at increasing the social returns of knowledge acquired through academic study and research, highlighting the value of knowledge and technology transfer and innovation projects, driving the creation of innovative knowledge-based companies, giving recognition to the capacity for innovation of these companies, and instilling a culture of entrepreneurial spirit in the university context.