The aim of the 15th International Congress On Neuromuscular Disease is to present a wide spectrum of neuromuscular diseases from the perspectives of advances in research, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr Virginia Arechavala and Patricia Soblechero attended the Congress and presented our work on CRISPR/Cas gene editing for in Duchenne muscular dystrophy cultures to test new treatments for the disease and Myoblots for the evaluation of new treatments in neuromuscular disorders.
The 31st National Neuromuscular Disorders Congress was held last 24th and 25th of November in Granada.
Dr Arechavala-Gomeza gave a lecture on the basis of gene therapy, gene editing and RNA therapy that was streamed live and may be played again at Federación ASEM’s facebook page.
Tomorrow, 15th of November is Neuromuscular Diseases Day in Spain. We joined the campaign, joining hands with other researchers at Biocruces Health Research Institute, in support of research of neuromuscular diseases.
Our group is in the list of available hosts for the INPhINIT PhD fellowships program. Candidates can apply to the program and, if selected, apply to our project for a 3 year funded PhD. If you are interested in applying with us, please contact us.
INPhINIT fellows enjoy a 3-year contract under the Spanish labour legislation in force, respecting health and safety, and social security provisions in a stimulating research training environment, with access to appropriate equipment, facilities and opportunities.
In addition to the interdisciplinary training activities offered by the Research Centre, the INPhINIT programme sets up a comprehensive complementary skills training scheme, a mentoring scheme, networking and public engagement activities.
At the time of recruitment, candidates must comply with one of the following options:
To have completed the studies that lead to an official Spanish (or from another country of the European Higher Education Area) university degree awarding 300 ECTS credits, of which at least 60 ECTS credits must correspond to master level.
To have completed a degree in a non-Spanish university not adapted to the European Higher Education Area that gives access to doctoral studies. The verification of an equivalent level of studies to the ones mentioned above will be made by the university when the admission procedure starts.
Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the publication date of the final list of selected candidates (29 may 2018). Short stays such as holidays will not be taken into account when calculating the mobility requirement.
Candidates must have a demonstrable level of English (B2 or higher).
If you want to apply for an INPhINIT fellowship, contact us and click on the link below to create your personal account and fill in the on-line application form.
We are happy to announce that we have published our newly developed method to quantify dystrophin and other muscle proteins in cell culture. We expect that this may contribute a faster preclinical development of new treatments for neuromuscular disorders and you may read all about it in Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology.
“Myoblots: dystrophin quantification by in-cell western assay for a streamlined development of Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatments”. E. Ruiz-Del-Yerro, Garcia-Jimenez I, Arechavala-Gomeza V, Oct 2017 Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol
Dr. Arechavala took part in a Summer Course on rare diseases last summer and a recording to that seminar can be found here (video in spanish):
https://www.institutoroche.es/jornadas/69-las-enfermedades-raras-un-reto-global-para-el-sistema-sanitario/multimedia/259
We are looking for pre-doctoral candidates to apply for funding together. A copy of the ad, in spanish, is below. If you are interested, contact us.
Buscamos candidatos para optar a becas predoctorales de concurso público y realizar una tesis doctoral en el grupo de enfermedades neuromusculares del instituto de investigación sanitaria Biocruces.
El grupo de Enfermedades Neuromusculares centra su interés en la evaluación de nuevos compuestos terapéuticos para estas enfermedades, en particular la distrofia muscular de Duchenne. Actualmente está realizando proyectos para evaluar oligonucleótidos antisentido y técnicas de edición génica CRISPR/Cas. Para más información sobre el grupo, consultar: www.arechavala-lab.com.
Se requiere:
Licenciatura o grado en ciencias de la salud.
Expediente académico superior a 2.5 (escala 1-4) o superior a 8 en escala 1-10.
Estar cursando/haber cursado un Máster Universitario Oficial que le garantice el acceso a un programa de Doctorado en el curso 2016/2017.
Excelentes habilidades comunicativas y organizativas.
Manejo de programas informáticos (Excel, Word, Access, etc).
Idiomas: inglés hablado y escrito (nivel alto).
Disponibilidad para viajar.
Capacidad para trabajar independientemente así como en equipo.
Se valorará, aunque no sea necesario, experiencia en:
Conocimiento y experiencia en técnicas de Biología Molecular: extracción y purificación de DNA, RNA y proteínas, transformación y transfección, PCR.
Experiencia en cultivo celular.
Experiencia en PCR cuantitativo.
Experiencia en manejo de muestras biológicas.
Experiencia en técnicas de histología: procesamiento de tejidos, fijación e inclusión, tinciones histológicas básicas.
Experiencia en técnicas de inmunohistoquímica e inmunofluorescencia.
Experiencia en el uso de vectores virales.
Conocimiento del manejo de programas estadísticos
Idiomas: euskera hablado y escrito.
Contacto: virginia.arechavalagomeza@osakidetza.eus
Remember when we told you about a new manuscript we were working on? It was published last May in EMBO Molecular Medicine.
It is a review of the delivery hurdles that antisense oligonucleotides face before they can become a good therapeutic option.
You can read it here.
“Delivery is key: lessons learnt from developing splice-switching antisense therapies.” C. Godfrey, L. R Desviat, B. Smedsrød, F. Piétri-Rouxel, M. A. Denti, P. Disterer, S. Lorain, G. Nogales-Gadea, V. Sardone, R. Anwar, S. El Andaloussi, T. Lehto, B. Khoo, C. Brolin, W M.C.van Roon-Mom, A.Goyenvalle, A. Aartsma-Rus, V. Arechavala-Gomeza
DOI 10.15252/emmm.201607199 | Published online 13.03.2017
EMBO Molecular Medicine (2017) 9, 545-557
Another year, another #icebucketchallenge. It did not feel quite as cold, knowing about the recent research results that derived from the funding raised by the original challenge. Still, quite a lot to do, so there we go again.
As Dr Arechavala’s PhD was funded by the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) in the UK, she kindly requests that you consider a donation to either MNDA or FUNDELA, (the Spanish foundation for research in MND).
We participated in the latest edition of Neurogune, held this time in Bilbao and we had the opportunity to meet many neuroscientist working in the region. Lots of common goals and a very constructive meeting.
