Arechavala-Gomeza Lab

Over the last few weeks our group has moved to a new location within BioCruces Health Research Institute.
The new laboratories and office space are located at “Laboratorios de Investigación BioCruces 3”, where the old microbiology laboratories of the hospital used to be. After a total overhaul of the building, there are now two open plan floors of laboratory space and separated tissue culture, microscopy and flow citometry platforms. You may find us in this map or in the googlemaps link below:

https://www.google.es/maps/place/BioCruces+Health+Research+Institute/@43.283177,-2.9868697,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0xd4e5085ba69e087:0x37538dbad77d7143

We are looking for candidates to apply for funding together. A copy of the ad, in spanish, is below. If you are interested, contact us.

SE BUSCA CANDIDAT@ PREDOCTORAL EN EL GRUPO DE ENFERMEDADES NEUROMUSCULARES DEL IIS BIOCRUCES

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 muy alto).
Disponibilidad para viajar.
Capacidad para trabajar independientemente así como en equipo.

• Se valora:
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

Dr Arechavala-Gomeza has translated again into spanish the DMD research overview that is mantained in English by Dr Amenieke Aartsma-Rus.

You may find it at the TREAT-NMD webpage or here.

Dr Arechavala-Gomeza presented our poster “Quantifying dystrophin in cell culture: a method to accelerate preclinical assessment of DMD treatments” at the WMS meeting, held in Brighton, UK (http://wms2015.com/ 30 Sept-4 Oct).
If you could not make it to Brighton, a pdf our poster is in the poster section.

While in Brighton, preparations started for next year’s congress in Granada. See you all there!

Pictures by @_simoncallaghan

This is a very interesting short video on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), by www.worldduchenneawarenessday.org

It has been a year since we took part in the original ice bucket challenge to ask for donations for research in ALS. As there is plenty to do, we have done it again… Enjoy!

Next 7th of September is Duchenne Awareness Day and today we are leaving this space to www.worldduchenneday.org:

“One in 3,500 newborn boys in the world is affected by a rare and fatal disease: Duchenne muscular dystrophy. One in 3,500 might seem a drop in the Ocean of whole human race if we merely focus our attention on statistics. Moving from data to value, the value of life, we can discover that that ´drop´ forms a great sea made up of families, researchers, volunteers, clinicians, activists. All of them work day by day to guarantee access to care, to improve research, to educate patients and families. Education can turn a problem into a solution, pain into strength. This is why World Duchenne Awareness Day 2015 is has launched the Duchenne Balloon campaign focused on supporting education and awareness programs: a worldwide informed community is the key to a better future. No matter where you live or how old you are, you can be another drop in our ocean! Join and discover World Duchenne Awareness Day: All together we can build a more inclusive world where equal rights and opportunities are guaranteed, differences celebrated and a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy discovered. The World Duchenne Awareness Day got the Patronage of the European Parliament!”

Some months ago, a colleague recomended we checked out this song: a cover version of Frozen’s “Let it go” adapted to tissue culture lab work. It was  produced by high school student interns at the City of Hope in Duarte, California funded through a grant by California’s Stem Cell Agency (CIRM).

The video can be seen at California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s youtube channel.

We recently attended a stakeholder meeting hosted by the EMA and organised by COST Action BM1207 and SCOPE-DMD. It was a very interesting day and EMA has just uploaded all 16 recordings of the presentations of the day.
You may watch them at EMA’s youtube channel here or below. To select a particular video use the playlist icon at the bottom of the screen.

Dr Arechavala-Gomeza has been invited to participate in the symposium organised by ASEM Catalunya (Associació Catalana de Persones amb Malalties Neuromusculars) to discuss basic research in neuromuscular disorders. You may find the program here.