Back The Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory is awarded TECNIO certification

The Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory is awarded TECNIO certification

This is the fourth UPF group that currently bears this seal of quality, given to outstanding contributors to technology transfer in Catalonia.

07.07.2021

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The Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory (SynBio Lab) at UPF has been awarded TECNIO certification. This recognition from ACCIÓ, the Catalan government’s agency for business competitiveness, identifies and gives visibility to technology developers from the Catalan R&D&I system that demonstrate outstanding capacities and the competence to transfer these to the business sector.

SynBio Lab has become the first research group in the field of synthetic biology to bear the TECNIO seal. The group approaches biological systems engineering from two different areas of action: firstly, it develops technologies to modify the genome for therapeutic purposes; secondly, it transforms the genes of bacteria that live in human skin so that they perform functions such as acting as sensors or releasing treatments.

Today, UPF has four certified groups. Two belong to the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences: the SynBio Lab and BAPP (BioAnalysis, Proteomics and Pharmacology), a centre managed jointly by UPF and the Hospital del Mar Research Medical Institute (IMIM). The two remaining groups, the Barcelona Centre for New Medical Technologies (BCN MedTech) and Music Technology Group (MTG), form part of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies.

TECNIO certification offers research groups visibility to showcase their technologies and capacities in R&D to companies, ACCIÓ’s support to innovation and access to the Tecniospring funding programmes, INDUSTRY and INNOTEC. Certified groups can also act as providers of other grants such as the ACCIÓ Coupons for innovation, strategy and business competitiveness.

When awardings its seal, ACCIÓ looks for excellence in research and technology, actions that transfer these knowledge and skills to the productive sector, organisational and business strategies, such as the use of an internal quality management system, and also groups’ competence in tasks that promote their capacities and technologies.

 

Oriented towards transfer

SynBio Lab is “clearly oriented towards applied research and transfer,” according to its director, scientist Marc Güell. That is why he is so pleased with ACCIÓ’s recognition, which “certifies the quality of the laboratory’s work in interaction with the industrial sector,” he asserts.

“The certification will help us to become better known, establish new collaborations and take advantage of funding opportunities”

Güell hopes the TECNIO seal will be of great use in the future: “We are a relatively new research group, we have not yet had the time to interact with the whole ecosystem and certification will help us to become better known, establish new collaborations and take advantage of funding opportunities,” he explains.

The UPF researcher is convinced of the benefits of knowledge transfer from laboratories to the market: “There is still a long way to go in terms of the impact that biomedical research can have on society, and I believe that clearly applies to the field of genetic engineering, since the patient needs that are yet to be met are far greater than those that have already been resolved,” he affirms.

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