The DCEXS 

The Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) was founded in 1998 by the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), a young, public and modern university born in 1990 and called to become one of the leading European universities. Within this framework, the great challenge of the DCEXS has been to successfully develop a project where research and teaching are firmly integrated. Together with the UPF’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, the DCEXS is responsible for three undergraduate degrees: Human Biology (since 1998), Medicine (2008), Biomedical Engineering (2011) and Bioinformatics (2016). The Department also runs Master’s degrees in the fields of biomedicine, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, clinical laboratory sciences, and public health, and PhD Programme in Biomedicine fully taught in English and recognised by independent agencies. Scientific research is perceived by the students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, as an essential tool in their studies.

The DCEXS is strategically located within the Barcelona’s Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), a large scientific infrastructure that gathers together several public research centres and is physically connected to Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, thus being one of the largest hubs of biomedical research in southern Europe.

This close contact has allowed DCEXS to establish strategic alliances with surrounding research institutes affiliated to the UPF such as the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGLOBAL), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) or the Hospital del Mar - Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and now the EMBL-Barcelona. Outside the PRBB, the DCEXS has established an alliance with the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST, which integrates top research centres of Barcelona) for coordinating a joint pioneering Master’s degree in Multidisciplinary Research in Experimental Sciences. Over the last few years, the DCEXS has achieved a remarkable presence in different research fields and growing research output and impact.

DCEXS researchers have published 325 research articles in 2019 and 2020, 89 % of which in journals that fall in the first quartile, and 69 % in the first decile. Remarkably, DCEXS obtained its second María de Maeztu award in 2018 (“Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu”, funded by the MINECO, reference CEX2018-000792-M) which has allowed the continuation of the DCEXS strategic research programme, which aims at promoting the department’s output including scientific exploratory and technology transfer projects and training, outreach, and gender balance activities.

Regarding participation in international projects, some highlights are the H2020 projects “COMPBIOMED2: A Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine” awarded to Gianni de Fabritiis in 2019; and in 2020, “PAINFACT: Molecular Mechanisms Associating Chronic Pain with Fatigue, Affective Disorders, Cardiovascular Disease and Total Comorbidity” and “QSPAINRELIEFE: Effective combinational treatment of chronic pain in individual patients by an innovative quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) pain relief approach” awarded to Rafael Maldonado; the FET Open “ElectroMed: Electrochemically-enabled high-throughput peptidomics for next-generation precision medicine” awarded to David Andreu; and the “HumanE-AI-Network: Humane AI Vision of European Artificial Intelligence” awarded to Luc Steels. DCEXS researchers also participate in several MSCA ITNs, and in international grants funded by NIH (Tomàs Marquès), the Worldwide Cancer Research (Cristina López Rodríguez), the Duchenne Parent Project (Pura Muñoz) and the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation (Andrés Ozaita). 

The excellence of the department has been recognised with several awards, like the ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Tomàs Marquès in 2019, entitled “ApeGenomeDiversity: Great ape genome variation now and then: current diversity and genomic relics of extinct primates” and a Research Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program awarded to Oriol Gallego. Marc Güell won the National Research Award for Young Talent, which recognizes young researchers who have stood out in their professional careers for the quality and excellence of their work, in 2019. Pura Muñoz-Cánoves received two awards in 2019: the Lilly Foundation for Biomedical Preclinical Research Award and the Rey Jaime I Award for Medical Research. In 2020, Marc Güell was elected EMBO Young Investigator, and the Catalan Society of Biology awarded the UPF spin-off MiWEndo Solutions with the Startup Award, and Maria Gomis with the Young Researcher Award.

 

 

Management team

Direction

Director:
David Comas

Vice Directors:

Berta Alsina, Robert Castelo and Jordi García Ojalvo

External Scientific Advisory Board 

President:

Isabel Fariñas (Universitat de València)

Members: 

Cosima Tatiana Baldari (Università di Siena)

José Luis López Barneo (Universidad de Sevilla)

Alfonso Valencia (BSC)

Martí Aldea (Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona)

Alexander Aulehla (EMBL)    

David Posada (Universidad de Vigo)    

Jody Rosenblatt (King’s College London)

 
 

Administrative and Services Staff 

Campus director

Fina Lorente

Heads

Rosa Olivé, Carme Casanovas, David Moreso, Mar Garreta, Jordi Solà, Sonia Lago, Sílvia Mora.

 
Staff

Anna Almor, Alejandro Aparici, Xavier Ardite, Josep Aymami, Marta Bonet, Gemma Burballa, Mònica Calor, Mar Cama, Neus Cartes, Mari Carmen Cebrián, Pilar Cerro, Margarida Codinachs, Helena Coll-Vinent, Jairo Consol, Alba Daroca, Mar de Haro, Anna Dieste, Cinta Díez, Gemma Esparó, Elena Espinet, Txema Farrona, Susana Fernández, Rubén Fernández, Lluís Flores, Sònia Gandul, Jordi Garriga, Josep Gibert, Robert González, Cintia Gutiérrez, Sonia Iturrate, Pilar Larramona, Mireia Llimós, Regina López, Núria Margalef, Guillem Martí, Rosa Martínez, Guillem Merino, Tamara Monrás, Cristina Monter, Tòfol Moreno, Neus Morgui, Montse Morillas, Mar Morral, Jordi Palau, Maria Parras, Rafael Puente, Natàlia Ras, Anna Regot, Lidia Reichenberg, Núria Reixach, Anna Rivas, Montse Saladrigas, Marta Torras, Pedro Vázquez, Carla Vega, Ramon Vendrell, Alexis Vicioso, Carla Vilardebó, Susana Vilella.