A new serological test for Covid-19 with an accuracy close to 100% has been developed by researchers from the CSIC, in collaboration with the hospitals of La Princesa and La Paz. The Spanish biotechnology company Immunostep produces and commercializes the test.

Scientists of the IIBB-CSIC discover a new role for sphingomyelin synthase 1 enzyme in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, an advanced stage of fatty liver disease. The work identifies SMS1 enzyme as a possible new therapeutic target.

A combination of peptides and antibiotics could be a key for fighting Leishmania parasites and avoiding the toxicity caused by current drugs to people and animals. CSIC scientists have participated in this research that opens the door to new and more effective treatments against leishmaniasis.

Scientists at the Institut de Ciències del Mar of the CSIC have demonstrated that some stimulations of the immune system during the early stages of fish development can trigger epigenetic modifications that lead to changes in the sexual phenotype. This could have important implications for aquaculture production in those species where the female has the greatest growth, since the more females there are, the higher the production.

The CSIC has developed an immunochemical technique for the diagnosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. It detects the main signalling molecules that the bacteria use to communicate (Quorum Sensing). The test is very specific and has high sensitivity, as well as a high capacity for sample processing, which ensures diagnostic efficiency. It can also be easily implemented on point-of-care (PoC) devices.

Scientists at the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza have developed a new formulation to achieve a controlled and sustained release of different drugs inside the eyeball. Industrial partners from the ophthalmic or pharmaceutical industry are being sought to collaborate through a patent licence agreement.

We speak with Frederic Bartumeus, researcher at CEAB-CSIC and CREAF, who is co-leading a project to study the expansion of Covid-19 by geolocation with Javier Ramasco, from the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (CSIC and the Universidad de las Islas Baleares). The team studies the mobility of the population during confinement to obtain data on the risk of transmission.

We talk with Pilar Marco, leader of the Nanobiotechnology for Diagnostics Group at the Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia, about the project POC4COVID.