IBEC has joined up with two Portuguese research institutes to organize a regular summer school under the general theme ‘Interrogations at the Biointerface.’

In an initiative instigated by a meeting of IBEC group leader Ángel Raya and Raquel Seruca of the University of Porto’s Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology (IPATIMUP), the first jointly organized school, entitled ‘The cancer/regeneration interface’, will take place in Porto on 20-24 June.

Previous summer schools organized by IPATIMUP and Porto’s Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica (INEB) have been very successful in the past, but this year is the first time that the initiative has involved an institute from outside Portugal. It’s planned that the annual events will be held alternately in the two cities, preferably around 23 June when the lively festivals of San Juan and São João take place in Barcelona and Porto respectively.

“The summer school is quite unique in that it is looking at the interface between two very different areas, rather than being thematic,” says Ángel, who will be organizing the event from IBEC’s side along with director Josep Planell. “Cancer and regeneration are normally seen as part of two different worlds, but our understanding of one can improve our knowledge of the other.”

Ángel, who will deliver a talk entitled ‘iPS cells as model system to study cancer and regeneration’, will be joined by other top speakers including Manel Esteller (ICREA Research Professor and Director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program at IDIBELL), Randall Moon (Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington), Kenneth D. Poss (Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University Medical Center) and Wiltrud Richter (Orthopaedic University Hospital, Heidelberg) for the five-day school, which will include two days of interactive lab sessions. “The great thing about having cancer specialists and regeneration researchers coming together in this way opens up all sorts of opportunities to ask questions you don’t normally get the chance – or the audience – to ask,” says Ángel.

The abstract submission deadline for ‘The cancer/regeneration interface’ is 4 May, and more details can be found on the event’s website at www.summerschool2011.ineb.up.pt.