Presentation

 The Research Programme on Biomedical Informatics is initially constituted by the Research Unit on Biomedical Informatics (GRIB), which is a joint research unit of IMIM-Hospital del Mar and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). The GRIB carries out fundamental research and technological developments on the application of advanced information technologies and computational methods in the health and life sciences. GRIB brings together a team of more than eighthy scientists, as well as technical and management staff. GRIB has a wide experience in the participation and coordination of research projects funded by the European Commission. In the last years, the unit has participated in 14 European projects.

The GRIB is also involved in a significant number of other research projects funded by research funding agencies. GRIB has a long tradition of collaboration with the industry in the framework of R&D projects. GRIB staff is involved in pre and postgraduate teaching at the UPF, with a particularly intense involvement in its Master degree in Bioinformatics in Health Sciences.

The GRIB is currently organised in seven laboratories:

• Computational Genomics, which is devoted to the computational analysis of genomic sequences and information. Senior scientists of this lab are Mar Albà (IMIM-UPF-ICREA), Eduardo Eyras (UPF-ICREA), Núria Lòpez-Bigas (UPF), Robert Castelo (UPF). Roderic Guigó, director of the Bioinformatics Programme of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) acts as stable consultant of this lab. 
• Structural Bioinformatics, dedicated to the analysis and modelling of protein 3D structures, as well as these of macromolecular interactions. Baldomero Oliva (UPF) is the group leader. 
• Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics, which is devoted to the development and use of modelling and simulation methods to understand biochemical and biophysical phenomena. Jordi Villà-Freixa (UPF) and Gianni de Fabritiis (UPF) are the group leaders. 
• Chemogenomics, which is dedicated to the development of novel integrative biochemoinformatics methods and its application to the annotation of large chemical libraries to entire protein families of therapeutic interest. Jordi Mestres (IMIM-UPF) is the group leader. 
• Computer-Assisted Drug Design, a group focused on the development and application of computational methods oriented to the discovery and development of new drugs. Manuel Pastor (UPF) is the group leader. Ismael Zamora (UPF), Director of Lead Molecular Design, is a part-time member of this group. 
• Integrative Biomedical Informatics, a singular group particularly dedicated to the generation and execution of research initiatives that aim to contribute to the solution of biomedical problems on the basis of the join application of methods and strategies afforded in different GRIB labs. Ferran Sanz (IMIM-UPF) is leading this group in addition to the whole GRIB.

In addition to the scientific personnel, GRIB has a management office constituted by three professionals, as well as two systems management staff. GRIB is a research group recognized and funded by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia. It is also accredited and funded as one of the centres of the CIDEM’s Technological Innovation Network.

On the other hand, GRIB is the node for Biomedical Informatics of the Spanish Institute of Bioinformatics (INB). It has to be pointed out that an exceptional cluster of research programmes and groups on Computational Biology and Biomedical Informatics exists at the PRBB. It is constituted by the GRIB and the research programmes on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology of the CRG.

The collaborations within scientists of these programmes and groups are frequent and productive, in particular between the Computational Genomics lab of GRIB and the Bioinformatics Programme of the CRG. The research activity of GRIB has originated the creation of two spin-off companies: Pharmatools Interactive Services, promoted by Ferran Sanz, and Chemotargets, promoted by Jordi Mestres.