ALBA Synchrotron
The ALBA Synchrotron, in collaboration with Manel Sabés, organizes training sessions in hospitals all over Spain addressed to medical and scientific staff. The main goal is to show how synchrotron light sources can help with medical diagnostic and analysis.
Cerdanyola del Vallés, 31st January 2018
. The ALBA Synchrotron is a unique facility in Spain. Synchrotron light is emitted by electrons, stored in a ring of magnets after being accelerated to 3 GeV. This light source produces pulses of X-rays or infrared that allow to study different objects from human cell size to atoms. Consequently, this light source enables to analyze the cell in a tridimensional way and therefore, study diseases at cellular level and see how their cellular and molecular components react in the presence of a drug.
To spread these capabilities, the ALBA Synchrotron collaborates with Manel Sabés, researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and ALBA user. They have organized talks for more than 150 medical researchers. These talks were held both in the ALBA Synchrotron and in some hospitals around the country (mainly Barcelona and Madrid). The main goal was to demonstrate that the synchrotron facilities offer good possibilities for medical research. Using ALBA's precise analytical equipment, the researches can study the diagnoses and medical treatments of diseases like skin cancer, Alzheimer or Hepatitis C, among others.
"Synchrotron light is a very useful tool for analyzing drugs and diagnosing diseases at the early stages. The collaboration between the ALBA Synchrotron and the hospitals is the first step of the huge potential of collaboration opportunities between synchrotron light and medicine”, comments Manel Sabés.
The first talk was held in Parc Taulí in Sabadell, in April 21th 2017. Later on, there were some other talks in hospitals like IDIBAPS Hospital Clinic (Barcelona), IDIPAZ Hospital La Paz (Madrid) and Hospital 12 de Octubre (Madrid). The last one was in Institute Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP) in Badalona last January 11th 2018. Also, some talks took place at the ALBA Synchrotron, with medical researchers from Parc Taulí, Hospital Clinic or Institut de Recerca Hospital Vall d'Hebron.
This project is not finished and other talks are planned next February and March in Hospital Infantil Sant Joan de Deu, Hospital del Mar and Mutua de Terrassa.
Left image, session at Hospital 12 de Octubre (Madrid). Right image, session at IDIPAZ Hospital (Madrid).