The CaixaResearch Institute, the first research center in Spain dedicated to immunology, will start its scientific activity in 2025. This was announced yesterday by Isidre Fainé, president of the La Caixa Foundation, at the ceremony of placing the first stone of the new institute.
When the works are finished at the end of the decade, the center being built in Barcelona next to the CosmoCaixa museum will have more than 20,000 square meters where around 40 research groups and nearly 500 people will work.
"Immunology is a cornerstone of modern medicine. (...) It has paved the way for the development of new therapies that are transforming the treatment of an uncountable number of people", declared Josep Tabernero, scientific director of the CaixaResearch Institute, who will combine the position with his position as director from the Oncology Institute of Vall d'Hebron (VHIO).
Among the medical specialties that immunology is transforming, Tabernero highlighted cancer, on which immunotherapies have opened the way to successfully treat patients for whom ten years ago there was no option. He spoke about infectious diseases, using the example of messenger RNA vaccines that offer new possibilities for prevention. He also highlighted autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, areas in which therapeutic advances can be made if we better understand how the immune system works. And he did not forget neurodegenerative diseases, in which the role of immunity is now beginning to be discovered.
Because the immune system interacts with all the organs and tissues of the human body, Tabernero argued, “it cannot be studied in isolation” but “it must be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective (… ) in a rich ecosystem that favors the exchange of ideas”. The CaixaResearch Institute, he emphasized, will be "a pioneering center in Spain, the first to place immunology as the umbrella to study some of the most urgent challenges of our society".
The project, which has been personally promoted by Isidre Fainé, will require an investment of around 100 million euros, which will be fully provided by the La Caixa Foundation. The center is being built on the north side of the Dalt roundabout, on land owned by the banking foundation. The works include the construction of a new square on the Ronda de Dalt that will connect the institute with the CosmoCaixa museum. The cost of the urban development will be borne by the La Caixa Foundation, which has also committed to enable a public green area of 1,200 square meters at the back of the center as an access point to the Collserola natural park.
Antoni Ribas, oncologist at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and world leader in cancer immunotherapies, has agreed to participate in the project as president of the Scientific Advisory Board. This is a key position in scientific institutes to make strategic decisions, specify which lines of research are prioritized and help select the scientists who join them.
The work calendar states that the first three research groups will begin activity in 2025, something that will be possible thanks to the modular construction of the institute, which will allow work to begin in some spaces before the works of the whole building During the following years between three and five new research groups could be incorporated each year until reaching full activity in the middle of the next decade. The works are expected to be completed in 2028 or 2029.
For the city of Barcelona, "this centre, and others linked to biology or medicine, will represent a very important qualitative leap in the next four or five years", congratulated Mayor Jaume Collboni. "It is talent that will distinguish our city in the future. (...) The new Barcelona of science is beginning to see the light".
Tabernero has already started contacts to sign the first researchers who will join the center. These are first-level scientists in the field of immunology who will arrive at the new institute from Spanish centers and other countries.
It is also planned to establish collaborations with the other four major biomedical research centers funded by the La Caixa Foundation: the IrsiCaixa Institute, directed by Bonaventura Clotet at the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital in Badalona; the VHIO institute, run by Tabernero himself in Vall d’Hebron; the BarcelonaBeta research center, linked to the Pasqual Maragall Foundation and specialized in Alzheimer's, and the Global Health Institute of Barcelona (ISGlobal), a benchmark in tropical diseases and environmental epidemiology.
