This morning, nearly 200 baccalaureate and vocational training students from the Badalonès, La Riera, Eugeni d'Ors, Joan Maragall and Pere Vergés institutes visited the centres at the Can Ruti Campus. The event "Open House, get to know the Can Ruti Campus up close", organised by the Badalona Education Service (CRP) and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), in coordination with other institutions on the Campus, has become a flagship initiative of the Science Week.

The Open House began in the auditorium of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital (HUGTiP) with a welcome speech by de Jordi Arnal, head of the Unit for Educational Engagement and Participation of the Badalona City Council, and Diego Araque, from the CRP Badalona team. Following this, Eva Martínez-Cáceres, head of the Immunology Department at HUGTiP, leader of IGTP's Immunopathology Group, and professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), delivered a presentation on the research conducted at the Campus and its societal impact.

Students also had the opportunity to learn about biomedical research projects from young women researchers. This segment featured Manuela Barranco, from IGTP's Childhood Liver Oncology Group (c-LOG), discussing translational medicine and hepatoblastoma; Alba Prats, from Institut Guttman, on the use of virtual reality in neurorehabilitation; Marta Costa, from the Badalona Applied Research Group in Oncology (B·ARGO) at IGTP, on translational oncology; and Núria Sima and Berta Barnadas, from the Plasmodium vivax and Exosome Research Group (PvREX) at IGTP and ISGlobal, on globally impactful parasitic diseases. The students were able to engage with the researchers and ask questions about their work and careers.

After the talks, the students were split into small groups to visit various clinical and research spaces at the Can Ruti Campus, such as Banc de Sang i Teixits, Centre for Epidemiological Studies on HIV/AIDS and STI of Catalonia (CEEISCAT), Institut Català d'Oncologia, Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), IGTP, Institut Guttmann, IrsiCaixa, Fundació Lluita Contra les Infeccions and UAB.

IGTP hosted five student groups. Some visited cancer research laboratories from ICO and IGTP's CARE program, as well as infectious disease research laboratories, accompanied by researchers from B·ARGO, Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics (CGE), PvREX, and the Innovation in Respiratory Infections and Tuberculosis Diagnostics group. Others participated in a bioinformatics workshop led by the Hereditary Cancer research group. The final two groups explored the Comparative Medicine and Bioimage Centre of Catalonia (CMCiB) and the Biobank scientific-technical platform.

Now in its 29th edition, the Science Week is an initiative promoted by the Government of Catalonia and the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI). Within this context, IGTP has also organised an activity, "Ciència de prop per a tothom" to be held next Wednesday, 27 November, offering various workshops and talks at Plaça de la Vila in Badalona.