The IRBLleida has held the first results dissemination day for projects under the intramural programme (IREP) funded by the Lleida Provincial Council

IRBLleida held the first dissemination conference on May 21 to present the results of projects funded through the intramural research programme (IREP), financed by the Diputació de Lleida. The event was chaired by the sector director of the Regió Sanitària Lleida, Ramon Piñol, and the director of IRBLleida, Diego Arango.

The Diputació de Lleida co-finances, together with IRBLleida, the intramural research programme (IREP), which promotes the development of research projects. Specifically, through these grants, the Diputació de Lleida contributed €228,000 to biomedical research at IRBLleida in 2020; €521,000 in 2021; €460,000 in 2022; €532,000 in 2023; and in the last two years, 2024 and 2025, the contribution has risen to €571,000.

The Projects to Promote Health Research call (known as PIRS) fosters high-quality health research in the Regió Sanitària de Lleida. Each project has a duration of two years. IRBLleida's PIRS projects have played a decisive role in consolidating Lleida as a benchmark in translational research, promoting collaboration among professionals in basic, clinical, and translational research. Thanks to these initiatives, new opportunities have been created to transform scientific knowledge into solutions with a direct impact on people's health and quality of life, while also strengthening the territory's biomedical and innovation ecosystem.

Both intramural calls at IRBLleida have contributed to fostering new research leaders and boosting emerging research careers, enabling professionals in our environment to establish themselves as principal investigators. Between 2021 and 2025, 15 new principal investigators emerged, four of whom obtained external competitive funding.

Several funded projects subsequently secured independent competitive funding, highlighting the role of the PIRS programme as a driver for generating excellent research and increasing the scientific competitiveness of research teams. The impact of these initiatives is also reflected in the resulting scientific output: at least 67 publications in international journals have been produced directly from these studies, helping to reinforce Lleida's position as a leading hub for translational research.

As part of this information session, the 12 projects from the 2021, 2022, and Alt Pirineu i Aran 2023 calls were presented. Specifically, the following projects were showcased during the event:

Projects to Promote Health Research (PIRS) 2021

• IPs: Albert Lecube & Adriano Targa. Title: Better Understanding the Interaction Between the Etiopathogenic Mechanisms of Obesity: Toward a Genetically Based Predictive Model.
• IPs: Xavier Matias-Guiu & Águeda Martínez. Title: EPH Receptor Signaling in Endometrial Cancer.
• IPs: Anabel Sorolla & Felip Vilardell. Title: Development of precision therapies for triple negative breast cancer based on CRISPR/Cas12a ribonucleoproteins.
• IPs: Reinald Pamplona & Gerard Piñol. Title: The bioactive lipid-mediated diacylglycerol-phosphatidic acid signaling pathway as a biomarker to discriminate early stages of Alzheimer's disease from normal aging.
• IPs: Manel Portero & Francesc Purroy. Title: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Diagnosis, Therapeutic Decision-Making, and Prognosis in Minor Ischemic Stroke.

Projects to Promote Health Research (PIRS) 2022

• IPs: David de Gonzalo & Jose Manuel Porcel. Title: Construction of a diagnostic and prognostic algorithm for malignant pleural effusion secondary to lung cancer using non-coding RNA signatures and Machine Learning.
• IPs: Ferran Barbé & Gerard Torres. Title: Effect of continuous positive airway pressure on blood pressure in normotensive individuals with obstructive sleep apnoea: a randomised trial.
• IPs: Xavier Gallart & Iolanda Batalla. Title: Extracellular vesicles from industrial by-products: next generation nanocarriers in biomedicine.
• IPs: José Manuel Valdivielso & Mercè Ibarz. Title: COVID-19 and the progression of atherosclerosis.
• IPs: Eloi Gari & Sonia Gatius. Title: Clinical and functional identification of metastatic colonization biomarkers.

The Biomedical Research Projects Call, Alt Pirineu i Aran 2023 Modality, aims to introduce healthcare professionals to research in order to promote biomedical research adapted to the specific characteristics of the territory. The projects presented were:

• IPs: Pau Antoni Surribas. Title: Ultrasound Screening for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) in Rural Primary Care.
• IPs: Montserrat Navarra. Title: Evaluation and rethinking of the reperfusion strategy for STEMI Code in remote rural areas of Catalonia.

IRBLleida is committed to supporting research staff so they can develop their scientific projects with the maximum available resources. For this reason, every year, with the support of the Diputació de Lleida, it funds a range of intramural calls (IREP) for research projects and for staff recruitment through Human Resources calls. All these calls are public, competitive, and open to all IRBLleida research staff, whether employed or affiliated, to ensure equal opportunities for everyone when competing.