Society News

The research centres Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), the Centre for Materials Physics (CFM CSIC-UPV/EHU), CIC nanoGUNE and CIC biomaGUNE have joined forces to present a joint programme to mark International Day of Women and Girls in Science, being held worldwide on Monday, 11 February. In Donostia-San Sebastian the programme will go on until Friday 15 February with public talks, workshops, visits and seminars in which 50 volunteers from the organising research centres will be participating. The aim of the initiative is to transmit a clear message: Science is girls’ stuff.

The Secretary of State for R&D+i, Carmen Vela, chaired the kickoff meeting of the new Severo Ochoa and Maria Maeztu Alliance of Excellence. The alliance’s target is to internationally promote and strengthen the centres and units accredited with this distinction, to give their research a higher profile.

The new headquarters of the first start-up company founded by nanoGUNE in April 2010 in a joint venture with a group of private investors, has been inaugurated by the Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu. The new facilities of the company occupy an area of ​​600 square meters and are located in the Scientific and Technological Park of Gipuzkoa.

Ikerbasque Professor Luis Hueso, accompanied by the Director General of nanoGUNE, José M. Pitarke, has collected the distinction Maria de Maeztu for research excellence on behalf of the Basque research center in nanoscience. This distinction will bring nanoGUNE a financial envelope of 500,000 euros per year for four years.

After "Dayanne and Murillo. The power of nanoscience", we present the nanoKOMIK 2017 project, co-organized with the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) - Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, with the purpose of producing a collaborative nanofiction comic. 

CIC nanoGUNE’s Nanodevices Group receives a grant of 150,000 euros from the European Commission through the ERC Proof of Concept program, which aims to put into practice the innovative potential of the ideas generated in cutting-edge research projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The FAST TestOM project of the Nanodevices Group of nanoGUNE is one of the 133 European projects to receive backing from the European Research Council.

CIC nanoGUNE will join this celebration to draw attention towards achieving the full and equal participation of women and girls in science.

Would you like to do an internship over the summer? We have a great option for you!

The comic book “Dayanne and Murillo. The Power of Nanoscience”, created within the nanoKOMIK project, has been presented by CIC nanoGUNE and DIPC research centres.

Oxygen inhibits hydrogenases, a group of enzymes that are able to produce and split hydrogen. This degradation is fatal for possible biotechnological applications of these enzymes for the production of clean energy. Understanding the mechanisms of this process is hence essential. An international team led by researchers from UCL (UK), CNRS (France) and nanoGUNE/Ikerbasque, have combined theory and experiment to characterize each chemical reaction step that results in the reduction of oxygen by the enzyme. These results are being published this week in the journal Nature Chemistry.