Society News

The fact that the properties of materials vary on the nanoscale opens up endless applications that are beginning to be part of our daily lives. These are concepts that may escape our understanding but which have been handled at nanoGUNE on a daily basis for the last five years. Scientific work which the students, teachers, engineers, doctors, architects, economists, retirees, housewives, etc. who came to nanoGUNE on its 5th year anniversary had the chance to get to know first-hand with the help of the center’s researchers.

Repsol and the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI in its Spanish initials), have signed an agreement with Graphenea, nanoGUNE’s first start-up company, through which both will invest jointly a million euros in the share capital of the technological company. CDTI is a body dependent on the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government.

The researcher Jose Ignacio Pascual of nanoGUNE, together with researchers of the Free University of Berlin, has developed a method to manipulate magnetism in atoms. This research makes it possible to drive forward the exploration of new methods of information storage and computation on an atomic scale. The work has been published recently in the prestigious journal Nature Physics.

NanoGune’s Nanobiomechanics Group led by Raúl Pérez-Jimenez is studying the evolution of proteins dating back to the origin of life, the effects that mechanical forces can have on them, and protein involvement in certain diseases

nanoGUNE’s Nanoimaging Group, led by José Ignacio Pascual, is studying matter on an atomic scale. To do this, it has three remarkable microscopes, one in each laboratory, and which are capable of ‘seeing’ and moving atoms and molecules.

The 2nd nanoIKER Workshop took place at Tecnalia Headquarters in the Science & Technology Park of Bizkaia on June 10, 2013.

Simune will contribute to solving technological problems saving both, time and costs.The service will be provided by nanoGUNE’s Theory group and will be initially focused towards energy and electronics.

Starting on 1 February, Dr. Raul Perez-Jimenez, coming from Columbia University (USA), has taken on his new responsabilities as Ikerbasque Research Professor and Leader of the Nanobiotechnology Group at nanoGUNE.

[Published at www.nanobasque.eu] Technology has evolved so much recently that Basque consumers take for granted that within a few years they will be able to purchase televisions, tablets and computers with ultrafine flexible screens that will be able to be rolled up.

[www.nanobasque.eu] José María Pitarke, Director General of CIC nanoGUNE, has turned the center he runs into a world reference in a very short time, with remarkable successes as the founding of Graphenea, one of the few companies worldwide capable of producing graphene. Pitarke says nanotechnology will help basque companies open new knowledge-intensive industrial sectors