On October 12th, the Mediterranean Marathon, one of the consolidated sports programming dating in the country, reaches its XII edition. Under the slogan “Do not run, fly!” participants in the race can make, voluntarily and for the first time in the history of this competition, a charitable contribution to a research project of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL).
This new opportunity to contribute to the search for funds to promote research will be possible thanks to the collaboration agreement that reached by the Fundraising department of IDIBELL and Vip Zone Events, the organizer of the event. Collected donations will be destined to research on autoimmune diseases.
Rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis or, among others, diabetes of children and young people are autoimmune diseases. That is, diseases caused by the adverse action of our immune system when, instead of protecting us against viruses or bacteria, it becomes aggressive towards cells and organs of our body and attacks us.
In IDIBELL, the team led by Dr. Mercè Pérez works to develop new therapies for the treatment of these diseases; their objective is
to make them more effective and with fewer side effects than the current ones, which are still too aggressive and unspecific. Specifically, the project to which the funds collected during the Marathon will be destined is absolutely innovative and begins with the identification (through a virtual model) of two little molecules, IDI9 and IDI25, which specifically inhibit the set of signals that result in immune response. The therapeutic potential of this research is very large, because the results can be applied both to the treatment of autoimmune diseases and in organ transplant therapy. And social, scientific and economic benefits of development will have great relevance.
The starting and finishing lines of the Mediterranean Marathon -which brought together more than 3000 runners last year – will be placed inside the Olympic Channel of Catalonia. Entities that support it are the City Council of Castelldefels and Gavà, the Barcelona Provincial Council and EQUACAT (Olympic Channel of Catalonia).