The Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES) is one of the biomedical themes of CIBER, a public state consortium promoted by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), with the aim of promoting collaborative activity in biomedical research throughout the State.
The main objectives of this new challenge for Dr. Molina are to promote the transversality of respiratory biomedical research; promote the training and projection of young researchers with entrepreneurial potential and motivation; and facilitate synergies that allow improving and accelerating health results, involving scientific societies, patient representatives and other entities interested in R&D in respiratory diseases.
To do this, CIBERES brings together 34 clinical and basic research groups integrated both in hospitals of the National Health System, as well as Universities and Research Centers of excellence distributed throughout the country. More than 400 top-level national and international researchers in the field of respiratory diseases collaborate, including professionals from the Pneumology Service of the HUB and IDIBELL.
Precisely, the strategic lines of the IDIBELL’s Pulmonology research group focus on the investigation of responses to respiratory clinical problems and therapeutic solutions in pulmonological diseases without effective treatments.
About the new scientific director of CIBERES
María Molina Molina has a degree in Medicine and Surgery (1998), a PhD in Biomedicine (2007) and an associate professor (since 2015) at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Molina is also director of the SEPAR Scientific Committee, member of the Scientific Committee of the EPID Registry, and selected chief of the Rare-ILD Group, Assembly 12, of the European Respiratory Society.
Her scientific career has focused on the study of Interstitial Lung Diseases (IPDs), a heterogeneous group of rare diseases that cause progressive scarring in the lungs that ends up resulting in the death of the patient. She has focused her research especially on pulmonary fibrosis, combining basic and clinical research and with a commitment to cross-sectional and transnational research with quickly applicable results in health.
Among the main milestones to be highlighted in the biomedical research carried out by Dr. Molina are the identification of the clinical utility of the telomeric and genetic study in MPI, contributing to consensus documents for its use in clinical practice and the identification of the angiotensin system in lung as a fibrogenic pathway, including ACE-2 dysregulation. Likewise, she has a special global interest in COVID19 and is the promoter of three clinical trials and principal investigator in 21. In addition, she is a reference for preclinical (in vitro) trials of new antifibrotic drugs. She has also directed nine doctoral theses, four of them defended in the last five years.