Three research institutions in Barcelona have teamed up to launch the world’s first Joint Program on Evolutionary Medical Genomics. The initiative, launched this week at an inaugural symposium in Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), is a collaboration between the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), and the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (IBE: CSIC-UPF). Spearheaded by ICREA Research Professor Manuel Irimia, the program seeks to harness evolutionary principles to better understand the molecular roots of disease and improve human health. It is backed with a provisional funding of one million euros from the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Nationally, men in colleges and universities currently outpace women in earning degrees in physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS) by an approximate ratio of 4 to 1. To better understand the factors driving these gaps, NYU researchers analyzed bachelor’s degrees awarded in the US from 2002-2022, and found that the most selective universities by math SAT scores have nearly closed the PECS gender gap while less selective universities have seen it widen dramatically.

The European Research Council (ERC) is funding the ATHENS research project headed by professors Christian Koos and Stefan Bräse of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with a Synergy Grant. The project’s objective is to improve the performance and energy efficiency of optical communications systems. Given growing demand for the transmission of large volumes of data by artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such improvements are especially relevant. The ERC is funding ATHENS for six years with EUR 14 million. One location where work on the project will be performed is the Karlsruhe Center for Optics and Photonics (KCOP), which is set to open in 2025.