The Sols-Morreale Biomedical Research Institute (IIBM) is a joint institute of the Spanish National Research Council and the Autonomous University of Madrid, whose mission is to study the molecular bases of human pathology with a translational approach.
Inauguration of the premises of the Biomedical Research Institute in their new building in March 1991. From left to right, Severo Ochoa, the Minister of Education and Science Javier Solana and the director of the IIB José María Mato, under the commemorative plaque in honor of Alberto Sols. In the background between Javier Solana and José María Mato, Margarita Salas.
The IIBM was born as a multidisciplinary center in Biology and Biomedicine around two particularly relevant personalities linked to it throughout its history: Alberto Sols and Gabriella Morreale. In its beginnings, its activity covered a wide range of basic research in biochemistry and molecular biology that over the years gradually shifted towards biomedicine.<-- Currently, the IIBM's lines of research have a clear translational projection in that human diseases are the object of study. The ultimate goal is to contribute significantly to generating ground-breaking knowledge to improve the health of citizens. Thus, with approaches ranging from molecular and cellular biology to genomics, work is being done to discover the intimate mechanisms by which diseases occur, how they evolve, which genes favor or generate their appearance, and how better and more precise tools can be developed for their diagnosis and treatment.
The structure of the research activity at the IIBM is articulated around two major axes. On the one hand, prevalent diseases with a high incidence and socio-economic relevance, and on the other, rare diseases, which constitute a great challenge due to their social impact and absence of adequate treatments. To address the challenges posed by these two major blocks, the institute is organized into four departments: Cancer, Neurological diseases and ageing, Metabolic and immune diseases, and Rare diseases.
The IIBM has unique facilities and resources that provide extraordinary added value. Among other things, it is worth mentioning, due to its uniqueness, the existence of a national biobank of colon organoids from patients with colorectal cancer, a phenotyping node for human disease models for the detection of auditory and sensory disorders, and an indirect calorimetry unit for investigating metabolic disorders in vivo. On the other hand, the IIBM has a bioimaging platform oriented towards preclinical biomedical research which, in addition to state-of-the-art super-resolution confocal microscopy, includes two nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy devises and a magnetic resonance/positron emission tomography (NMR/PET) devise that is unique in our environment, with exceptional capabilities in the field of bioimaging and nanomedicine. Thanks to this, the IIBM is established as a reference center in this area.
In line with its commitment to scientific excellence and leadership in biomedical research, the IIBM remains committed to making a significant contribution to understanding the underlying mechanisms of diseases in order to improve people's quality of life and thus contribute to social well-being.