We meet some of the university students (essential) in the BiSC project!

University students have a key role in research projects that are carried out at ISGlobal. They are essential, and each one does an amazing and indispensable job. In the case of the BiSC project, since its inception, more than 30 students have been involved and have performed various tasks within it, helping the ship move forward. On this occasion and reaching the final phase of recruitment, we also wanted to make them participants in the project website. We delved a little deeper into their world and what they experienced first-hand and interviewed two of them, Andrea Cabero and Pol Jiménez, who are currently collaborating on the project.

Name: Andrea Cabero and Pol Jiménez Arenas

Place of Birth: Lleida and Barberà del Vallés

Andrea and Pol at Biomedical Research Park […]

We started working in the lab with the placenta samples from the BiSC project!

As part of the BiSC project, placenta samples have been collected on the day of birth. So far, placenta samples from more than 400 mothers have been saved, and 700 are expected to arrive!

The placenta is the organ that is responsible for transferring oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s circulation to the fetus, and also plays a regulatory role in the immune and endocrine levels. In addition, the placenta is able to ensure the proper development of the fetus by protecting it from environmental changes or aggressions through an adaptive response (for example, when there is a decrease in oxygen in the maternal circulation, the number of capillaries In the placenta increases to ensure the supply of oxygen to the fetus). Thus, defects in the placenta can compromise the development of the fetus and predispose the […]

The BiSC project seen from the perspective of data!

The BiSC project is a large study. The recruitment of volunteers has not stopped at any time since its inception. In fact, it has even faced a pandemic like the one we are experiencing right now. Since 2018, the entry of volunteers, their partners and later their babies has been continued.

At the moment, the number of volunteer families has already exceeded one thousand and, once again, we are very grateful to them.

But when it comes to the truth, what is all this involvement about? What do we get out of so many visits, questionnaires and tests? The answer to these two questions is the same: data.

The data, after all, condenses all the information that our volunteers send us. And it is through the analysis of these that we can find answers to the initial questions of the project. That is, without […]

Finishing the recruitment phase!

The recruitment of new volunteers for the study is reaching the end! Now it is more than two years since we started the process of looking for pregnant women willing to participate in the BiSC study, with the aim to reach a representative number of women from different areas in Barcelona. During this time we have been in contact with many women in order to inform about the study and to invite them to be part of the project, now we count on more than 1000 volunteers!

They, these 1000 women, are an example for us all. They are women that, even the fact of living a moment with many changes, a lot of information, excitement, hopes… they have decided to contribute altruistically to generate knowledge on the pollutants’ influence on the children’s development. Women that we are following during the pregnancy until one year after […]

The BiSC project starts the BISCAPE!

Throughout the BiSC study, we have been measuring our volunteers ’individual exposure to the air pollutants they breathe. This has been possible thanks to the use of an individual backpack that the volunteers have been carrying, which carries a series of devices that measure the different components of air pollution.

Now, the BiSC project will also launch the BISCAPE campaign, a campaign aimed at building a map of pollution levels in the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona throughout the year 2021. This map will be based on data obtained from measures simultaneous levels of pollution in different parts of the city and will be repeated in different seasons of the year, to observe the temporary fluctuations of different pollutants. The measuring points include both public centers and private volunteers who have made their balconies available so that they can install the necessary equipment.

The neurodevelopmental assessment visit for 6-month-olds has been reinvented!

4 months after the start of the 6-month postnatal visit, it had to be canceled by Covid19. Confinement and other measures made it too difficult to continue this visit in person, which is why the Bisc Project team had to reinvent themselves.

Regarding the neuropsychological visit, a team of experts in child neuropsychological evaluation looked for a way to evaluate and obtain the data that until then was giving us the test in the face-to-face format “Bayley Scales of Child Development-III”.

The results were two tests, which have a long history of evaluating children, to compliment the same parents from home. In this way, we avoided contact and mobility during confinement while ensuring the most reliable data.

The first test (Development Profile-DP3), is a test of global development and covers 5 areas of child development: cognitive, adaptive behavior, socio-emotional, motor skills, and communication.

The test […]

COLLECTION OF BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES IN HOSPITALS: from inclusion to delivery

BISC is a large-scale multidisciplinary project, and as such, it wants to cover all related variables, therefore, samples and data are collected through various means such as questionnaires, hospital visits or environmental visits.

During pregnancy, a visit to the hospital is made at 32 weeks of pregnancy, in which biological samples are collected, apart from a neurosonography and an echocardiography to obtain data on the baby. Taking advantage of this visit, in the same consultation, three biological samples are collected: hair sample, blood test and vaginal-rectal smear, thus ending the samples collected during pregnancy in the hospital.

Later at the time of delivery, other samples are collected such as a piece of placenta, newborn cord blood and blood from the mother, where the same puncture of the placement of the peripheral line is used for its […]

The environmental visit at BiSC!

The global pandemic caused by the coronavirus has changed our lives as we know it. We have had to adapt to all aspects of our daily lives and live with the new normal. The BiSC project has not been an exception to this change and we have designed a system to continue the environmental week of the study, adapting to the new current situation.

In order to continue doing the environmental part of the project, the field techniques carry out thorough disinfection of the material and equipment for the preparation of the kits, always using a mask, gloves and disinfecting the work surfaces.

All devices are disinfected twice, once collected from the homes of the participants and before being delivered to new volunteers. […]