Presentation of the Biomedicine Program COMPLEMENTO 3-CM

On Monday, March 6, the event “2022 Biomedicine Program for R&D between Research groups in the Madrid Autonomous Region” took place at the Auditorium of the Carlos III University of Madrid. Ms. Ana Isabel Cremades (General Director of the DGIIT) and Ms. Bárbara Fernández-Revuelta (Deputy Director General of the DGIIT) inaugurated and chaired the session, which was organized by the Área de Programas de la Dirección General de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica (DGIIT) of the Community of Madrid. During the event, the coordinators of the 24 scientific programs funded by the 2022 Biomedicine Program presented the projects and discussed the biomedical and scientific challenges that will be addressed.

The program COMPLEMENTO 3-CM: Complement in Health and Disease, funded with 828,000 €, is coordinated by M. Cristina Vega from the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Margarita Salas (CSIC), who leads the Structural Biology of Host-Pathogen Interactions research group. During the session, Cristina Vega summarized the global research objectives and the singular infrastructures and scientific-technological capabilities of the consortium. The COMPLEMENTO 3-CM program coordinates 9 research groups from 4 different organizations: CSIC, UCM, ISCIII, and the IdiPAZ biomedical research foundation, and it counts on researchers from IDIBELL, La Princesa Hospital, the University of Navarra, and the University of the Balearic Islands as associate members.

The COMPLEMENTO 3-CM program aims to further the clinical and basic knowledge of the complement system of innate immunity and generate better diagnostic methods and more effective therapies for diseases associated with complement dysfunction. Complement-associated pathologies include prevalent diseases such as cardiovascular disease and rare diseases such as atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS), paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), and C3 glomerulopathies (C3G).

Continuation of two highly successful programs, COMPLEMENTO-CM and COMPLEMENTO 2-CM, coordinated by Prof. Santiago Rodríguez de Córdoba from the CIB Margarita Salas, this project will address new challenges from the vantage point of the knowledge generated and the support of the infrastructures created by the translational and transference activities carried out during previous editions. These include the Complement Genetics and Molecular Analysis Laboratory (DCOM) and the spin-off company of the CIB Margarita Salas Abvance.

During the session, all the programs were able to participate and interact to discover shared interests, scientific-technological synergies, and opportunities for collaboration. After the presentation of the scientific programs, Ms. Gemma Espinosa Expósito Área de Programas de Investigación) y Ms. Silvia López Vidal (Área de Justificación Económica de Ayudas) discussed the innovations of the 2022 Biomedicine Program within the framework of the V and VI Regional Plan for Scientific Research and Innovation (PRICIT).

More information:

CSIC Press Release (in Spanish): link.