The Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is a State Agency for scientific research and technological development, with a differentiated legal personality, its own assets and treasury, functional and management autonomy, full legal capacity to act and of indefinite duration.(art. 1 Statute)Advisory and support bodiesLaw 9/2917 on Public Sector Contracts, in its article 63, establishes the obligation to publish the Contractor Profile.The contracting profile of the State Agency CSIC groups the information and documents related to its contractual activity in order to ensure transparency and public access to them.The CSIC is a body that is included within the subjective scope of application of Law 19/2013 on transparency, access to public information and good governance (LTAIPBG).The CSIC Ethics CommitteeScientific integrity and good practicesResearch EthicsThe CSIC is a public body that generally acts as the controller of personal data for what corresponds to it, following the principle of proactive responsibility, to meet the obligations established by the General Data Protection Regulation and Law 3/2018 of December 5, Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights.Research at the CSIC is structured into three large areas, SOCIETY, LIFE AND MATTER, which cover most of human knowledge and encompass the activity of more than 1,500 research groups from its 120 centres.The CSIC carries out its scientific and technical research activity mainly through its research institutes, which are organized into departments and in which the research groups are integrated.The Research Groups constitute the fundamental unit, of a specific nature, that contributes to the achievement of the scientific objectives of the institution.Active CSIC Research StaffCSIC scientists and technologists compete for funding in calls from public funding agencies and private entities outside the CSICThis Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan incorporates an important agenda of investments and structural reforms, which are interrelated and provide feedback to achieve four cross-cutting objectives: move towards a greener, more digital country, more cohesive from the social and territorial point of view and more egalitarian.The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the main financial instruments of the European cohesion policy.Its objective is to contribute to reducing the differences between the levels of development of the European regions and to improve the standard of living in the less favored regions.Alliances in scientific collaboration for a social mission and solutions of tomorrow.The current Science Law has as its general objective "to promote the inclusion of the gender perspective as a transversal category in science, technology and innovation, as well as a balanced presence of women and men in all areas of the Spanish Science System. Science, Technology and Innovation.(art.2 of Law 14/2011, of June 1, on Science, Technology and Innovation).Among the possibilities of collaboration between the CSIC and other R&D&i agents is the figure of the Associated Units as a formula that allows for the temporary and flexible coordination of strictly scientific collaborations between the CSIC's research staff and that of external entities that be included in these units.Other Research Support InfrastructuresLarge European Scientific-Technological Facilities and InfrastructuresSingular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS)Catalog of scientific-technical servicesThe CSIC, throughout its existence, has provided different scientific-technical services, which has made some of its centers benchmarks.Likewise, currently, its Statute as a State Agency indicates that one of its main functions is to offer scientific-technical services to the General State Administration as well as to other public and private Administrations and Institutions.One of the CSIC's objectives is to bring scientific and technological capabilities and achievements closer to all national and international socio-economic sectors, in order to transform them into social, economic and cultural well-being for society as a whole.The CSIC has specific technological results protected in very different ways, among which the patent prevails.The CSIC signs different types of contracts with companies interested in its capabilities, lines of research or technologies.The CSIC protects the results generated by its research groups by adapting to their peculiarities, using different formats from the most common, which is the patent, to some lesser-known ones, such as industrial secrets, through the registration of plant varieties, biological material, utility models or software, among others.Technology-Based Companies (EBTs) are a key instrument for the transfer of knowledge generated in public research organizations, such as the CSIC, turning research results into products on the market and promoting the creation of a more innovative industrial sector.All the technologies obtained in the CSIC laboratories, and previously registered and protected, constitute the CSIC's technological portfolio.In an increasingly competitive international scientific environment, the ambition of the CSIC is to improve its position by reinforcing the international dimension of its scientific production.This is the main reason that makes the CSIC's relations with other international research entities an essential point for its progress.The International Relations of the CSIC, understood as such those actions aimed at directing, planning and promoting international relations in the European and international sphere;direct the planning, coordination and monitoring of the CSIC's participation in competitive calls and in the co-management of programs in the European and international spheres, and direct the management of contracts with international organisations, are coordinated through the Vice Presidency of International Relations (VRI ) from CSIC.Horizon 2020 is the eighth Framework Program for Research and Innovation in the European Union for the period 2014-2020.It has a budget of more than €70,000M to finance research initiatives and projects, technological development, demonstration and innovation of clear European added value.The main instruments for developing and attracting talent to the European Union (EU) are the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the European Research Council (ERC) calls.Other European and International ProgramsThe role of the CSIC in the articulation of the European Research Area is expressed not only through participation in periodic Horizon 2020 calls, but also through participation in other community calls, financed through the Framework Program or other Programs, which Due to their strategic relevance for the CSIC, they deserve a special mention.International Cooperation and ResourcesWithin the promotion of internationalization, from the Vice Presidency of International Relations (VRI) activities are carried out to disseminate opportunities and support is given to our researchers in competitive calls from third countries.The Vice Presidency of International Relations (VRI) manages and processes collaboration agreements with institutions from third countries.At present, relations with our counterparts in other countries are channeled mainly through the organization of workshop-type training activities.European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)At the CSIC we like science and also share it.That is why we launch a large number of outreach, education and citizen science initiatives.Our goal is to promote scientific culture and make science more accessible to everyone.Editorial CSIC has an extensive catalog of recognized academic prestige, made up of more than 2,500 titles of monographs organized in 75 collections, and 37 scientific journals.Editorial CSIC also includes in this catalog a careful selection of works out of collection.History of outreach initiativesMuseums and spaces for disseminationThe CSIC has several reference centers for the dissemination of science located in the main Spanish cities.Exhibitions, workshops, conferences and other activities for all audiences are part of the usual programming of these spaces.More than a hundred publications in which CSIC specialists from all areas of knowledge bring scientific topics of public interest to the public in a clear and rigorous manner.Network of scientific culture and citizen scienceIn the centers and delegations of the CSIC there are units that work to promote scientific culture and citizen science.A map allows you to locate your location and access your contact details.Science does not have to be done only by professionals.Participate in scientific research by sharing resources, collecting data, and helping to analyze it.science educationThe centers, units and research projects of the CSIC bring science and technology closer to students and teachers of different educational levels through various programs and initiatives.Policies and strategies of scientific cultureThe CSIC organizes training courses and meetings for people interested in the dissemination of science, prepares documents aimed at promoting scientific culture and participates in projects and initiatives aimed at evaluating the impact of the social communication of science.At the CSIC we know that the main asset we have to carry out our mission is people.Their capacity, training and professionalism are what give the CSIC its hallmarks.Why be part of the CSIC?The CSIC is a unique research entity in Spain, which society recognizes and values.In addition to the thematic diversity of its research activity and its extensive human resources, it has a geographical presence, spread throughout the national territory, and its unique infrastructures.Around 11,000 people work and do research at the CSIC, around 25% are researchers in training who are doing their doctorate and continue their career focused on the postdoctoral stage and by directing research groups and projects.The CSIC Employment Exchange is the selection mechanism to access temporary jobs linked to research projects, agreements and contracts.You can consult all the information related to the specific calls for permanent and temporary employment of the CSIC and other specific calls, as well as those for the provision of jobs by civil servants through the system of free appointment, internal promotion and competitions of transfers of official and labor personnel.Training of Research StaffThe CSIC's Postgraduate and Specialization Department (DPE) contributes to defining and putting into practice the CSIC's policy regarding the training of researchers and the teaching provided by our researchers.CSIC Specialization and High Specialization CoursesThe Specialization Courses program includes all the teaching that CSIC researchers offer in the form of postgraduate courses aimed at graduates, graduates, engineers, architects, etc.Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R)The CSIC is developing the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers to achieve full compliance with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for Hiring Researchers and obtain the HR EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH recognition.In 2021, according to the National Hospital for Paraplegics (Toledo) and the Institut Guttmann (Barcelona), 915 patients from different Spanish towns received the same news: they had suffered a spinal cord injury.Of course, the causes of this injury were not the same for everyone.In some people the injury was due to trauma, mainly caused by a traffic accident or accidental fall.Others, however, had to assume that the disease they were going through (in some cases cancer, in others a degenerative disease) had also caused damage to their spinal cord.The prognosis of the injury would not be the same for all patients: some would walk out of the hospital under their own power and others would have to undergo rehabilitation.Other people would lose feeling in their limbs, while some patients would never walk again.In February of this year, shocking news broke, on this occasion, in the scientific community: a team of scientists and clinicians led by a French neuroscientist had managed to get three people who had lost complete mobility of the trunk and lower extremities of their body stand up and be able to walk, swim and ride a bike for a few metres.The patients had their spinal cord completely severed due to a motorcycle accident.By implanting 16 electrodes directly on the spinal cord, Grégoire Courtine's team had restored mobility to these people.But that kind of happy ending is rarely fulfilled in patients suffering from severe spinal cord injury.The team from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) chose the subjects of their study very well: young men, with healthy habits and good physical condition.In addition, to regain mobility, the three underwent drug therapy and rehabilitation sessions for months.Courtine's progress offered a hopeful horizon, but certain spinal cord injuries remain incurable today.For this reason, and to face a challenge of these characteristics, it is necessary for science to employ a multidisciplinary strategy, a lesson that the Madrid Institute of Materials Science (ICMM-CSIC) has learned well.Within this CSIC center, physicists, chemists and biologists belonging to the MAG4Spinal project work together to devise a new therapy capable of regenerating damaged tissues in the spinal cord.The spinal cord, together with the peripheral nerves that arise from it, constitutes the most extensive nervous tissue within the human body.From the brain to almost the end of the spine, the axons carry electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of our body, also acting as an orchestra conductor capable of moderating movement and the body's response to external agents like heat or pain.“Many people think that the spinal cord is the tube through which nerves pass from top to bottom.That is an overly simplistic view!The spinal cord is a continuation of the brain, responsible for carrying out the management of all the elements found in the trunk, the extremities and the organs located within the thoracic and abdominal cavities.It therefore has the capacity for autonomous management, although the brain supervises all its actions”, explains Concepción Serrano, a researcher at the ICMM-CSIC.The scientist, a biologist by training, has spent years searching for treatments for different injuries, such as those that occur in vascular and bone tissues.Currently, she is trying to find new therapies to treat spinal cord injuries.Quite a challenge, she comments, due to the very peculiar characteristics that define the central nervous system (CNS): “The regenerative capacity of this system is quite limited due to its high complexity and specialization.It is essential, therefore, to protect it and that is why there are blood-brain and blood-marrow barriers, which are very selective.These barriers protect the CNS from harmful stimuli, but they also make it difficult for good things, for example, drugs, to reach their target in an easy way.”To all this, another factor is added, according to the biologist, and that is that we still do not know 100% how it works: “There are great unknowns regarding certain brain processes, so that wanting to repair something that we still do not understand about the everything becomes a complicated objective”.When I ask Serrano what spinal cord injuries are, the researcher smiles and nods: “It is good that you mention it in the plural, because in fact spinal cord injury does not exist as a single pathology.In reality, each patient has practically a unique spinal cord injury”.Personalized medicine, characterized by the design of therapies and treatments adapted to the needs of each patient, becomes almost a necessity in the case of spinal cord injuries.According to Serrano, the type of injury varies depending on several factors.Damage may occur that only affects the sensory capacity of the person or the mobility of certain limbs may be lost depending on the height at which the injury occurred.In some cases, the patient loses both motor and sensory abilities.In addition, the researcher summarizes, the damage may have been caused by contusions, lacerations (where the spinal cord is severed) or massive compressions.The patient's prognosis will depend on all this, but there is also a component related to their general health: "Most patients who show a good prognosis have little personal history, that is, they are people without previous pathologies who lead a healthy life, with good nutrition and physical activity and who are also young, with which their body has a greater regenerative capacity”.Together with Serrano, other ICMM-CSIC scientists have launched to design a therapy capable of repairing damaged tissues in a spinal cord injury within MAG4Spinal, a National Plan project.Proposal?Use a biocompatible material loaded with different elements that promote the regeneration of the injured area.“Natural hydrogels are ideal biomaterials from the point of view of tissue engineering.They are made up of elements that are already in our body!” says Serrano.When speaking of hydrogels, the biologist refers to materials composed of polymers, groups of molecules that make up an elastic three-dimensional network with many applications in medicine.They have an appearance similar to that of gelatin and their porosity varies depending on the use they are going to have.In recent years, natural hydrogels have caught the attention of many scientists due to their compatibility with the human body.Collagen, hyaluronic acid, chitosan, gelatin... are some of the ideas that Concepción Serrano's group explores in order to find the most compatible hydrogel with the spinal cord.However, this material alone is not capable of activating regeneration in the damaged region;hence the ICMM-CSIC researchers have resorted to the use of iron oxide nanoparticles, tiny particles that, through magnetic stimulation with a magnet placed on the skin, can induce neural regeneration in the damaged area.María del Puerto Morales and Sabino Veintemillas have spent a lifetime as researchers perfecting their technique to produce these particles.“Iron oxide nanoparticles have unique magnetic properties.Also, being so small they can reach everywhere.They have a large surface area, they catalyze many reactions, they are very non-toxic and they are capable of transporting drugs”, sums up Veintemillas.The advantage of using this material, Morales adds, is that it is very cheap to produce and highly biocompatible: “We know how to manipulate it inside our body;we are introducing an element that is not strange to it and that, in fact, is even beneficial in certain quantities”.Although nanoparticles can transport drugs, what these chemists seek in their collaboration with Serrano is to incorporate so-called biological messengers, substances that are naturally found in our body and that play a key role in cell regeneration.Specifically, the nanoparticles will carry nucleic acids."Generally, this genetic component would not enter neurons, which is why we need to use nanoparticles as a vehicle," explains Morales.“Our idea is to use a biocompatible hydrogel loaded with these nanoparticles.By applying an external magnetic field we will heat the surroundings of the nanoparticles, causing the hydrogel to dissolve and allowing them to migrate towards the neurons and penetrate their interior carrying the regeneration mediators”, the scientists explain.In addition, because these particles are magnetic, by applying magnetic fields of controlled direction, scientists can "drag" the nanoparticles in the direction they want, and thus motivate the growth of neurons in the direction that most interests depending on the injury.For the moment, this alliance between researchers has managed to design the nanoparticles and the hydrogel that will carry them.However, they comment, for their therapy to be effective, it is first necessary to understand how both elements behave together.To do this they have the help of Ricardo García's team, a physicist also at the ICMM-CSIC and one of the greatest experts in atomic force microscopy.“A microscope of this type interacts with the sample that we want to study through mechanical processes -says García-.As an analogy we can say that it works like touch.The microscope uses a finger to examine the sample just like we would with our hands, only in this case it's molecular in size."The microscope that García designs and uses measures the interaction between the molecular finger and the atoms, molecules, or surface structures that he wishes to study.Thanks to this technology, the researcher can see changes in the roughness, composition and mechanical properties of the sample, aspects that provide a lot of information about the nature of what he studies.“In the case of biomedical applications, studying these mechanical aspects is highly relevant, since the growth and functioning of cells depend on the mechanical properties of their environment”, explains García.His experience with the atomic force microscope will help the Serrano, Puerto and Veintemillas team to understand how the nanoparticles behave once they are incorporated into the hydrogel, ensuring that they fulfill their function and promote the regeneration of the injured bone marrow.Added to the efforts of the scientists at this CSIC center is the collaboration of the National Hospital for Paraplegics, a leading center in the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with spinal cord injuries.Elisa López-Dolado, a rehabilitation physician, has been working in the field of pediatric spinal cord injuries for years.Her collaboration with Serrano dates back to her formative years as a researcher.“Although our profiles are very different, we found a way to fit both visions.Since then we have worked together”, explains López-Dolado.Her motivation to carry out basic research in spinal cord injuries, she comments, lies in the contact that she maintains on a daily basis with patients whom she cannot cure.One of the strengths of the project, as all its participants attest, is that it incorporates the much-needed conversation between the design of a medical treatment from a basic perspective and its future application as a therapy in real patients.The translation of basic research to clinical application is not a direct or simple path, explains López-Dolado."We need this translation to have a double meaning: for the basic researcher to acquire the ability to communicate with clinical staff and for clinicians to effectively understand what researchers are proposing to us."Within MAG4Spinal, the National Hospital for Paraplegics will be in charge of inserting the hydrogel into lesions made in a rat animal model, and supporting the regeneration of the spinal cord with "regenerative rehabilitation" sessions, designed to activate weakened or lost motor functions after the injury.The collaboration between these scientists did not begin with the National Plan project, which began in 2021, nor will it end when it ends.For years they have tried to find different solutions to face an injury that in many cases completely alters the lives of patients.Together they have faced this challenge thanks to discipline, cooperation and creativity.All of them are aware of the long road ahead of them.At the moment, they continue to work on the frontier of knowledge.Lucía Casas / Content produced within the CSIC Grants Program – BBVA Communication FoundationEach patient has a unique spinal cord injury depending on the circumstances of the injury./ pexelsThey identify a new model of development of 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