Great Challenges of Biomedicine

Biomedicine is most probably the field of research that has most impact in our lives, not so much in everyday life but, rather, with regard to our state of health, the development of new drugs and, in brief, the prospects for curing many illnesses.

The radical changes that have taken place in recent years are due to the fact that the struggle against disease is now based on intimate molecular and genetic knowledge of the causal bases of illness. Knowing in order to intervene – this is the great paradigm that molecular biology has opened up in medicine and it is breaking new ground for treatment that now makes it possible to survive illnesses that were once incurable, to enjoy a good quality of life, and to live many more years than in other times.

With this debate we aim to explore the limits set by biomedicine and the promises that it is opening up and expanding with regard to its effects on our health.

“Great Challenges of Biomedicine” is the first of the ICREA-CCCB Debates and the beginning of a stable working relationship aimed at informing the wider public about the advances being made in high-level research in Catalonia and the challenges it faces. Each debate will present the work being done by researchers at the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA – Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies) in different fields of knowledge.