IACS

IACS (Institute for Health Sciences in Aragon) is the entity that promotes research, innovation and knowledge brokering in biomedicine and health sciences for the Aragon Regional Health System. IACS carries out its activity with the expectation of contributing to high quality care in the public health system, supporting innovation, research of excellence and benchmark training, as well as supporting the creation of wealth and economic growth.
Regarding Research and Innovation, IACS supports stable research and innovation groups in the areas of clinical and translational medical research, biomedicine, public health, health systems and policy research. In addition IACS provides with scientific technical services in the area of Biocomputing, Proteomics, Genomics and functional sequencing, Biobank, Microscopy and Pathology, Cell Culture, Citometrics, Experimental Surgery, Phenotyping and medical imaging as well as Animal Facilities .
The IACS Biocomputing Unit combines two major activities and services: medical informatics and bioinformatics. The combination of these two areas make the Unit an innovative group highly skilled in the management, integration and analysis of multi-faceted health related data, both in terms of e-infrastructure and software solutions.
IACS’s Biobank is a network structure created to support biomedical research and accelerate translational one. Its main objective is to make human biological samples and associated clinical data available to researchers and companies, with all the ethical, legal and quality guarantees. Through collaboration with different Regional health centers, the Biobank articulates the progressive incorporation of collections of samples representative of different pathologies and of the general population, the association of data with scientific interest, and the transfer of said samples to carry out certain projects.

Fundación Agencia Aragonesa para la Investigación y el Desarrollo (ARAID), Zaragoza, Spain
ARAID (Aragonese Foundation for Research & Development) is an Agency created by the Regional Government of Aragon with the aim of promoting research, development and innovation in the region of Aragon. It is a non-profit organization, with the legal status of a Foundation.
The main activity of the Foundation is the recruitment of researchers and scientist. For this, the Foundation launches regular calls for attraction of researchers. These calls are open to talented and experienced Researchers of various fields of Research and Knowledge, with credited recognition of the quality of their work at international level. This activity represents a clear advance in the regional purpose to make Aragon an attractive Region for research and creation of knowledge, offering researchers a stable and viable professional setup for the development of their careers.
One of ARAID’s researchers is Dr Jon Schoorlemmer, principal investigator of a Research Group on ERV (Endogenous Retroviral Elements) in development and associated pathologies. It is a multidisciplinary group with a variety of research interests ranging from placental pathologies associated with preterm birth and preeclampsia; the contribution of Human Endogenous Retroviruses to Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the establishment of in vitro human models of neurodegeneration, inflammation and placental dysfunction; the molecular characterization of HERVW expression in COVID-19 disease and its relationship with endothelial dysfunction.