CIC nanoGUNE ran a workshop today to present a new instrument (the CRYO Plasma FIB); it is one of the few in Europe and across the world and has been installed at the center recently. An agreement to enhance the Basque electron microscopy infrastructure was also presented. It was signed by bioGUNE, biomaGUNE, energiGUNE and nanoGUNE, cooperative research centers (CICs) that belong to the BRTA alliance, and its purpose is to offer research groups and industrial customers comprehensive electron microscopy solutions.

The Cooperative Research Center nanoGUNE has achieved three Marie-Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship projects in the 2023 call, obtaining 624.071,52€ in total. The objective of this European programme is to support the education and the professional development of postdoctoral researchers by offering them a contract for 12 to 36 months including personnel recruitment and research expenses. This is an initiative of the European Commission inside the Horizon Europe program, and it funds researchers of any nationality with a maximum of eight years of research experience.

Last Friday February 16th in CIC nanoGUNE we had the opportunity to attend an Alumni Career Talk with Patricia Riego Saavedra, a former nanoGUNE predoctoral researcher who is now an industry 4.0 engineer at GHI Smart Furnaces. Patricia did her PhD in 2019 about the "Magneto-optical characterization of magnetic thin films and interface structures" and we have had the chance to know more about her life after this thesis.

Around 150 people came to the Intxaurrondo Kultur Etxea this afternoon to mark the beginning of the 8th edition of the Emakumeak Zientzian initiative in a festive atmosphere, and to emphasize that people in the scientific and technological field are still people with their needs, their passions, their commitments and their hobbies. In addition, there was a video presentation starring different people from the scientific and technological field, focusing on their lives beyond science.

The Condensed Matter Physics Division (GEFES) of the Spanish Royal Society of Physics (RSEF) has awarded the researcher Niklas Friedrich of nanoGUNE’s Nanoimaging Group the prize for best experimental PhD thesis in condensed matter physics, for his thesis entitled Electronic transport through suspended graphene nanoribbons using a scanning tunneling microscope.

Thirty-two Basque organizations are joining forces around the Emakumeak Zientzian project, thus declaring their commitment to the aims of the initiative: to bring visibility to the activity of women in science, to break with the typically male roles attributed to scientific and technical activities, and to encourage girls and adolescents to opt for scientific careers. With these aims in mind, the organizations are coming together to run a joint program of activities to mark International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated every year on February 11.

CIC nanoGUNE has just launched the program for summer internships, which runs every year. University students are offered the chance to get involved in the activity of a world-class research center.

The research centers CIC nanoGUNE and POLYMAT and the 3D printing company Indart3D are collaborating to produce a tool that creates human tissue with the precision and complexity required for tissue and organ regeneration and make it available to medical and research personnel. The project, known as NANOPRINT BIO, is the outcome of a unique collaboration between research centers and companies, and is supported by the Basque Government's R&D grant program Hazitek 2023.

CIC nanoGUNE, a nanoscience research center in the Basque Country, is exploring and developing new materials to store DNA containing digital information. This promising line of research, led by nanoGUNE's Self Assembly team, is part of the TextaDNA project, a European Union EIC PathFinder project coordinated by nanoGUNE. Also participating in this project is the German company Eurofins Genomics, one of the major European organizations in the field of DNA synthesis and sequencing. Specifically, the project is set to receive a grant of 2.5 million euros, which will be used to acquire equipment and set up a working team for this line of research.

Nanodevices group, lead by Luis Hueso, has hosted the INTERFAST and SINFONIA project meetings from 25 to 27 October 2023. NanoGUNE, with other European national institutes is a partner of both projects.