About research

Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

The Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) carries out excellent biomedical research and investigates the most common diseases in our society. Our mission is translational research; that is, we look to ensure that the questions that arise at the patient’s bedside find answers in the laboratory and that advances made in the laboratory are translated rapidly to the patient. 

Approximately 2,000 professionals work out at our institution. Around 100 multidisciplinary groups carry out relevant research, as demonstrated by more than 1,500 original articles published every year. IDIBAPS is one of the leading biomedical research centers in Spain with an international projection. 

IDIBAPS is the result of the integration in 2023 of the Hospital Clínic Foundation for Biomedical Research (FCRB), created in 1989, and the consortium August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute, created in 1996. It is a nonprofit foundation with a board of governors representing the Catalan Government departments of Health and of Research and Universities, Clínic Barcelona Hospital and the University of Barcelona. 

IDIBAPS is a CERCA center and has been accredited as a healthcare research institute by the Carlos III Institute of Health since 2009. It is also part of the Science Foundation Centers of the Spanish Cancer Association (AECC) and of the Network of Hospital and Biosanitary Clinical Research Management Institutions (REGIC). 

IDIBAPS’ activities are mainly carried out in two areas: the Esther Koplowitz Centre (CEK) and the CELLEX Biomedical Research Centre. The first centre, which was opened in 2010, has around 5,000 m2 allocated to laboratories and, in the basement, a 2,500 m2 area where, among other things, there are scientific platforms such as the Tumour Bank and the Anatomical Pathology Collection, the Biological Fluids Bank, and the genomics and cytometry platforms. The CELLEX building was opened in 2013 and has over 2,000 m2 dedicated to research laboratories.

About August Pi i Sunyer

Born in Barcelona in 1879, August Pi i Sunyer was an outstanding physician, physiologist and researcher. From an early age, he combined his professional practice of medicine with research, which he initially carried out at the Municipal Bacteriological Laboratory of Barcelona under the direction of Ramon Turró. He was a professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and made several discoveries about reflexes, physical stimuli and their influence on respiratory movement. 

Pi i Sunyer founded the Catalan Society of Biology and promoted the creation of the Institute of Physiology of Barcelona in 1920. The latter became the most important research institution in Catalonia and Spain and a prestigious medical school. However, the victory of Franco’s army in 1939 led to the closure of the institute and the dismantling of Pi i Sunyer’s work in Catalonia. 

When a new institute was created to coordinate the research produced by Clínic Hospital in 1995, it was named after August Pi i Sunyer in recognition of his work and to ensure that the new institution would resume the research tradition of the Institute of Physiology that had been destroyed by the Spanish Civil War.