Synthetic biology and antibacterial agents were the focus of the scientific debates that took place in 2019 through B·Debate – International Center for Scientific Debate Barcelona. This Biocat initiative, with support from the ”la Caixa” Foundation, aims to drive top-notch international scientific events to promote dialog, debate, collaboration and an open exchange of ideas, initiatives and knowledge among experts of renowned national and international prestige.

In 2019, two sessions were held at CosmoCaixa Barcelona with more than 140 participants and 49 speakers, 37% from abroad. Eight organizations collaborated on the events, six from abroad.

Participants in the debates were from benchmark science organizations, including the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Hospital Clinic Barcelona, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), University of Barcelona (UB), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR).

The B·Debate program has its own website, fully redesigned in 2016, with the materials generated at each of the sessions in Catalan and English. B·Debate also shares the knowledge and results obtained through each debate in news articles, events with journalists and the Synopses.

The following B·Debate sessions were held in 2019:

Synthetic biology. Engineering life for the medicine of the future (June 13 and 14, 2019).

Reversing a dystopian future. New strategies to discover antibacterial agents (November 12, 13 and 14).