The BBRC hosts and actively participates in the Euro-PAD 2025 symposium

The Euro-PAD consortium held its annual symposium on June 16–17, 2025, in Barcelona, with significant involvement from the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), which acted as this year’s host institution. The event took place at the BBRC headquarters and the Ciutadella Campus of Pompeu Fabra University, and hosted almost 100 participants.

On the morning of the first day, two parallel workshops were held, one of them organized by the BBRC and focused on fluid biomarkers, led by Dr. Marc Suárez-Calvet, head of the Fluid Biomarkers and Translational Neurology Research Group. The session provided a comprehensive overview of blood biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases, analytical techniques, clinical applications, and the discovery of new biomarkers.

The opening session of the symposium featured a warm welcome from the organisers, establishing a collaborative atmosphere for the event. An overview of the Euro-PAD community highlighted the significant progress made over the past year. This year, participants were also invited to submit abstracts for poster presentations and short talks, enriching the exchange of ideas.

Within the scientific program, several BBRC researchers took part as speakers. PhD student Blanca Rodríguez Fernández presented a study on the relationship between leukocyte telomere length and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker dynamics in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Postdoctoral researcher Wiesje Pelkmans presented her work on how microglial reactivity may modulate amyloid accumulation related to ptau231 in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition, David Vállez García, director of the BBRC Neuroimaging Platform, was one of the speakers delivering the event’s closing remarks, alongside Frederik Barkhof (AUMC).

The Euro-PAD 2025 symposium once again strengthened European scientific collaboration around Alzheimer’s disease and consolidated BBRC’s position as a key node in biomarker and neuroimaging research.