News

Dr. Maria Klapa, Research Director and Head of the Metabolic Engineering & Systems Biology Laboratory at FORTH/ICE-HT, has been accepted in the 2026 Severo Ochoa Women Researchers Fellowship Programme of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), which “seeks to promote female talent attraction and boost research activities in specific institutional and organizational environments in which a scientific community works closely together to achieve common objectives. It facilitates interaction among its members and, at the same time, shows a high degree of openness to international collaboration”.

The fellowship covers a 4-week research stay of Dr. Klapa at BSC-CNS in late 2026, hosted by Drs Alfonso Valencia, Miguel Ponce de León and Arnau Montagud in the Computational Biology group, in which they will collaborate on the development of computational frameworks for the investigation of sex-specific metabolic reprogramming of mammalian tissues in disease, bridging multi-scale modeling, high-performance computing, systems biology, and precision medicine. Importantly, the project will actively contribute to gender-sensitive research and the fellow will engage with BSC’s Gender Equality Committee through mentoring activities, participation in visibility initiatives for women in computational science, and contribution to leadership and networking actions. By promoting sex-aware modelling in research design and supporting women researchers’ advancement, the fellowship aligns scientific innovation with inclusive excellence.