FUNDACIO INSTITUT D'INVESTIGACIO SANITARIA PERE VIRGILI (IISPV)

Their core work

IISPV is a health research institute based in Tarragona, Spain, specializing in biomarker discovery and metabolomics-driven diagnostics. They develop analytical methods (GC-MS, LC-MS, GCxGC-MS) to detect chemical exposures in human populations and identify urinary biomarkers for diseases like colorectal cancer and type 2 diabetes. Their work bridges environmental health monitoring — tracking how pollutants and tobacco smoke affect the body — with clinical research on metabolic and neurological disorders. They also contribute to large-scale European human biomonitoring and plant protection safety initiatives.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their early H2020 period (2015–2018), IISPV focused on environmental exposure science — thirdhand tobacco smoke characterization, human biomonitoring for endocrine disruptors, and building analytical metabolomics pipelines using GC-MS and LC-MS. From 2019 onward, they pivoted toward clinical disease applications, applying those same metabolomics tools to colorectal cancer diagnostics, insulin-related multimorbidity, and large-scale food safety monitoring. The throughline is mass spectrometry expertise, but the application shifted from "what chemicals are people exposed to" toward "can we diagnose diseases from urine samples."

IISPV is moving from environmental monitoring toward clinical diagnostics and disease prevention, making them an increasingly relevant partner for translational health and precision medicine projects.

How they like to work

IISPV operates as both a project leader and a specialized contributor depending on project scale. They coordinated 4 of their 9 projects — typically smaller, focused MSCA fellowships — while joining larger consortia (HBM4EU, Eat2beNICE, SPRINT) as a third party or participant providing metabolomics expertise. With 189 unique partners across 32 countries, they connect broadly but their third-party roles suggest they are often brought in specifically for their analytical chemistry capabilities rather than as core consortium designers.

IISPV has collaborated with 189 unique partners across 32 countries, indicating a wide European and international network built largely through participation in large-scale health and biomonitoring consortia like HBM4EU and SPRINT.

What sets them apart

IISPV combines deep analytical chemistry expertise (multi-platform mass spectrometry) with direct access to clinical cohorts through their hospital-linked research structure. This dual capability — lab-bench metabolomics plus population-level health data — makes them particularly valuable for projects that need to move from chemical measurement to health outcome interpretation. Few research institutes of their size can both develop the analytical method and validate it against real patient cohorts in-house.

Highlights from their portfolio

• COLOVOC
  Coordinated project developing urinary volatile biomarkers for colorectal cancer detection — a direct translational application of their metabolomics platform toward non-invasive diagnostics.
• HBM4EU
  Flagship European Human Biomonitoring Initiative involving hundreds of partners; IISPV's inclusion as a third party confirms their recognized expertise in exposure biomarker analysis.
• PRIME
  Largest single EC contribution (EUR 270K via SPRINT, but PRIME is more thematically distinctive) — tackles the intersection of insulin resistance, dementia, and compulsivity, an unusual cross-domain scope.