Roc Martín Castillo, a participant in the Spanish Biology Olympics held in Tenerife this year, visited various research groups at the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology I2SysBio (a joint CSIC-University of Valencia centre) during the first week of July.

 

In recent years, the CSIC has collaborated with the organisation of the Biology Olympiad. After the regional stages of the competition, the most brilliant students who reach the final are offered the opportunity to spend a short period at a research centre. In the 2025 edition, Roc Martín Castillo, a high school student at the Instituto Español Giner de los Ríos in Lisbon, visited the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology I2SysBio (a joint UV-CSIC centre).

 

Roc Martín Castillo was welcomed by Rosario Gil, deputy director of I2SysBio, who accompanied him throughout the week on his tour of different research groups. Although Roc's initial idea was to study a more technical engineering degree, he discovered biology during his baccalaureate studies and is now fascinated by the practical applications of this science. He has therefore decided to study a degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Barcelona.

 

During his stay, he gained first-hand knowledge of the research carried out by different research teams, although he was particularly struck by the widespread use of high-performance computing in systems biology. Given his interest, his visit ended with an explanation of Garnatxa, the supercomputing cluster located in the I2SysBio data centre, by José Vicente Carrión, manager of this infrastructure.