Diario Médico has awarded its prizes to the Best Ideas of the year in the field of health in an event held at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. In the 16th edition of these awards, the work of two VHIR research groups has been acknowledged.One of the awards, in the section on Best Research and Pharmacology Ideas, was the discovery of 8 biomarkers of Crohn's disease that could prevent invasive diagnostic tests. The other award, as one of the Best Management Ideas, has been the incorporation of the severe combined immunodeficiency in the neonatal screening in Vall d'Hebron.New biomarkers of Crohn's diseaseA study led by Dr. Chaysavanh Manichanh, head of the research line of the Intestinal Microbiota of the http://www.vhir.org/portal1/grup-equip.asp?s=recerca&contentid=187018&t=Fisiologia%20i%20Fisiopatologia%20Digestiva Physiology and Digestive Physiology Group of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), identified 8 biomarkers that could improve the diagnosis of Crohn's disease and the design of treatment for this pathology and for ulcerative colitis.The study, which was published in the journal http://gut.bmj.com/" Gut, analysed the microbiota -the set of microorganisms in the intestine- of patients and healthy people from stool samples. In particular, they analysed a total of 415 faeces samples of 178 participants to identify the 8 biomarkers that could discard the diagnosis of Crohn's disease and, therefore, avoid invasive tests such as colonoscopy and endoscopy.The researchers point out that the results of the study confirm that Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are clinically similar, but with a very different microbiota. In this sense, they observed that patients with Crohn's disease have a more unstable microbiota than patients with ulcerative colitis.Neonatal screening in severe combined immunodeficiencyVall d'Hebron University Hospital collaborated with the Department of Health in the http://servwww.cs.vhebron.es:8080/es/web/guest/actualidades?p_p_auth=TPyA467S&p_p_id=101&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&_101_struts_action=/asset_publisher/view_content&_101_returnToFullPageURL=/es/web/guest/actualidades%3Fp_ incorporation of severe combined immunodeficiency in neonatal screening. This pathology, also known as the "bubble boy" disease, is the most serious form of primary immunodeficiency, and affects every year between 1 and 4 babies in Catalonia. Dr. Pere Soler, Doctor of the Infectious Diseases and Paediatric Immunodeficiencies Service, says that the survival of patients is expected to increase between 40 and 60% with treatment. The figure is expected to rise to 95%, the level reached by the states in the United States that have already implemented this screening. Thanks to this Vall d'Hebron project, Catalonia has become the first public health system in Europe to incorporate this test.Finally, Dr. Oriol de Fàbregues, a researcher in the VHIR http://www.vhir.org/portal1/grup-equip.asp?t=malalties-neurodegeneratives&s=recerca&contentid=186912 neurodegenerative diseases research group, received an award as a member of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) for the best legal, ethical and deontological initiative for the Bioethics-Legal Cases in Neurology Manual. This document, jointly developed by the SEN, Merck Health and Health Law Advisers, offers the neurologist a compilation and analysis of real conflicts in the bioethical and legal field, providing the Clauses for their resolution. Some of the issues addressed are the decision-making in patients with cognitive deterioration, the freedom of prescription of the specialist and the participation of patients in clinical trials.