Cuba and Argentina signed Scientific Cooperation agreements

Argentina’s CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) and Cuba’s CIGB (Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology) agreed on Thursday the building of a center for the development and research of biotechnological medicines.

The facility will be named Ernesto “Che” Guevara. According to CIGB General Director Luis Herrera Martinez, the building is part of the “advanced stage” of academic cooperation which will allow the emergence of “new and beneficial products” for both countries.

CONICET’s chairman Roberto Carlos Salvarezza highlighted that the first cooperation agreements were signed by both institutions in 2009. Four projects are nowadays being implemented, one of them linked to the fight against cancer.

Both institutions recently signed agreements to work together in the fields of nanomaterials and the synthesis of new molecules to make better use of CIGB competence to start new researches.

Cuba’s advances in nanotechnology has allowed the country to develop new methods to create new diagnosis systems, vaccines, and drugs to fight cancer, B and C hepatitis as well as the diabetic foot ulceration.

According to the estimates of BioCubaFarma (Biotechnology Pharmaceutical Industry Group) announced last year, the exports of this branch will rise to the 5 millions USD in the next five years.

Cubasi Translation Staff