Promoting research on sugar cane derivatives

HAVANA, Cuba, May 24 (ACN) A team of professionals at the Cuban Institute for Research on Sugarcane Derivatives (ICIDCA) is engaged in eight projects as part of the AZCUBA Sugar Group Development Program.

The tests are related to animal feed, bioproducts, energy efficiency, the production and quality levels of wax and its by-products, and the reassessment of wastes. The program is supported by new investments intended to increase the analytical capacity of AZCUBA's productions and to recover its scientific infrastructure.

In this regard, the entity is planning the start-up of the Analytical Services Unit and the Bromatology laboratory, as well as the remodeling of the Microbiology and Molecular Biology laboratory and the Alcohol-Gel and Edible Fungi production plants using sugarcane harvest residues.

The program envisages higher export rates for the entity’s goods and services to contribute to the national economy, faced with the tenacious intensification of the U.S. economic, financial and commercial blockade even in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic.

Also underway are joint research and capacity building projects with the main Cuban centers of higher studies, among them the University of Havana, the Havana Technological University José Antonio Echeverría, and the Havana Agrarian University Fructuoso Rodríguez Pérez, as well as with the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the National Center for Scientific Research, and the LABIOFAM Group (Laboratorios Biológicos Farmacéuticos S.A.).

ICIDCA was established on May 23, 1963 at the initiative of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, then Minister of Industry.