Center of Molecular Immunology in Cuba distinguished in the fight against COVID-19

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 29 (ACN) The Center of Molecular Immunology (CIM), in Havana, which belongs to the business group BioCubaFarma, prioritized this year the confrontation to the COVID-19 pandemic, besides fulfilling its mission of obtaining and producing new biopharmaceuticals to treat cancer and other chronic noncommunicable diseases.

According to the PhD in Sciences Tania Carmenate Portilla, head of the department of Immunoregulation, belonging to the Direction of Immunology and Immunotherapy of the CIM, exclusively to the Cuban News Agency, all the capacity and scientific staff of the institution were involved in this important task, especially the young people.

She highlighted the creation in the center of a laboratory for the diagnosis of the disease by means of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), integrated by around 40 workers, most of them under 30 years old from all the departments of the entity, who have processed so far around 50, 000 samples.

The expert highlighted the insertion of the institution's products in the treatment protocols of severe patients infected with the new coronavirus; they are the granulocyte stimulating factor (G-CSF) and the monoclonal antibody (AcM) Itolizumab; and, according to the official site of the CIM, there is also the recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO).

Carmenate Portilla also referred to the contribution in the design and production of the Soberana 01 and Soberana 02 vaccine projects, along with the Finlay Institute of Vaccines, for which they developed two specific antigens and recombinant molecules that verify the immune response of both candidates.

The CIM is also involved in the evaluation of the volunteers' immune response in the vaccines' clinical studies, since part of them are carried out in the facility; and it also obtains antigens for the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), the scientist concluded.