Industrial Biotechnology Center leads modern biotechnical research

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Feb 9 (ACN) The Center for Industrial Biotechnology ( CEBI), of the University of Oriente in Santiago de Cuba(esatern country), is leading modern biotechnological research in Cuba aimed at the use of microorganisms and biomolecules for the sustainable development of agriculture, health, food production, industry and the protection of the environment.

Ascribed to the Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences of the university, the center develops 16 projects focusing on strategic sectors -pharmaceutical, biotechnological and biomedical industry, food and sugar agroindustry- and on natural resources and environment.

Humberto Joaquin Morris Quevedo, director of CEBI, told the Cuban News Agency that the main actions in 2020 were aimed at completing the research cycles with their technological applications or product outputs that contribute to increase the impact on the territory in prioritized issues.
As main projects are the pre-opening of the UO-BioCubaFarma Joint Laboratory for immunodiagnosis and biopharmaceutical products, the first of its kind outside the capital, with the Laboratory of Antibodies and Experimental Biomodels (Labex-CIM), Morris Quevedo said.

He also pointed out the installation of an edible mushroom plant that has the support of the Pharmaceutical Laboratory Oriente and has as its objective the production of these mushrooms, which can serve as a nutritional supplement of high dietary value.

Morris Quevedo anticipated that they are working on obtaining a dietary supplement tablet that is awaiting certification before the National Group of Food and Dietary Supplements Registration.

They also developed the substrate left over from the cultivation of edible mushrooms, as fertilizer in organoponic crops such as garlic, white chives, Vigna beans and beans, with which they obtain higher yields by reducing the growth time of the seedlings compared to humus, and it is also used as animal feed in male rabbits of the Cuban Brown breed.

On the other hand, they are introducing pectin, produced at CEBI from coffee wet processing by-products, to replace imports in the manufacture of canned food, the scientist remarked.

All this research contributes to the National Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the country until 2030, to the Sustainable Development Goals and eight of these projects contribute to the Task Life, as it is called the Cuban State's plan to confront climate change in a sustainable way.