Shiny medals for Cuban science products

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 9 (ACN) Despite the permanent and ever-increasing siege of the United States started nearly 60 years ago, ten products of Cuban science have been awarded the Gold Medal of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) since 1989.

These prizes say much of a country in the so-called Third World that attaches the utmost importance to scientific capacity building, human capital development and technological innovation, but it is no less striking that these results were achieved through the collective work of specialists from institutions throughout Cuba and in cooperation with foreign centers, which shows the extent of the research.

It is also a telltale sign of the efforts to lay the foundations of biotechnology, as evidenced today by the Cuban anti-COVID-19 vaccine candidates Soberana 01, 02 and Plus, of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines, and Mambisa and Abdala , of the internationally famed Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.

Cuba won its first prize in 1989 for the Finlay Institute’s immunizer against Meningococcus (Neisseria Meningitidis) of group B, followed in 1996 by PPG, a multipurpose drug made by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNIC).

According to the Cuban Industrial Property Office (OCPI), in 2000 the prize went to the veterinary antibiotic Biocide of the Center of Chemical Bioactives at the Marta Abreu Central University of Las Villas, whereas in 2002 we won two awards, one for the chimeric and humanized antibody against the epidermal growth factor receptor for diagnostic and therapeutic use, produced at the Molecular Immunology Center (CIM), and another for a practical method to preserve raw milk designed by the National Center for Agricultural Health (CENSA).

Three years later, the School of Chemistry of the University of Havana and the University of Ottawa, Canada received the award for their oligosaccharides derived from ribose-ribitol-phosphate, methods to prepare them, their immunogens and vaccines.

In 2007 it went to both CNIC’s equipment and methods for rapid microbiological diagnosis and CENSA’s Swine Pulmonary Surfactant (SURFACEN).

The use of a pharmaceutical composite containing epidermal growth factor (EGF) for the prevention of diabetic foot amputation, of the CIGB, followed in 2011 and, finally, CIM earned it in 2015 for a monoclonal antibody for the diagnosis and treatment of psioriasis.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) dates back to 1883 with the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. In 1974 it joined the United Nations as a specialized agency.

The Cuban Industrial Property Office (OCPI) registers these rights in the Islands and provides specialized scientific-technological to contribute to the development of science, technology, innovation, national and foreign investment, industry and trade.