UNESCO honors Cuba's IPK expert

HAVANA, Cuba, May 29 (ACN) Doctor of Science María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, director of the Research, Diagnosis and Reference Center of the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO International Prize for Women in Science for her studies about dengue fever, a disease that mainly hits intertropical areas and infects 50 to 100 million people worldwide every year.

UNESCO’s announcement of the five award winners by geographic area remarks that Professor Guzmán Tirado’s research has made it possible to better understand dengue’s pathogens and improve its prevention and treatment.

The Cuban scientist is the first Caribbean woman to earn this distinction.

Since 1998, UNESCO, in cooperation with the French cosmetics company L'Oréal, has given this award to 122 women researchers and scientists and to more than 3,800 talented young prospects for their significant contributions to life sciences and the environment.

María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado is president of the Cuban Society of Microbiology and Parasitology; director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for the study of dengue and its control; Merit Academician of the Cuban Academy of Sciences; of the World Academy of Sciences and of the Organization of Women Scientists for the Developing World. She has more than 300 scientific articles and short publications to her credit, including two hypotheses, seven patents and 20 book chapters.

She is also Senior Researcher in more than 70 national and international projects and has given more than 130 courses in Cuba, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.