• The projects supported by the Department of Agrarian Management of the Technological Faculty and the Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago show important results, like a bio-pesticide based on residual quinoa grains or the potential edible use of this pseudo-cereal leaves.

The projects supported by the Department of Agrarian Management of the Technological Faculty and the Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago (Cecta, in Spanish), show important progress in their goal of feeding the population in a healthy and equitable way.

The first project, “Biopesticidas en base a saponinas de quínoa” (Bio-pesticides based on quinoa saponins) (FIC 30343624-0) lasts three years and it is being developed in the O’Higgins Region, in Central Chile. It has the purpose of using the residual quinoa grains to generate a natural pesticide for grapevines.

The second project, “Valorización agroindustrial de subproductos de la quínoa” (Agro-industrial valuation of quinoa byproducts) (FIC 30429825-0), lasts three years and it is also being developed in the O’Higgins Region. The goal of this project is to promote the cultivation of quinoa, with new applications. Besides using the grains, they expect to promote the use of the leaves in salads.

The third project, “Habilitación de productores hortícolas de la región Metropolitana para la elaboración de productos IV gama” (Training vegetable producers of the Metropolitan Region in the elaboration of IV range products) (GORE BIP 30442786-0), lasts 18 months and it is the continuation of a project developed by the Cecta researchers in 2011 that tested different protocols to reduce the microbial load in vegetables like lettuces, cabbages and carrots.

Carlos Díaz Ramírez, Professor at the Department of Agrarian Management and Innovation Manager of the projects, explains that the purpose of this project is to train small farmers in the care and safety of all the production and supply chain of vegetables, until the products reach the consumer.

Some of the Cecta scientists involved in the projects are Professor Lina Yáñez Catalán, Dr Claudio Martínez and Dr José Luis Palacios Pino.

• Through a Fondecyt Initiation into Research Project, Dr. Luis Lemus, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, has studied the interaction between new molecules called “helicates” and DNA, in order to evaluate the development of more specific drugs to fight cancer, avoiding the destructive effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

According to Globocan, a worldwide survey on cancer conducted in 2012; there are 14.1 million new cases of this disease. At present, the most widely used treatments are chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Their purpose is to stop cancer spreading in the body by killing malignant cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of most cancer cells; however, in the process healthy cells are killed too: hair follicles, gastric mucosal cells, blood cells, etc. These side effects make these non-specific treatments very destructive:

Something that could help to change this situation is the development of new compounds with a higher selectivity towards a specific biological target, the line of research of Dr. Luis Lemus, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology of Universidad de Santiago, who leads the Fondecyt* Initiation into Research Project named “Study on Helicates as DNA coordinators”. Its results could lead to developing more specific anticancer drugs.

“These molecules (helicates) are able to bind to DNA strands by means of specific and strong interactions, modifying its structure, what prevents the genetic material from replicating inside the cell. What should be noticed is that cancer cells are the ones that produce the largest amount of DNA; therefore, these molecules could be a potential treatment against cancer progression,” professor Lemus stresses.

To make progress in the treatment of this disease, first it is essential to deepen the knowledge about these compounds, which started to be studied less than 30 years ago. According to professor Lemus, nowadays there are a few groups in the world dedicated to study the use of helicates as anticancer drugs and the way in which this type of interaction affects the DNA structural modification has not been studied yet. This is the line of research that Dr. Lemus intends to develop.

“Helicates are inorganic chiral molecules with a helical shape similar to the one of DNA, in which each molecule has a helical twist sense defined according to its structure. These positive molecules interact with negatives ones, in this case, DNA. After this electrostatic attraction occurs, the DNA is able to recognize and selectively establish secondary interactions with helicates with better twist sense than others. Here, documenting this phenomenon is essential.

This project will be implemented in two stages. First, by performing the structural study and synthesis of different types of helicates with different transition metals; and second, by doing DNA tests to evaluate the affinity between the molecules and DNA, and the extent to which helicates could modify the latter.

Regarding the projections of the study, professor Lemus says that in the future, “it would be ideal to evaluate these compounds against cancer cells and therefore, to prove if they are able to kill these cells. However, today we are trying to build a very basic knowledge, because it does not exist. Acquiring this knowledge will be very helpful for us and for other groups.”

A field to explore

Creating a research group dedicated to study inorganic complexes for biological applications is among the goals that Dr. Lemus has for this project. According to the academic, this area is little developed in Chile, so this study could start a new line of research both at the University and in the country.

“We have the facilities, equipment and experience in synthesis to meet the initial goals of this project; but we also need help from other researchers who could contribute with their knowledge in biology to make the study more valuable. This project is the first step for the expectations that we have as a group,” Dr. Lemus says.

*Fondecyt: National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Diego Barría and Francisco Castañeda, professors at the Faculty of Administration and Economics of Universidad de Santiago, participated in a project of Jean Monnet Networks, an action co-funded by the European Union and led by the University of Milan.

   

  On June 25^th and 26^th, representatives of Europe, Asia and the Americas participated in the XIV European Workshop "Major Public Enterprises in a Global Perspective”, in Milan, Italy.

  Renowned international experts participated as speakers, like Massimo Florio of University of Milan; Lars-Erik Fredrickson (Chair OECD Working Party on State Ownership and Privatization Practices); and Richard Kozul-Wright, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) representative.

  Dr Francisco Castañeda, representative of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, said that the goal after this experience is to produce a working paper by September 2015 for CIRIEC-Belgium and University of Milan. “We agreed in publishing a paper in the Italian Journal of Public Economics by December 2015,” he added.

  Professors Barría and Castañeda gave a presentation during the conference and they said that corporate governance of state-owned enterprises has become a subject of great interest. “The OECD has been promoting best practices with regards to transparency, dissemination of information, election of public companies directors and the relation with stakeholders,” they said.

  According to these economists, indicators like financial performance, financial leverage levels, covenants, corporate bond issuance, and alternatives for getting resources to undertake new investment projects that allow sustainability in this type of company, should be evaluated.

  However, the "State-Owned Enterprises in the Market Place" OECD guidelines are more complex to implement in big state-owned companies.

  The Jean Monnet European Networks are made up of six universities:

  • Università degli Studi di Milano (leading University) – Italy

  • Ǻbo Akademi University School of Business and Economics – Finland

  • University of Greenwich – United Kingdom

  • Universität Leipzig – Germany

  • Université de Rouen – France

  • WU Wirtschaftuniversität – Austria

  Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Dr Leonor Huerta, physics engineer, Master’s in Astronomy and professor at Universidad de Santiago, says that the discovery of a new solar system with Earth-like planets should promote the creation of more research centers and the generation of more resources to take advantage of the astronomical potential of our country.

Scientists at the NASA informed about the discovery of a new solar system with seven exoplanets similar to the Earth in size and temperature. The system, Trappist-1, is about 40 light years from Earth and it contains three planets that are likely to be habitable, as their weather conditions would allow liquid water, and maybe, life. The telescopes in La Silla and Paranal observatories, both located in the north of Chile, took part in the discovery. 

Dr Leonor Huerta, physics engineer, Master’s in Astronomy and professor at Universidad de Santiago, said: “We need more astronomy and research centers to incorporate all the human capital generated in Chile. We have facilities available at no charge, as large foreign conglomerates have built telescopes in Chile for the quality of its night sky in the north.”

“We need more Chilean scientists to work on this, not only astronomers. If we are going to search for life in the universe, we also need astrobiologists and geologists,” she explained.

“Observatories also require “Hydraulic engineers and computer scientists, for example, to take care of the infrastructure. This is a multidisciplinary field. To explore the universe and to study the evolution of life, we will need a very strong multidisciplinary collaboration,” she added.

“From a scientific point of view, this finding is very interesting because there are three planets which are likely to have water somewhere on their surface in its three states: solid, liquid and gas.”

With regard to the next stage after this finding, she said: “Clearly, the next step is to know if these planets have atmospheres. This will happen when the next exoplanet program mission of the NASA is carried out.”

Although she recognizes that it is very likely that there is other life in universe, there is not any empirical evidence. “For a scientist- astronomer or biologist- it is very difficult to affirm that the conditions of our solar system are unique,” she says.

Translated by Marcela Contreras 

• The National Institute of Industrial Property recognized Universidad de Santiago as the third Chilean university with the highest number of invention patent requests that seek to contribute to the country development in fields like chemistry and biology, engineering and technology. Maximiliano Santa Cruz, Inapi’s National Director and Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation of Universidad de Santiago,   encouraged the University community to continue constantly producing industrial innovations to contribute to society.

On April 25th, in the context of the World Intellectual Property Day, our University was recognized as the third best national institution in requesting invention patents during 2013.

The National Institute of Industrial Property (Inapi, in Spanish)- an agency responsible to the Ministry of Economy in charge of registering, managing and promoting industrial property rights in Chile- granted our University an award in a ceremony led by Maximiliano Santa Cruz, Inapi´s National Director.

During the activity that took place at Inapi’s building, Santa Cruz highlighted the important role played by our University in producing creative innovations that contribute to our country’s development.

“Universidad de Santiago de Chile is absolutely essential to our patenting system. It has always been in the highest positions at the patent request ranking and this is not a coincidence: it is the result of serious intellectual property policies,” Inapi’s director said.

For Maximiliano Santa Cruz, our University’s interest in industrial property “is a powerful signal to its researchers, professors and innovators, in general.”

“I ask Universidad de Santiago’s innovators to continue creating new things and using the patenting system for it is a powerful tool to protect intellectual property,” he added.

Dr. Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation (Vridei, in Spanish) of our University, who received Inapi´s award, showed himself very pleased with the position in the ranking at a national level.

“We are very satisfied with our exceptional position among the institutions that request for invention patents (…) We would have been happy to keep the second place like we did last year, but being among the main institutions that file patents requests in Chile is excellent news indeed,” Dr. Bustos said.

Pontifica Universidad Católica was at the first place in the patent request ranking while Universidad de Concepción was at the second place.

Finally, Vice President Bustos said that the high position of our University in the ranking reflects that “our researchers have become aware that not only scientific publications are important for our country: developing specific technological projects in key areas for Chile is important too.”

According to data provided by the Department of Technology Transfer of our University, during 2013, this state and public institution filed 11 invention patent requests in Chile, and at the same time, it filed other 42 requests with foreign agencies in charge of registering industrial inventions.

Translated by Marcela Contreras
 

• The benefit of using geophysical techniques to recover historical remains was one of the main conclusions of the “Taller de Geofísica aplicada al Patrimonio Críptico Heredado.” “By using mining technologies, we want to bring our country’s historical riches out of the depths of the Earth, without impacting the environment,” Dr Lucio Cañete, one of the organizers, said.

On July 02^nd, the closing ceremony of the third “Taller de Geofísica aplicada al Patrimonio Críptico Heredado” was held at the Conference Room of the Technological Faculty. The workshop was led by the Dean of that Faculty, Gumercindo Vilca Cáceres and was attended by several university authorities.

The workshop gathered together almost one hundred men and women of different ages and from different professional areas.

The workshop was given in the context of the outreach activities developed by the Technological Faculty. This is the reason why “We emphasized that the participants should not be part of the university community: to have an impact at a society level,” Dr Lucio Cañete explained.

The workshop

According to Dr Cañete, the purpose of the workshop was to give basic knowledge of geophysics and its potential applications to a general audience interested in the inherited cryptical material, “that is to say, a paleontological or archaeological resource that it is not visible, that remains under ground, covered by vegetation or ice.”

“We referred to gravimetry, seismology, magnetometry and electrical resistivity, which are used to prospect for mining resources. Chile is very rich in these resources,” the researcher said, regarding the techniques addressed during the workshop.

However, the team of experts led by Dr Lucio Cañete learned that these techniques could mean a significant contribution to a different type of excavation: the digs for the past.

“Chile has hidden riches that we want to reveal through these techniques: the riches of our past,” Dr Cañete said.

According to him, our territory is rich in archaeological elements; for this reason, we need the tools to unearth the past without altering the ecosystem.

“Historical research has shown that the first settlements in our territory started 13 thousand years ago. The first remains of human settlements in the American continent were confirmed in Chile,” he said.

“We have a whole rich past that must be revealed, but this must be done with techniques that will not impact the heritage while we are trying to bring it out,” Dr Cañete stressed.

Digging is a very intrusive method; therefore, if it is used, “The destruction of the evidence of the past is highly probable. However, geophysical techniques use disturbances that allow “seeing without touching,” he added.

Geophysical techniques

Gravimetry measures the variation of the strength of a gravitational field; magnetometry measures how a magnetic field changes; seismology, by means of man-caused little microseisms, allows to see what is under the surface, and, finally, the electrical resistivity measures the changes in ground resistance when introducing an electric current into the subsurface.

Regardless of the surface, the use of these techniques “Produce a sort of disturbance that does not affect the part of the patrimony that we want to know,” Dr Cañete said.

In this regard, the main goal of the workshop was to understand these techniques and see how their use in the mining industry can be a real contribution to surveying archaeological, historical and paleontological remains.

“We saw this and, and in our role as a public and state university, we called for the development of all these techniques that, although they are traditional in mining industry, could be used in a new scientific field: the field of the sciences that study the past,” he added

“By using these mining technologies, we want to bring our country’s historical riches out of the depths of the Earth, without impacting the environment,” Dr Cañete concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Paula Núñez, a professor at the School of Obstetrics and Child Care of Universidad de Santiago has effectively contributed to midwifery students training: she learned to make vinyl-based reborn babies which are so real that it is difficult to distinguish them from real newborn babies and which help students to develop professional and soft skills.

Paula Núñez, professor at the School of Obstetrics and Child Care, has pioneered the “reborning” technique to make vinyl dolls with realistic features in our country. These dolls are used by the Faculty of Medical Sciences’ students to facilitate their practice and their approach to neonatology and pediatrics.

“Having these baby simulators will allow our students to become more reliable and empathic professionals in the future,” she says. She thinks that the experience allows the students to approach the reality that they will face every day when delivering babies.

“These dolls have all the features to resemble a real newborn baby: nerve endings, the color of veins, and even their weight is similar to the one of a baby, what makes the students to be as careful as if they were handling a real baby and develop more skills,” she explains.

Students at the Obstetrics and Child Care program have benefited the most from these baby simulators; however, Núñez makes dolls for other institutions too.

She has been making these reborn dolls for four years. She learned about the technique on the Internet, when almost nobody knew about it, but then someone who had learned it in Spain taught her how to make them.

Núñez felt that learning the reborning method involved much more than only learning this German artcraft: she could create more real simulators that would be useful to train professionals whose work required getting familiar with babies and little children.

Making simulators more human

Together with a business partner, Núñez created the company Pequeñas Maravillas (Little Wonders), where they make customized dolls for different purposes. “People believe that dolls are only for girls, but they can also be used for academic purposes. For me, learning this technique gave me the possibility of making simulators more human and, at the same time, contributing to students training,” she says.

In the future, Núñez intends to continue improving her technique to make these dolls. Now she is working to create with dolls with different conditions like cleft palate and other inherited disorders. “These simulators will allow our students to acquire specific skills to work with babies with congenital conditions and to get used to the specific care that they need,” she concludes.

Translated by Marcela Contreras
 

• The new therapy involves the development of a vaccine that provides the immune system with the tools needed to “attack” cancer cells, improving the antitumour response of the body. The therapy was announced to foreign media correspondents accredited in Chile.

• The study is funded through a Fondecyt Project and it is at preclinical stage. It considers a significant decrease of more than 70% in the overall cost of therapies for this disease.
• The leader of the project, Claudio Acuña, Dr in Biomedical Sciences, researcher, and Head of the Department of Biology of our University, gave us some details on this new technology, which is applying for a patent in USA with the support of Corfo.
• Dr Acuña said: “We are generating a quite effective therapy for cancer through which we could make immunotherapy more available to people. We are doing this in a university which is known for its social responsibility signature. In this context, I would like to highlight the talent of my students involved in this project.”

In order to optimize cancer therapy and contribute to public health in our country, an innovative and significant treatment developed at Universidad de Santiago has recently been presented.

This project involves the development of a vaccine that will allow destroying cancer cells in the body by enhancing its immune response.

This scientific development- funded by the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development, Fondecyt- considers a significant decrease of more than 70% in the overall costs of cancer therapies and it has shown an efficacy of 50%.

Dr Claudio Acuña, Head of the Department of Biology of Universidad de Santiago, is leading the project. “We want to have a vaccine available to protect us from the disease, just like in the vaccination process for measles and other diseases when we are children. In the case of cancer, our idea is to get people vaccinated so that they are able to eliminate cancer cell in their bodies, he said.”

Quality of life

According to the researcher, the project “Seeks to improve the quality of life of patients in the long term and generate a supplementary therapy to conventional treatments to resist cancer in a non-conventional way, which is currently treated with chemotherapy.”

“We have completed the preclinical stage (trials in living animals) which showed that the vaccine does protect from the disease. The next step is the clinical phase, in which it will be tested in human subjects. There was not any negative effect on animals, so we could extrapolate that there will be not any effect on patients,” he added.

“The ultimate goal is to generate a vaccine for people with cancer that will allow enhancing their immune response to tumours,” he said.

“We are generating a quite effective therapy for cancer in which we could make immunotherapy more available to people. We are doing this in a university which is known for its social responsibility signature. In this context, I would like to highlight the talent of my students involved in this project,” the scientist said.

“We were able to make it because the University enables, favours and promotes these innovation processes, besides providing the confidence to conduct high-level research,” he added.

Dicyt project

Dr Acuña’s meeting with foreign media correspondents was in the context of the activities of a Dicyt Public Opinion Project of Universidad de Santiago, led by Gabriela Martínez Cuevas, professor at the Department of Journalism.

Professor Martínez highlighted the interest of Fundación Imagen de Chile in contributing to promote the significance of this study among a group of accredited correspondents in Chile.

“Due to the strategic partnership that we developed with Fundación Imagen de Chile last year in a similar project, we have been able to arrange the first of a series of conferences with foreign accredited correspondents, during 2015,” professor Martínez said.

“This body has the purpose of managing the “nation branding”, so we have joined efforts to strengthen our “U de Santiago brand” around the world through our scientists,” she added.

Gabriela Martínez, who is also Director of the Communications Department and the institutional radio station said: “Today, the interest of the international press for learning about this study led by Dr Claudio Acuña was evident, and he insisted on the importance of the contribution made by the young researchers that he is training.”

She said: “There were correspondents of all the agencies in Europe, China and Latin America. We expect to see how they inform the world about this new contribution made by our state and public University, which is committed to the country progress and gives solutions to urgent demands beyond our borders. This was specifically demonstrated with this cancer vaccine.”

The project- which is at its preclinical stage- is based on effects of Polymixin B. It has already shown its first results in lymphoma, melanoma and breast, with an effectiveness of almost 50%. Besides, it is worth to mention that this technology could decrease the cost of current traditional cancer therapies by up to 70%.

With the support of the Chilean Economic Development Agency (Corfo, in Spanish), this technology is in the patenting process both in Chile and USA, to then continue to the clinical stage and to exporting the treatment.

Fundación Imagen de Chile

According to its web page, Fundación Imagen de Chile is an autonomous institution funded by public resources, created in 2009, with the purpose of coordinating and organizing the efforts to promote the image of Chile abroad.

Its responsibility is to mange the “nation branding”, by coordinating the work of the main sectors that contribute to build this image, such as culture, sports, exportations, investments, tourism and international relations, among others. For this purpose, the foundation develops strategic partnerships with public and private agents to coordinate the image of the country and actively position the distinctive features of our identity.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• The Latin American Network of Educational Portals included the work done by Dr. Juan Silva, director of the Center for Research and Innovation in Education and ICT (CIIET, in Spanish), in a publication that gathers together renowned Latin American experts in this field.

Professor Juan Silva Quiroz’ work was selected by the Latin American Network of Educational Portals (Relpe, in Spanish) to be included in a recently published compendium that gathers several papers and reflections on the use of technologies in the educational process. The name of the book is “Mirada Relpe: Reflexiones iberoamericanas sobre TIC y Educación” (Relpe’s view: Latin American reflections on ICT and Education), and it started to be developed in 2011.

Dr. Silva reflects on the relation between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and education policies, particularly in the incorporation of these ICT in the Early Teaching Training (FID, in Spanish) process, as he considers them a determining factor to improve the quality of education, by training professionals in this field and enabling them to understand these tools and implement them in the classroom.

Relpe’s initiative has the purpose of establishing a regional view on how technologies are understood in education.

In the same way, professor Silva highlights the international significance of this initiative, as it provides different points of view on this matter. “Two of us wrote about ICT in teacher training; other expert wrote about videogames and another one wrote on Personal Learning Environments (PLE), etc. It is then a wide variety of work subjects or problems about technology and education presented, referenced or argued by leaders in this field,” he said.

He also added that the book includes some subjects that should be addressed since university education, particularly, in teacher training.

Potential of ICT tools

Regarding the advantages of using collaborative tools like ICT, professor Silva said that most of the teachers, especially at university level, do not see the potential of ICT tools, in terms of having opportunities to share knowledge at a national and international level. Assignments and presentations, he explained, can be modified and improved and will always be available in Prezi, blogs and Wikis, for example, under the logic of Web 2.0.

He also said that these participative and collaborative models are very useful, especially in teaching, which is normally perceived as an individualistic work. “In the traditional model, the teacher presents knowledge and students receive it. On the other hand, in a collaborative model, the teacher acts as a facilitator, as a mediator, and students have an active role in their knowledge- building process,” he added

Nowadays, Dr. Silva is part of a commission set up by the Ministry of Education to address the inclusion of ICT in the training of future teachers, and soon he will publish a book about different experiences of using ICT in early teacher training in Latin American, thanks to a teaching innovation project of the Academic Vice Presidency and sponsored by the Ministry of Education’s Center of Education and Technology (CET, in Spanish).

Translated by Marcela Contreras
 

• In order to have feedback from her European peers, Claudia Córdoba, professor at the Department of Education of Universidad de Santiago, presented the progress of her study “Analysis of the school socioeconomic segregation in primary education” (Fondecyt Initiation Project 11130149) at Universitá degli Studi di Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) and at the Complutense University of Madrid (Madrid, Spain). The study analyses the socioeconomic segregation in geographically close schools, considering residential segregation, family preferences, and the barriers imposed by schools with regard to payments and student selection.

In September, Claudia Córdoba, professor at the Department of Education of Universidad de Santiago de Chile presented the progress of her research study “Analysis of the school socioeconomic segregation in primary education (Fondecyt Initiation Project 11130149)” at two European universities.

Her first presentation was at Universitá degli Studi di Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy), on September 21^st, and then she showed her work at the Faculty of Education of the Complutense University of Madrid (Madrid, Spain), on September 24^th.

On both occasions, she presented the progress of her work in the context of the project that she leads, receiving feedback and suggestions for its continuation.

The study is focused on the phenomenon of socioeconomic segregation in geographically close schools, considering three concurrent factors: residential segregation, family preferences, and the barriers imposed by schools with regard to payments and student selection.

“Doubtlessly, in our country, the phenomenon of school segregation is stronger than in countries like Italy and Spain; however, it is always interesting to appreciate that some dynamics can also be noticed in school systems which are very different from the Chilean one,” Professor Córdoba said.

In this regard, some Spanish professors said that, in their country, it is possible to notice big differences in the social composition of the student body of public schools, even when they are geographically close.

In the case of Italy, the families there also seek to ensure that their children learn some skills that can give them an advantage over their peers (learning English, for example), and that it is possible to see big differences in the socioeconomic composition of the student body in different types of high school.

Some of the preliminary results were particularly interesting, For example, the fact that children in Santiago seem to travel much longer distances than the ones travelled by children in Madrid or Cagliari.

Translated by Marcela Contreras