• In recognition of his extensive career in the area of electrochemistry, Dr. José Zagal, professor at the Department of Chemistry of Materials, was invited to be part of the editorial board of Electrochemistry Communications, an international journal with the higher impact index in its field.

Dr. José Zagal, professor at the Department of Chemistry of Materials of our university, was selected to be part of the editorial board of Electrochemistry Communications, the renowned scientific journal partnered with Elsevier that has the higher impact index in the field of electrochemistry.

In a conversation with UdeSantiago al Día, the academic said that he understood his inclusion in the board as “recognition of my work over many years; but most important, the recognition of a work that has mainly been done by a team.”

Professor Zagal has a vast experience in the scientific research field, particularly in the study of oxygen and reactivity. He started to work at Universidad de Santiago 40 years ago and he has kept on publishing specialized articles in his field of interest since then.

Besides, he has been part of editorial boards of different scientific journals, like the International Journal of Electrochemistry of Hindawi Publishing Corporation, since 2011 and the International Journal of Biotechnology & Biochemistry (IJBB), since 2012.

Zagal said that it is very important that both students and academics produce publications in their fields and get involved in different creative processes “to contribute not only to this University’s development but to all the country.”

“I think that it is necessary that students in any program should take part in creative and practical processes, that is to say, they should get involved in laboratory work since their first years at the university, so that they produce new knowledge that can reach most of the people through renowned publications,” he said.

“Publishing research results is essential. When you make public the work you do, your work becomes recognized in that field and, at the same time, you spread new knowledge,” he added.

For this reason, professor Zagal expects that his role at the Electrochemistry Communications’ editorial board means a contribution to the promotion of sciences and to the better positioning of Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

“You stay at this university because you love it and not for the money. Many researchers here might well be working at private sector companies, but they stay here because they feel a real bond with this institution,” he said.

“For the love that I have for this University, I expect that my inclusion in the editorial board will benefit the institution and will contribute to spread knowledge among society,” Dr. Zagal concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• A study by Dr. Mario Tello, researcher at this center, establishes a previously unknown relationship between an infectious salmon anemia (ISA) genome segment and its virulence.

The study by this researcher at the Aquaculture Biotechnology Center and the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, University of Santiago de Chile, could provide important insights about how to predict salmon mortality by the ISA virus, a disease that affects Chilean aquaculture since 2007.

The research "Analysis of the use of codon pairs in the HE gene of the ISA virus shows a correlation between HPR bias in codon pair use and mortality rates caused by the virus" was published in the June issue of the Virology Journal, a specialized international publication.

The journal provides details of the investigation conducted by the University Of Santiago de Chile’s scientist who was able to identify the role and the relationship of a segment of the ISA virus by using bioinformatics tools and the existing literature.

According to Dr.Tello, the results of this study are one of the first hypotheses to explain why a highly variable region of the virus, called HPR (High Polymorphism Region), would be associated with the observed virulence.

 "Our results suggest that there is a region of the virus affecting its transmission and its ability to cause the disease. “That is to say, our analyzes suggest that there is a direct relationship between the mortality caused by the virus and the efficiency of its translation", Dr. Tello says.

According to the researcher, "the strain of the virus found in Chile would be one of the most efficient in the translation, and this would be directly related to an increasing mortality," and explain one of the possible reasons for the high mortality reported in our country.

Although the in vitro results have not been confirmed yet, the research is already an important step in deciphering the ISA virus characteristics, and it could provide solutions to the salmon industry. "Perfectly, these solutions could aim at generating a virulence predictor based on the analysis of the HPR region, a predictor in which we are working," the scientist says.

• Through a Fondecyt Project led by Dr. Gustavo Zúñiga, a research team of Universidad de Santiago is carrying out measurements of the mosses at the Collins Glacier and the Ardley Peninsula, in order to analyze the impact of global warming on these populations and identify their tolerance mechanisms to resist environmental changes.

Dr. Gustavo Zúñiga, researcher at Universidad de Santiago; Marisol Pizarro, a graduate student of the Biotechnology PhD program of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, and  Gustavo Zúñiga-Líbano, an undergraduate student of the Biotechnology Engineering Program of the Faculty of Engineering, are now at the “Profesor Julio Escudero” base of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH, in Spanish) studying the impact of global warming on Antarctic mosses in the context of the Fondecyt Project "Metabolomic responses of the Antarctic mosses Sanionia uncinata and Polytrichastrum alpinum to global warming".

While the researchers are in the Antarctica, they aim to establish a baseline with regards to the effect that global warming is having on the region and, particularly, to identify the environmental tolerance mechanisms of the Sanionia uncinata and Polytrichastrum alpinum mosses. In order to reach these goals, the study involves collecting samples and measuring the environmental variables in the Collins Glacier and the Ardley Peninsula.

“We must consider that the Antarctic Peninsula has been one of the areas most affected by global warming; in spite of this, there are no studies up to date regarding the response to this phenomenon at a molecular level and there are no studies that correlate the stress conditions that these species are enduring in the Antarctica, either,” Dr. Zúñiga explained. The study aims to describe the physiological and molecular changes caused by the increase in temperature, UVB radiation and the availability of water for these mosses.

The members of the Plant Physiology and Biotechnology Laboratory of the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology; Hans Köhler, a graduate student of the Biotechnology PhD program, and Dr. Rodrigo A. Contreras- who traveled in December to the Unión Glacier polar scientific station to work in the project by studying the lichens of the area– have also contributed to this study.

• After a thorough study, a research team of Universidad de Santiago found the transmitter that causes ejaculation in men: the ATP (adenosine 5’- triphosphate).The study was led by Dr Juan Pablo García-Huidobro, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology. This work means an important contribution to modern medicine and it has already been published by Biology of Reproduction (USA), one of the most renowned journals worldwide.

The journal Biology of Reproduction published an article submitted by Dr Juan Pablo García-Huidobro, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology. The article is the result of the study in which he determined that ATP (adenosine 5’- triphosphate) is in charge of contracting the smooth muscles that form the vas deferens (which is in charge of carrying the sperm) that, through its mechanism, contracts reflexively and propels sperm forward.

The study involved a multidisciplinary scientific team and it opens big opportunities for modern medicine.

The study also intended to define if the ATP was responsible for contracting the circular muscular layer, which is in charge of preventing retrograde ejaculation.

“The ATP acts as a cotransmitter in the longitudinal muscles, but not in the circular ones, and from a technical point of view, it is interesting, because it shows that the circular layer is controlled by other mechanisms that we could not precise during this study. We were able to show that the ATP works as a powerful sympathetic cotransmitter in the longitudinal layer,” Dr García-Huidobro said.

The biological material used for the laboratory tests was obtained by means of an agreement between the research team and Clínica Santa María. “The biopsy tissues were from young healthy men that wanted a vasectomy as a contraception method,” he explained.

In a vasectomy surgical procedure, the vas deference is tied and the central portion is severed.

“We were able to get very good material for the biological study, because it came from young and very healthy people. We had to comply with all the ethical requirements involved and the informed consent procedures to conduct our study,” he added. 

Impact on human physiology

The study conducted by Dr García-Huidobro determined the precise mechanism in which ATP is involved.

“We were able to establish that the ATP receptor is located in a very specific part of the membrane of the longitudinal smooth muscles called lipid rafts. Then, we could find specific details on where this receptor is functionally located,” he said.

In this way, the study results open several new questions and possibilities to understand human physiology and its relation with modern medicine.

He said that it is important to learn what is involved in this physiological process because it could be related to fertility disorders or it could contribute to masculine contraception.

Now we learned that ATP is the key transmitter in the ejaculation process, professor García-Huidobro says that it could help to develop ATP-targeted drugs for clinical cases that require fertility aids or control.

Professor García-Huidobro highlights the importance of having multidisciplinary research teams and the value of socializing the information of the studies, in order to improve the cultural and scientific capital in the country.

“There are many details of the studies that remain secret. Many of these research works were conducted with the participation of different research teams, and this is very important, because wherever a study is conducted, undergraduate, doctorate and post-doctorate students are required. This variety of people is able to develop very innovative methods that have a training-effect, resulting in very notable research people. It is not just a professor by himself: it is a team that makes all these findings possible,” he concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• After four weeks of work in the Antarctica, Dr Raúl Cordero and Dr Alessandro Damiani, both researchers at the Department of Physics of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, were able to confirm that the extension of the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctica reached more than 10 million km² in December 2015, i.e. more than twice the average of that period in the past three decades.

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The measurements were carried out during a campaign in the Antarctic Circle in the context of the Antarctic Scientific Expedition of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach, in Spanish). Dr Raúl Cordero and Dr Alessandro Damiani, both professors at Universidad de Santiago de Chile, were part of the expedition.

The ozone measurement campaign at the Antarctica started on November 15^th and it continued until mid-December. Four researchers at Universidad de Santiago travelled to the heart of the White Continent, where about 600 kg of the best radiometric equipment available were sent.

The expedition was supported by Inach, what allowed the researchers to work at “Unión Glacier” Joint Polar Research Station located at 79 degrees South latitude, at about 1000 from the South Pole.

Constant monitoring

In spite of the negative results of this year, Dr Cordero expects that a process to recover the ozone layer starts in the short term, as a result of the actions taken worldwide to reduce the emissions of polluting gases. However, the information gathered highlights the need of adopting mitigation policies and conducting a constant monitoring of the area.

According to Dr Cordero, “the ozone layer depletion is mainly caused by the presence of ‘ozone destroying” chemicals in the polar stratosphere. These substances are generated by the industrial activity in mid-latitudes.”

Although these substances are everywhere in the planet, high latitudes are the most impacted areas by the layer depletion or destruction, particularly the Antarctica. During the southern spring, this area is affected by a massive destruction of the stratospheric ozone as a result of the particular weather conditions there.

According to the researcher, the ozone depletion process between September and December is favored by the low temperatures in the Antarctic stratosphere and by the Antarctic polar vortex that prevents the ozone from other latitudes from closing the hole.

“When temperatures increase at the end of spring, the ozone massive depletion stops and the weakening of the polar vortex allows the ozone from other latitudes to close the hole. The bad records this year are probably the result of unusually low stratospheric temperatures during last spring,” Dr Cordero said.

Recovery of the ozone layer

In spite of the negative results of this year, Dr Cordero expects that a process to recover the ozone layer continues until the middle of this century due to the actions taken worldwide to reduce the emissions of polluting gases. However, the information gathered highlights the need of adopting mitigation policies and conducting a constant monitoring of the area.

It is also worth to mention that this study included comparisons with databases of other months. According to this, the hole in the ozone layer reached 28 million km² in October, the fourth highest record since the satellite data is available. 

Dr Cordero also highlights the relation between ozone depletion and climate change. “The changes in the hole in the ozone layer could affect the energy balance of the Antarctica. Ozone depletion or exhaustion has affected the temperature of the stratosphere and it correlates with wind and surface temperature variations detected in the Antarctica in the past decades. Therefore, a better understanding of the relation between climate change and the hole in the ozone layer is required. This is the ultimate goal of our work,” he concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• The purpose of the study conducted by Juan Fernando Mejía Calle, who graduated from a M.A. program of Universidad de Santiago, is that companies are able to automatically identify features in sophisticated files that are not recognized by common antivirus software. In this way, it will possible to manage the problem step by step and take remedial actions to be better prepared in the future.

John opens a file in his computer at work, and, unintentionally, he ends up infecting all databases in his company. How can he determine whether that file is effectively malicious or not? Although some of these pieces of software can only be detected by antivirus software, malicious codes evolve continuously until they cannot be recognized, making difficult to avoid them.

In this context, a model that allows to automatically detect the features of a malicious software or malware and then follow steps to combat them, taking remedial actions, was the result of a study conducted by Juan Fernando Mejía Calle, who graduated from the M.A. program in Security, Forensics and Auditing of IT Processes of Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Mejía Calle is an Ecuadorian expert, holder of a scholarship of the Government of his country to study this program.

His work, “Modelo de proceso para análisis, caracterización y clasificación de archivos ejecutables potencialmente maliciosos en un entorno organizacional con sistema operativo Windows,” will be a contribution to both the companies affected by these attacks and the organizations in charge of cyber forensics.

The study suggests a process to capture malware evidence based on the features of different types of programs, providing information “that allows to know if the file got connected to another site, executed other programs or became self-executable or if it got encrypted,” Mejía explained. After that, the files analyzed can be classified as clean or malicious.

“According to what I have studied, there is not any standard model for this purpose. Each author suggests a pattern based on his/her experience,” Mejía says. To conduct this study, he reviewed literature on malware and registered the features that he considered relevant to define it.

The model that he presented showed an effectiveness of 92% using the cross-validation method.

Mejía says that cyber-attacks in Chile are increasingly sophisticated. “New malware attacks or zero-day attacks can infect a computer because they have not been recognized yet. This type of attack cannot be prevented, but it can be analyzed to take future remedial actions,” he says.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Universidad de Santiago was among the four national universities that will receive more funds from the National Fund for the Scientific and Technological Development (Fondecyt, its acronym in Spanish), according to the results of the 2014 Contest. Universidad de Chile, Universidad Católica and Universidad de Concepción were the other three universities.

• María Angélica Ganga, researcher at the Technological Faculty, leads a project to make technological improvements to the Pajarete wine fermentation in Huasco Valley. The project has been funded through the Innovation for Competitiveness Fund and has allowed improving the quality of this traditional product and recovering its original properties.

It is said that Jesuits brought the Pajarete wine to the north of Chile during the 17th century. This wine is characterized by its sweet flavor and it is produced mainly from black and muscatel grapes of the northern part of the country.

In the last few years, the Pajarete production has had a significant increase due to a development plan that has allowed local producers to commercialize it in better conditions, thanks to a strategy that allowed producing a first-quality product, including appellation of origin (geographical indications).

In this process, the Atacama Regional Government and the Association of Pajarete Producers of Huasco Valley have worked together with Universidad de Santiago in a project to make technological improvements to this wine fermentation process in order to improve its competitiveness.

The project- funded through the Innovation for Competitiveness Fund of the Atacama Region- has been led by María Angélica Ganga, PhD in Biological Sciences and a researcher at the Technological Faculty of Universidad de Santiago.

The researcher says that the project focused in strengthening the Pajarete production through the microbiological control of the vinification process and the selection and identification of native yeasts.

This is how a microbial strain collection was created and yeasts with technological potential for production were obtained. Besides, a standard methodology for their use was developed and handed to wine producers.

The researcher explains that Pajarete producers contacted the University and expressed their concern for having lost part of the properties of their wine in their attempt to industrialize their process and also for using yeasts different from the ones of the Atacama Region, what led to losing part of their “terroir” (the set of characteristics that describe and define a geographic region where grapes are grown).

“So, we worked to return the organoleptic properties to the product by using yeasts from that region. Now, the fact of recovering these properties allows the producers to keep the hallmark of a wine typical of that region; it is something of their own that is not reproducible in other regions,” she explains.

Anberta Debia, a Pajarete producer and member of the Association of Pajarete Producers, considers that the most important achievement of this project is that old people at Huasco Valley identified this new Pajarete with the one that was produced in this area decades ago.

“When we started working with industrial yeasts, people did not identify themselves with the product. Now we know that everybody thinks that the wine is more tasty, more aromatic and with a more fresh-raisin flavor. The grape is reflected in a much better way and that gives us a plus,” she says.

According to the producers, now that the quality production stage has been completed the following stage is to commercialize the product.

Their first objective is to get their product distributed in Santiago and the rest of the country and then, start exporting.

Opportunities for the industry

At present, Universidad de Santiago is implementing a new project with the purpose of developing a sustainable production system to provide Pajarete producers with the amount of yeast required for the their wine making.

At the same time, the University is applying for a third project to help producers to assure the innocuousness of the product, in order to become competitive, not only at a national level, but also at an international one.

Nibaldo Guaita, who is in charge of the Production Development Area of the Atacama Regional Government, describes the work done as very positive. He says that the problem with this wine was related to the fermentation process, which affected its quality. Now he bets that Pajarete will become a premium wine.

“We want to position Huasco Pajarete producers as a national example, with a high-quality wine that can compete with other sweet wines. This product already has the best level possible and this will help to reach a better market,” he says

Nibaldo Guaita said that they have taken the Pajarete wine to different international fairs and that it has awakened interest, but on these occasions, a new big challenge has arisen: to increase the volume of production.

Translated by Marcela Contreras
 

• “Entre biología y Utopía: Semblantes Ideológicos en las Ciencias de la Vida’ is the name of the Fondecyt Initiation project led by Dr Mauricio Espósito that will allow a synergy between biomedical research, communications and their future interactions. The study will last two years and it expects to prove the importance of the relations among different disciplines.

To analyze the historical and philosophical relation between biological knowledge and its multiple political, ideological and technocratic applications: that is the goal of the Fondecyt Initiation project led by Dr Maurizio Espósito. For this purpose, the academic at the Department of Philosophy of Universidad de Santiago will review some particular cases associated to sciences of life during the 20^th and the 21^st centuries, like the development of genomics in Latin America, for example.

Dr Espósito thinks that “it is very important to understand the philosophical and political implications of biomedical research beyond preconceived criticism, superficial exaltation of science or a merely abstract debate about what is right or wrong.”

According to him, some biological disciplines were formulated since ambitious scientific policies, which principles still cross with biotechnological utopias and contemporary ideologies.

“I think that many people speak about biotechnology or technology often criticizing or glorifying technological or scientific events without really understanding them. And understanding them does not only mean knowing the technical details unique to a discipline, but also having a definite idea about the controversies, interests, concepts, institutions and ambitions of the agents under the great umbrella that we call techno-science, that involves an interdisciplinary approach,” he says.

General guidelines

In this Fondecyt Initiation project, the academic expands his research line to address different national and Latin American cases. “I need to make clear that in this project, I am not interested in criticizing scientific events or proposing philosophical morals based on science-fiction fantasies. The project seeks to link up biotechnological research with the help of the history of science and the interdisciplinary tools given by the studies on science, technology and society,” he adds.

Among the possible options to spread the project information, Dr Espósito recognizes the value of the potential debate among the different disciplines of study and he adds that different activities will be organized, in which academics and the community in general will be able to participate, discuss and think about this issues.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

•    Using secondary sludge from industrial water treatment, researcher César Huiliñir, professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, developed a new mathematical method for the biodrying process that proposes to reuse this sludge as biofuel. This technology proposal is supported by a Fondecyt Initiation Project.

After three years of work using secondary sludge from industrial water treatment, researcher César Huiliñir, professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, developed a new mathematical model for the biodrying process that proposes to reuse these residues.

The proposal is one of the results of his Fondecyt Initiation Project (11121160), “Development of a new dynamic model for batch biodrying process of dewatered sewage sludge”.

According to the researcher, the sludge disposed of by industries has 80% of water, i.e., for every kilo of sewage sludge, an amount of 800 grams of water is lost. Besides, companies have to pay for removing this waste to prevent accumulation of residues and potential odours in their facilities. For this reason, finding an alternative solution may reduce costs.

“We bet that, if we reduce the amount of water of secondary sludge, it can be fed as fuel into boilers. That is why companies like paper mills can be benefited: if this works, it will allow them to reduce removal costs. We could use that sludge, burn it, and change it into a new type of biofuel, as it has already been done in Holland and Canada, where there are specific examples of mills that have implemented similar systems,” he said.

For this purpose, professor Huiliñir and his research team proposed a mathematical model- very easy to implement- that enable a more flexible system to better predict the moisture loss in the system. Up to now, there was not literature on this factor that could effectively enhance this operation.

Results of the study

Professor Huiliñir said that another contribution of this study was the background information they were able to collect on kinetics of volatile solid residues degradation. There was not any information about this in the literature of the area.

“With this (information), we will able to know how much energy is used in the process. The higher the solids consumption, the higher the energy released to dry the sludge. This will allow predicting behaviours and evaluating without having to experiment,” he said.

He could also analyze the amount of water and energy required to remove the water content through the different stages of this degradation process. “In the study, we built an experimental design in which we established how some conditions affect the dewatering operation and how much of energy that allows water evaporation comes from the chemical reaction in the process,” he added.

In order to develop this alternative model, they worked with sludge from paper mills. Now, they are working with water treatment sludge from a slaughterhouse and a meat packing plant.

Finally, professor Huiliñir highlighted the role played by undergraduate and graduate students, who were in charge of the laboratory work to test this model. “The students’ contribution was essential. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to develop this project and get these results,” he concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras