On September 6th, the talk "Health & Innovation", within the framework of the ACCDiS 2019 seminar cycle.

On the occasion he explained Dr.. Marcelo Andía of the Department of Radiology and UC Biomedical Imaging Center, who presented the theme "Biomedical Images, the intersection between engineering, biology and medicine". On the other hand, Dr. Gerardo García Rivas del Tecnológico de Monterrey, also participated in the seminar, with the talk "Nano4heart: technologically based entrepreneurship of the research group in cardiovascular medicine of the Tecnológico de Monterrey".

Research and technology transfer

Gerardo García-Rivas is an academic Monterrey School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Mexico. In addition, is Director of the Biomedical Research Center of that house of studies and, In addition, is one of the founders of Nano4Heart, dedicated to cardiovascular nanomedicine – or nanotechnology applied to medicine-.

Asked about the main difficulties they face moving from research to technology transfer, García-Rivas notes that "there are two challenges that we must face: the first is that scientists need to change the way they organize their results, generate a different way of thinking, and that should go hand in hand with a modification of the administrative and logistical structures within the universities".

Also, the researcher comments that cardiovascular nanomedicine still has a way of, at least, ten years to reach its full potential. "Our group aims to be the first group to develop nanodrug therapies to treat heart failure. We're at a fairly close time to be able to start, probably by 2020 the first phase one study of the safety of these nanomedicines. However, I think the most important benefits we're going to see over the next 20 years, first in the oncology area and then in other areas".

In addition, García-Rivas points out that the main difficulty faced by nanomedicine applied to cardiovascular medicine is the current impossibility of targeted therapy. "Specificity is an area that still needs to work hard, but we still need to understand much more about the matter, work much more multidisciplinaryly to get more and better results", completed.

Biomedicine and medical imaging

Another of the seminar's exhibitors was Marcelo Andía, doctor and engineer who develops his work in the area of biomedical imaging. "They have had a gigantic boom over the last 20 years and have completely changed the way we deliver tools so we can do good clinical medicine, but also to do good research", comments.

Asked about the challenges of using biomedical imaging in Chile, Andi said that "first of all, biomedical imaging requires a very high investment in equipment. In addition, we're a long way from those who make the technology, who are in Germany and the Netherlands mainly. We're very good at making software, but this distance makes it difficult for us to make a transfer to a patent. Perhaps it would be good if in Latin America we came to face these tremendous 'monsters' of the area that exist in Europe".

In both, the scientist of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile calls to consider multidisciplinary as a way forward within the sciences. "Historically we have made the mistake of separating the sciences and that can't keep happening, because there is no phenomenon in nature that is exclusively physical or exclusively biological, for example. The only way is to face them is with diverse looks. And that's very difficult, because it means you have to sit at the same table to people who think differently and talk differently. So the challenge of interdisciplinarity is key to the future, However, presents many challenges because you have to mix, Gather, join criteria in people who are very different, And there you have to be very generous, very generous, to work together for science and technology and its development", ends the researcher.

Check out the image gallery below: