Scientific contribution of universities in the pandemic

After China made public the genetic sequence of the virus that causes COVID-12 on January 2020, 19, scientific attention, worldwide, was focused on learning about the progress and development of the new coronavirus. With the preliminary information on the matter, the university academy in Ecuador also began to study the virus to share information with its students and the population in general. 

Paul Cárdenas, a researcher at the Microbiology Institute of the San Francisco de Quito University (USFQ), recalls that when the first confirmed patient was registered in Quito, a USFQ microbiology doctoral student was able to analyze the sample and perform the sequencing of the virus. SARS 2 of COVID-19. Three days later, the university already had the sequence of the virus and from that moment the team of researchers of this project began to carry out a genomic analysis of what was happening around the world. 

Genome sequence analysis is similar to performing a fingerprint analysis of the virus and what researchers do is determine a sequence of genes that allow them to define various aspects, including how it works, its changes and what makes it react in different ways. different way. To do this, USFQ contacts the hospitals in the 24 provinces, sends the reagents and pays for the transportation costs so that the samples reach its laboratory, and in addition to this analysis, it performs PCR diagnoses to detect the existence of the virus in patients. 

For more than a year and a half since the arrival of the pandemic in our country, Paul Cárdenas mentions that the main research findings have been to place Ecuador on the genomic surveillance map. “We were the third country in Latin America that began to carry out this type of analysis, followed by Chile and Brazil. We were also the fourth country in the world to identify a reinfection, which led us to publish our research in the scientific journal The Lancet”, he indicates. On the other hand, the experience of his research team has allowed him to train other national universities. 

One of them is the Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo (UEES), which initially had a molecular biology research laboratory and had to be adapted to meet the demands of a diagnostic laboratory. At the peak of the pandemic, this department processed 450 samples per day, while in the SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance process, its team has identified more than 15 genomic variants of the virus. Fernando Espinoza, General Director of Research at the UEES, mentions that the human team in the first phase of the health emergency included three Ph. D. experts in molecular biology, a clinical laboratory specialist, three doctoral students and three graduates. in the different work areas. 

The acquisition of equipment such as state-of-the-art thermocyclers, robots for RNA extraction of the virus, freezers, centrifuges, stirrers, micropipettes, laminar flow chambers and two nucleic acid sequencers represented an investment of half a million dollars for the university and another half a million in supplies for testing and genomic surveillance of SARS CoV-2. 

Research Projects 

Faced with the collapse of the health systems at the beginning of the health emergency, the Catholic University of Cuenca contributed with the research project "Caring for Heroes", carried out by specialized professionals from the Center for Innovation, Research and Technology Transfer. 

The initiative made it possible to produce 2.500 3D face protection masks for front-line health personnel at hospitals belonging to the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security and the Ministry of Public Health. 

Diego Morales, coordinator of the Circular Economy laboratory of the Catholic University of Cuenca, indicates that teachers and students of the institution also built two automated ambu prototypes and another 10 were developed in conjunction with the University of Azuay and the southern hub of the Senescyt . "These prototypes were validated by the expert staff of the critical areas of various hospitals in Cuenca and were used as an emergency device to care for patients with respiratory distress who needed mechanical assistance, due to the lack of mechanical ventilators while the health emergency lasted," Morales explains. 

In addition to this, teachers and students of the master's degree in renewable energies and the electrical engineering career built 15 disinfection tunnels.