Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez recognized nine brilliant Jaliscan researchers and technologists with the State Award for Innovation, Science, and Technology 2021.
The Governor pointed out that, given the dismantling of support for research and entrepreneurship at the federal level, the Government of Jalisco will continue to bet on this agenda which reinforces not only the development, but also the consolidation and creation of the projects that they generate from these sciences.
“Here in Jalisco we decided to go in the opposite direction, we decided to bet on something else. We decided to look towards the future, not towards the past, and being able to recognize today those who represent all this effort is undoubtedly the best way to endorse the commitment we have to continue making rational use of all Jalisco residents, and continue betting on innovation, science, and technology as a path for our state in the present and in the future,” remarked the president.
He acknowledged the special recognition granted to Dr. Georgina Coral Sandoval Fabián, a graduate of the University of Guadalajara, who emblemizes our highest university, said the Governor, being the true face of the university.
“The researchers who are recognized today at the University of Guadalajara are the true face of the University of Guadalajara,… an institution that we love and respect and that we will always support. That is the idea that we have of our University and what better way today, by delivering this recognition, to remember what this commitment to the future means,” said Alfaro Ramírez.
The Governor assured that in the next fiscal year it is contemplated to strengthen the scientific community in budgetary terms, not being an initiative that only remains in speech.
The head of the Jalisco Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology (SICyT,) Alfonso Pompa Padilla, highlighted the increase in participation for this year’s awards that reached a record of 167 applications from researchers, technologists and innovators.
The official expressed that this generation of knowledge has resulted in Jalisco growing by 4% in the number of new patents, despite the reduction throughout the country by 10%.
There were six categories in this year’s competition; Early Research, Thesis, Disclosure, Science, Technology, and Merit to Scientific and Technological Development, with a total purse of 654,226 pesos awarded to 9 participants.
In the Early Research category, the winner was Juan Antonio Núñez Hernández, from the Tonalá University Center of the University of Guadalajara, and in collaboration with the Center for Research and Technology Assistance and Design of the State of Jalisco A.C. (CIATEJ). His project was a development of a lateral flow strip pre-prototype for the detection of the HER2 protein, overexpressed in breast cancer cells. The amount of the award for this category was 44,810 pesos.
In the Thesis category, Martín Esteban González López from the University Center for Exact Science and Engineering of the University of Guadalajara, and Andrea Molina Pineda, from the University Center for Health Science, in collaboration with the Center for Biomedical Research of the West, were awarded with 26,886 pesos each for their theses "Adsorption of Heavy Metals and Dyes in Columns Packed with Adsorbents Based on Polysaccharides," and "Evaluation of the Expression of WNT Receptors in Cervical Cancer and its Regulation by Viral Proteins E5, E6 and E7 of HPV 16, 18 and 84,” respectively.
With an amount of 58,253 pesos each, Manuel Fernando Guzmán Muñoz and María Teresa Arias Gómez, from the Latin American Society of Applied Science and Technology, were awarded in the Disclosure category for their project "Disclosure of Scientific Culture to Promote Higher Studies in Science and Technology.”
Rodolfo Hernández Gutiérrez and Óscar René Ochoa Mojica from CIATEJ, were winners in the Science category with their project “Analysis of Serum from Women with Early-Stage Breast Cancer Using a Mini-Matrix of Tumor-Associated Antigens,” each receiving 62,734 pesos.
Sandra Pascoe Ortíz, from the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac, received 134,430 pesos in the Technology category with her project "Mix and Process to Make a Biodegradable Plastic Material."
Finally, in the category of Merit for Scientific and Technological Development, with an award of 179,240 pesos, the winner was Dr. Georgina Coral Sandoval Fabián, from CIATEJ. She is currently a tenured researcher "C" at the Center for Research and Assistance in Technology and Design of the State of Jalisco, member of the National System of Researchers at level 3, and has extensive experience in research and technological development projects in the areas of Science and technology of food, polymers, and bioengineering. She is also a specialized talent forger who has trained 60 thesis and postdoctoral students, as well as a prolific inventor with 17 patents, both applied for and granted.