Concerned about COVID-19, scientists, teachers and students developed 6 original innovations

It was March 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic was pure uncertainty. The virus had been identified, but at that time there were no vaccines or treatments with proven efficacy as there are now. The scientist María Victoria Miranda and her team of collaborators focused on the Spiga protein of the coronavirus, which serves the virus to enter the cells of humans. In a few months, they were able to make proteins equal to that of the coronavirus using insect larvae, and now they can be used as inputs for diagnostic kits and generate vaccines against COVID-19.

The achievement of Miranda and her group did not remain within the walls of their laboratory within the Conicet Institute of Nanobiotechnology and the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the University of Buenos Aires, in Argentina. The technology has already been transferred and the biocompany Trebe Biotech was created, which produces recombinant proteins on a larger scale and sells them from Pergamino, Buenos Aires province. In addition, these proteins are also used in the antibody measurement tests of the Argentine company Chemtest.

The successful development of Dr. Miranda's proposal is one of the 6 innovations in the context of COVID-19 that were awarded by the Innovar competition, organized since 2005 by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation under Daniel Filmus. During the last edition, the competition was attended by the National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation (R&D&I Agency), which will provide training in partnership with an accelerator to some of the winners and there was a public vote on projects related to the pandemic.

Miranda, who is a doctor from the UBA in the area of biotechnology and directs the Institute of Nanobiotechnology, told Infobae that since 2010 they have been following a path in the use of insect larvae (which are pests for the agricultural sector) as complex and low-cost protein factories. “When the pandemic started, we wanted to produce the Coronavirus Spike protein. It is the key that makes the virus enter the cells. Due to its complexity, it was difficult to reproduce it in the laboratory, but we set out to achieve it in 6 months with a subsidy from the Ministry of Science. Through another harmless virus, we instruct insect larvae to massively produce the Ear protein. It was possible to do this with high performance and quality, but with a low cost. Today, recombinant proteins are marketed by the new biocompany, which provides more employment in the country, and they cost only 25% of the price it has on the international market,” he said.

From the development that has multiple applications, “as a country we gain a new capacity to produce recombinant proteins. In addition, with the Espiga protein, a serological kit was developed to measure antibodies not only in humans but also in animals, they were tested on horses as a potential treatment, and could be used for the next generation of vaccines,” explained Miranda, who stressed that it had the collaboration of a team of 12 professionals.

Meanwhile, the team of scientist Roberto Etchenique, from the Institute of Chemistry, Physics of Materials, Environment and Energy (INQUIMAE), from Conicet and the Faculty of Exact Sciences and Born from the University of Buenos Aires, developed a system they called NeoQ, an optical-electronic system that is capable of transducing the colorimetric chemical signal of molecular amplification into a LAMP Neokit test (which had been developed by researchers from the Cassará Laboratory) on data actionable by a computer in real time.

NeoQ was also recognized by the Innovar competition. It has software developed with algorithms that allow us to evaluate in real time the positivity or negativity of a person's sample. In this way, instead of using the eye of a human operator, the NeoQ heats the sample to a temperature of 64° and detects the amount of viral load. It has a dual use: it is sensitive like PCR but it is fast like the antigen test. “It's very scalable. Each test measures between 24 or 96 samples simultaneously. It was first tested in the Muñiz de Capital Hospital, and is already used in the jurisdictions of Cordoba, San Luis, Formosa and the city of Buenos Aires,” the scientist who worked with Adali Pecci, Nico Pregi, Oscar Filevich, Luciana Rocha Viegas, and Javier Tiffemberg told Infobae.

It is known that the coronavirus is mainly transmitted through the air, and towards that part of the pandemic problem a project carried out by teachers and students of the Technical School No. 2 Independencia in the city of Concordia, Entre Ríos was directed. It was the most voted project by the public with 2,345 votes out of a total of 5,423.

Before the pandemic, this Concordia team had thought about developing a motor for a fan with multiple applications in cooling to promote energy savings. With the advance of the pandemic, said Ibar Federico Anderson, industrial designer, adapted the project that was already under development to an energy-efficient air blower extractor to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus. The aim was to remove the virus from closed environments.

“To respond, it was decided to use the central idea of energy-efficient technological innovation that was being worked on, but to develop it in a new innovative way inspired by an invention patent by electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, dated May 1, 1888,” Anderson told Infobae.

Today they have a prototype of a turbo that solves two problems: it renews the stale air of aerosols with the coronavirus that are exhaled by people with the infection inside closed environments, and it saves energy, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), which is how energy distribution companies bill bills electric, according to Anderson.

The idea and prototype of the turbo against aerosols with the coronavirus is from a team of teachers from the upper cycle of Computing and Physics, and the Teachers of the Basic Cycle of Technological Education and Technical Drawing together with their students from the Concordia school.

Another innovation was a solution designed to help the most severe COVID-19 patients. “At the start of the pandemic, a group of students and teachers were concerned about the risk that ventilators would not be enough for critically ill patients. They began to develop a pulmonary ventilator,” Emiliano Arias Da Pra, who is innovation manager at the Innovation and Design Laboratory of the National Technological University, in San Rafael, Mendoza, told Infobae.

The group of students and teachers at this public university was composed of Nicolás Medrano, Gabriel Melia, Juan Ignacio Melia, Armando Dauverné, Diego Videla and Cristian González, who developed Aurehola, an economical pulmonary ventilator that can be mass-produced in technical schools in case of emergency for hospitals and ambulances. “It is a prototype that has already been tested on artificial lungs and that involves commercial materials that are easily purchased, handled and manufactured. It is made of polycarbonate and PVC parts,” said Arias Da Pra.

The development of intelligent infrared thermometers for remote temperature measurement in people, specially developed for the fight against COVID-19, and carbon dioxide sensors, which help monitor air quality in closed environments such as work spaces, classrooms, and schools, were also distinguished. Those products are already on the market for sale.

In that case, the Innovar award was received by the Director of Innovation of the company FANIOT who made the developments, Ayelén Ebene and the Operations Manager, Constanza Castillo. It is a technology-based company, which is part of a public and private partnership in the province of Misiones. It was financed by the R&D+i Agency, chaired by Fernando Peirano.

The sixth development related to COVID-19 and recognized by the Innovar competition was the Serocovid-Federal test. As reported by Infobae, this test was developed by five researchers belonging to Conicet, the Institute of Virology of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), and the National University of José C. Paz (UNPaz). It is used to detect antibodies against COVID-19 and can be used in multiple species.

The Serocovid-Federal was conceived within the framework of the concept of “one health”: animal health matters as much as that of human beings. This is a serological antibody kit and has already obtained approval from the National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) for its production and marketing. It is a type of test that can detect antibodies generated by the immune system of the human or animal body after having acquired the coronavirus infection. It has already started to be produced by Laboratorios Chaqueños S.A., which is located in Resistencia, and is a public company in the province of Chaco.

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