• Dr. Claudio Vasquez investigates the resistance of microorganisms in the Antarctic to tellurite, a derivative of metallic tellurium, which is very harmful and toxic to the environment.

Tellurium is a very scarce element in the earth's crust and its biological role is unknown to date. Although in its elemental state (Te ° metallic tellurium) it exhibits no toxicity, some of its derivatives, such as tellurite, are highly damaging to most bacteria.

In this context, Dr. Claudio Vasquez, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology at the U. of Santiago will be in charge of the Fondecyt project: "Antarctic tellurite-resistant bacteria: new mechanisms of resistance",  for three years.

The academic works with bacteria isolated in Antarctica, in order to analyze how the microorganisms react in a cold context in contact with the toxic. For the research, 800 toxic- resistant microorganisms, coming from 100 different Antarctic samples, were isolated. "Of all the samples, we chose four which showed greater resistance to unveil the defense mechanisms they use," the researcher says.

Dr. Vasquez adds that "over the years, we have identified proteins that help the cell to remove this toxic and, therefore, we think that these bacteria that have received more stress by being in extreme conditions at the Antarctic, could exhibit more sophisticated mechanisms. Our goal is to find new genes that encode novel proteins involved in the defense against these toxics.” the expert says.

As a projection of this study, the introduction of new genes into plants that grow in tellurium- contaminated environments, such as some mining areas, is expected. This would help the plants so that they can eliminate the polluting elements.

Pollution

The tellurite, produced as a result of industrial pollution, drains in groundwater by inhibiting or eliminating microorganisms that might be beneficial. It affects bacteria, fungi, plants and animals. For this reason, it is important to control the discharges which come from industrial exudates containing tellurium.

Tellurium is the molecular basis of solar cells that collect energy; therefore, any accident that might happen with these solar panels could release toxic elements.

• Universidad de Santiago’s Innovo Center was awarded these funds to run the Flexible Allocation Seed Grant Fund for four years in order to accelerate the development of innovative scientific and technological business ventures of international impact.
• “This grant is in recognition for the work done by the Center’s Business Incubator, which has dedicated itself to promote the innovation and entrepreneurship culture and has helped to create new technology-based companies,” Innovo’s Director said.

In order to strengthen scientific and technological business ventures, the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO, in Spanish) awarded Universidad de Santiago’s Innovo Center 2,600 million pesos to run the Flexible Allocation Seed Grant Fund (SSAF, in Spanish) for four years. These funds will be earmarked for supporting innovative, high-impact start-up companies.

“The objective is to accelerate the development of local scientific and technological business ventures at an early commercial stage which are based on technologies in their last mile of development and have a potential international impact. We have 500 million pesos available for the first year and then, 700 million pesos every year,” Luis Lino, Innovo’s Director, explained.

These resources will be given to scientific and technological entrepreneurs through contestable funding. Those who are interested and meet the requirements will have to apply for it. For the business ventures that are granted SSAF funds, Innovo Center considers a first stage of international commercial validation. For this purpose, Innovo has 10 million pesos available, and for the second stage of commercialization support, it has 50 million pesos. Both stages require co-funding, as entrepreneurs will have to provide 25% of the total cost of the project.

“The contestable funding call will include entrepreneurs with technological projects, as well as other Chilean academic or research centers. The first call is scheduled between August and October this year and the projects will be evaluated according to their innovation degree, teamwork, technology development and their impact on the country,” Lino explained.

In Director Lino’s opinion, this grant is in recognition for the work done by the Center’s Business Incubator, which has dedicated itself to promote the innovation and entrepreneurship culture and has helped to create new technology-based companies.

Today, 33 companies are being incubated in fields like engineering, life science, biomedicine, and information technology with impact on industry. Some business ventures that are worth to mention are the development of a tidal power harvesting equipment, a biotechnological treatment for mining industry liquid wastes, the first electric car developed in Chile and a new energy dissipation system for buildings, among others.


Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Yeast is a type of fungus that is present in multiple fermentation processes required for food. Due to this fact, new applications of yeast are being studied to decontaminate what we eat in a natural way and at low costs. The study is being conducted in the context of an Initiation Fondecyt project led by Dr Francisco Cubillos Riffo, a researcher at the Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago.
  
   
  
  Yeast plays an essential role in the making of liquors, beer and bread. This fungus allows multiple fermentation processes required for producing foods as we know them. However, the importance of this catalyst goes beyond food production: it has the characteristic of controlling some mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are natural food contaminants that can cause acute poisoning when ingested, inhaled or absorbed.
  
  Through a genetic analysis of the response to the interaction between natural contaminants and yeast, the study led by Dr Francisco Cubillos Riffo seeks to develop new applications that allow decontaminating foods in a natural way and at low costs. 
  
  According to professor Cubillos, food innocuousness is very important in Chile, both for imports and exports. “The laboratory of Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago (CECTA) is focused on research on food innocuousness. The type of yeast that we are studying now has the characteristic of decontaminating mycotoxin-containing foods,” he added.
  
  Preventing diseases
  
  The importance of this study lies on the need for preventing diseases transmitted by animals, eliminating contamination of human-consumption products. The analysis of this strain and others coming from different places in the country seems to be suitable to find effective applications.
  
  “We will study yeasts of different origins and then we will evaluate them at a genetic level. We will be able to determine what yeast is the one with the highest ability to degrade pollutants or decontaminate food, and at the same time, will conduct genetic studies on the different strains collected,” Dr Cubillos said.
  
  “Many of these toxins manage to enter the food chain and cause damage; therefore, it is necessary to find natural alternatives for decontamination. Yeast is not a chemical product, it is not a toxic treatment, it is cheaper, and most of the time, it is completely innocuous,” he added.
  
  The study will have a broad impact and Dr Cubillos considers the new possibilities as favorable. “Eventually, we could reach the industry and start partnerships with the Faculty of Administration and Economics. Also, with the data collected during the project, mathematical models can be developed to determine the specific behavior of yeasts in stressful environments, what would contribute even more to future studies,” he said.
  
  Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Dr Laura Almendares Calderón, professor at the Technological Faculty of Universidad de Santiago, presented her study “Development of a technology to replace prickly pear skin with a peel to keep the physiological, microbiological and organoleptic properties of the fresh fruit” at the Expo Milano 2015 (Italy). Dr Almendares presented the innovation in an activity devoted to the best sustainable development practices for food security.

Dr Laura Almendares Calderón, professor at the Technological Faculty of our University, carried out a technical visit to the Expo Milano 2015 (Italy) in order to get an insight of the food situation around the world. She was able to see a wide variety of raw materials, manufactured goods, equipment and supplies exhibited by more than one hundred countries. The activity had the presence of leaders from all over the world, like President Michelle Bachelet, who opened the Chilean Pavillion.

In this context, Dr Almendares, director of the FIA-USACH Project, PYT-2012-0033, “Development of a technology to replace prickly pear skin with a peel to keep the physiological, microbiological and organoleptic properties of the fresh fruit”, presented her work at the BSDP Week.

The activity started with an exhibition of photos, porters, brochures and other information material related to this matter. The academic was able to show the results of this Chilean innovative project to people from different countries, at the Urban Center, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, in downtown Milano, between June 10^th and 13^th.

Chile participated in the competition “Feeding Knowledge”, a program created to contribute to the permanent legacy of the Expo Milano 2015.

With that purpose in mind, a document will be generated containing policies and key recommendations to create an effective knowledge system in the food security field in the Mediterranean Region. The final version of this document will be available in September this year.

Selection of proposals

The proposals submitted by eligible candidates underwent a strict admission control by the International Selection Committee, which is responsible for the final evaluation, using nine pre-established criteria.

The proposals that did not meet one or more of the admission criteria were not considered as “Good Practices in Food Safety.”

The ones that were well evaluated officially became “participating initiatives”, like the work presented by Dr Almendares. 

Her work was included in the priority theme “Food consumption habits: diet, environment, society, economy and health.”

This theme groups all projects which objectives are focused on research activities that evaluate the impact of current diets on the environment, economy, society, culture, health and nutritional sustainability.

This was the only Chilean study presented at the activity and it was registered as ‘9712. Development of methodology to replace prickly pear skin for enriched eatable peel. Chile. 25’.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• In the context of a research work on isolated microorganisms in the Chilean Antarctica, the research team led by Dr Claudio Vásquez, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology of Universidad de Santiago, discovered that glutathione reductase is one of the enzymes able to reduce tellurite, a compound which is highly toxic to almost all microorganisms.

Tellurium, a chemical element with symbol Te and atomic number 52, seems to be non-toxic. However, when combined with other elements like oxygen, it produces tellurite, which is very harmful to living organisms.

A research team led by Dr Claudio Vásquez studied the mechanisms that bacteria use against high concentrations of toxic metals. The results of the study were published in the American Society for Microbiology’sjournal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, USA.

This study is part of the Regular Fondecyt Project N° 1130362 “Tellurite-resistant Antarctic bacteria: Unveiling new toxicant resistance mechanisms,” which also inquired into how oxygen is partially reduced with the concomitant generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the cells exposed to a toxicant. Organisms that depend on oxygen to breath live in an oxidative environment that affects their cells. Therefore, to prevent the cell’s structure and chemical composition from being damaged, they have an inner reductive environment,” he explains.

In the Antarctica

To collect the required samples, Dr Vásquez and Dr José Manuel Pérez of Universidad Andrés Bello, went to the Prat and Escudero Antarctic Bases; they visited Deception Island and Fildes Peninsula and travelled on the Almirante Óscar Viel ice-breaker of the Chilean Army.

“As the Antarctic laboratories are well equipped, we were able to process part of those samples. We wanted to isolate the Antarctic microorganisms resistant to the toxic salt tellurite that we had studied years ago at the university laboratory,” Dr Vásquez says. In the samples that they studied, they were able to isolate several tellurite-resistant bacteria.

Tellurite reduction

Dr Vásquez and his team were able to prove that glutathione reductase is responsible for reducing tellurite and, therefore, for the cell’s resistance to this toxicant.

“We purified proteins as of crude extracts of resistant bacteria and we found that a particular enzyme, glutathione reductase, was largely responsible for reducing the toxicant, as it changed it to its non-toxic metallic form,” he says.

“We tested these nanoparticles and we found that they have antibacterial properties, so they can be used to fight pathogenic bacteria that cause disease,” he adds.

It is worth to mention that the studies conducted by Dr Vásquez are eco-friendly, as he uses biosynthesis: He reduces metals by using proteins or cells and not chemical substances. In this way, it is possible to lower expenses and work at environment temperature, avoiding negative impacts on the ecosystem.

Dr Vásquez says that as tellurite is rare in the environment, it has been poorly studied and its properties are not well understood.

The research team is made up of the following members: Dr Benoit Pugin, Fabián Cornejo and Pablo Muñoz-Díaz (biochemists), Claudia Muñoz-Vilagrán, Joaquín Vargas-Pérez (biochemist) and Dr Felipe Arenas.

To read the full paper, search “Glutathione reductase-mediated synthesis of tellurium containing nanostructures exhibiting antibacterial properties” on the web.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• The study “Application of nanotechnology to develop a new ethylene adsorber oriented to the production of packaging for climacteric fruits,” successfully concluded. The new mechanism will allow delaying the ripening process of Chilean horticultural products exported to countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

Chile is a leading exporting country of horticultural products. As its most important buyer countries are in Europe, North America and Asia, shipping distances pose a challenge with regard to keeping the quality of these products.

In 2012, in order to contribute with a solution to this problem and because of Universidad de Santiago’s vocation to serve the country, the project “Application of nanotechnology to develop a new ethylene adsorber oriented to the production of packaging for climacteric fruits” was started, with the support of the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Development (Fondef, in Spanish).

Dr Francisco Rodríguez, professor at the Department of Food Science and Technology, the Packaging Laboratory (Laben, in Spanish) and at the Center for the Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (Cedenna, in Spanish) of Universidad de Santiago, has led the research team.

Ethylene gas control

After four years, the results confirmed the study’s hypothesis to use a packaging system that includes a mechanism to control ethylene gas and delay the ripening process. Ethylene gas controls plant growth and accelerates the maturation process.

“Our goal was to develop ethylene active films based on modified aluminum silicates and polyethylene in order to produce a material that can be used when shipping these products to distant markets,” the researcher said.

In the study, researchers used climacteric fruits like banana, plum and avocado. They had a positive response to the incorporation of an active plastic material based on zeolite, which structure was modified with some metals. “Modified zeolite showed an ethylene removal capacity five times higher than the capacity of non-modified zeolite,” Dr Rodríguez said.

Project closing seminar

The final results of the project led by Dr Rodríguez were presented at a seminar held in Hotel Plaza San Francisco. Representatives of some of the collaborating entities participated in the activity, like Maderas Bravo, Clariant and San Jorge Packaging

In this regard, Sergio Carrillo, Coordinator of the Department of Technology Management of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, said: “The focus now is on technology transfer, but for a long time, it was on research, and the market was out of the university scope. Fortunately, this has changed lately.”

For his part, Dr Rodríguez mentioned the possibility of continuing with this work so as to see the study results in the market, i.e, the use of the film in fruit exports. Up to now, the system works well, but it requires some adjustments to obtain a better product before going to market.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• The projects supported by the Department of Agrarian Management of the Technological Faculty and the Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago show important results, like a bio-pesticide based on residual quinoa grains or the potential edible use of this pseudo-cereal leaves.

The projects supported by the Department of Agrarian Management of the Technological Faculty and the Food Science and Technology Research Center of Universidad de Santiago (Cecta, in Spanish), show important progress in their goal of feeding the population in a healthy and equitable way.

The first project, “Biopesticidas en base a saponinas de quínoa” (Bio-pesticides based on quinoa saponins) (FIC 30343624-0) lasts three years and it is being developed in the O’Higgins Region, in Central Chile. It has the purpose of using the residual quinoa grains to generate a natural pesticide for grapevines.

The second project, “Valorización agroindustrial de subproductos de la quínoa” (Agro-industrial valuation of quinoa byproducts) (FIC 30429825-0), lasts three years and it is also being developed in the O’Higgins Region. The goal of this project is to promote the cultivation of quinoa, with new applications. Besides using the grains, they expect to promote the use of the leaves in salads.

The third project, “Habilitación de productores hortícolas de la región Metropolitana para la elaboración de productos IV gama” (Training vegetable producers of the Metropolitan Region in the elaboration of IV range products) (GORE BIP 30442786-0), lasts 18 months and it is the continuation of a project developed by the Cecta researchers in 2011 that tested different protocols to reduce the microbial load in vegetables like lettuces, cabbages and carrots.

Carlos Díaz Ramírez, Professor at the Department of Agrarian Management and Innovation Manager of the projects, explains that the purpose of this project is to train small farmers in the care and safety of all the production and supply chain of vegetables, until the products reach the consumer.

Some of the Cecta scientists involved in the projects are Professor Lina Yáñez Catalán, Dr Claudio Martínez and Dr José Luis Palacios Pino.

• The project, funded by CORFO, is led by Dr. Claudia Ortiz, researcher at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, and it focuses on developing a biological filter using brown algae, enhancing copper and arsenic recovery from the water used in the mining process. The filters can also be used as desalination agents. This involves the real possibility of using seawater as an alternative to mining production processes.

Water consumption in Chile’s mining industry is now a multi-faceted problem. Water shortage in large deposits of minerals located in the center and northern part of the country, the disadvantages of the systems available for water treatment, and the figures, show that 95 percent of the recourse that enters the plants ends up as waste.

Given this reality, the project led by Dr. Claudia Ortiz, researcher at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, aims to obtain a biofilter prototype (biological filters) based on Chilean brown algae, which are chemically modified for the absorption of large concentrations of elements such as copper and arsenic.

In words of the researcher, "the direct recovery of copper, by using biofilters, will cause productive benefit and also an increase in the life cycle of the water process, resulting in more efficient resource usage. Also, the content of elements, such as arsenic and copper, will decrease. Their presence in the environment is a global problem because of the persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity to living organisms. "

This project corresponds to one of the six initiatives of the Applied R & D project funded by CORFO, which the University will run.

Because of its high efficiency at low concentrations of heavy metals and its low cost, the filters may also be used as desalination agents and this means the real possibility of using seawater, as an alternative to mining production processes.

"The project involves a comprehensive solution, which is efficient and cheap to industry. Currently, this field faces three problems: access to water resources, optimization of copper production, by recovering this metal from the waste, and the use of sea water in the process," Dr. Ortiz says. She adds that in a first phase, the project includes the development of laboratory-scale biofilter prototype and then the project scaling to industrial level.

The project is conducted by: the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology; the Department of Geographic Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as hydro-specialized support, as well as Good Harbour Technologies a Canadian company specialized in process scaling, and División Codelco Chuquicamata, as associated with the project.

• By means of a Regular Fondecyt Project, researchers at the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, led by Dr. Brenda Modak, are studying a treatment to protect the national salmon farming industry from the dangerous bacterium Piscirickettsia Salmonis, by using wild plants from the Atacama Desert.
• “Synthetic products have proved to be a problem where they have been used as they accumulate at the bottom of the sea. This is the reason why we refer to this as a sanitary challenge that national aquaculture has to face. Working with a natural compound will not only lead to a less invasive cure: there will also be less pollution in waters where it is used,” Dr. Modak stressed.

In the last decades, aquaculture in Chile has been constantly growing, placing Chile in the first place of producers in America, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Also, salmon production accounts for 76% of the national fish farming industry, according to the National Service of Fishing. For these reasons, infections affecting salmon farming at a national level can become a serious problem for the country.

“We are the world’s second leading country in salmon farming, after Norway. So, everything related to infectious diseases becomes important, even more, when it comes to Piscirickettsia salmonis, a bacterium that has killed about 50% of the salmon population in the country,” affecting an industry that generates more than 60 thousand jobs in the south of the country,” Dr. Brenda Modak stressed.

In order to find effective solutions to this problem, Dr. Modak, together with a multidisciplinary research team from Universidad de Santiago’s Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, are working on the Regular Fondecyt Project “Evaluation of natural products with potential antibacterial activity against P. Salmonis.”

“We are trying to test the activity of natural products isolated from plants against this bacterium (P. Salmonis), which has been difficult to combat with common synthetic antibiotics. However, our compounds have proved to be effective as antiviral drugs and immunostimulants for salmons, so this is where the idea of testing them in salmons already infected came from,” she said.

To develop the treatment, researchers will work with plants that grow wildly in the Atacama Desert, which produce a resin that covers the plants to protect themselves against the unfavorable environment in which they grow.

“We will extract the resin from the plant and then we will separate its different components. We have seen that the resin is made of two groups of compounds, from which we will take some samples and test them against the bacterium,” she said.

Three Universidad de Santiago’s laboratories are taking part in this study: the Laboratory of Chemistry of Natural Products, the Laboratory of Immunology and the Laboratory of Virology. First, the study of the extracted resin will be started until the pure compounds are obtained. This will be followed by the bacterial cell growth. Then, the in vitro work will be done, observing how the bacterium is affected by the compounds. Finally, in the in vivo work, salmons will be infected and then they will be given an injection with the elaborated product.

“Synthetic products have proved to be a problem where they have been used as they accumulate at the bottom of the sea. This is the reason why we refer to this as a sanitary challenge that national aquaculture has to face. Working with a natural compound will not only lead to a less invasive cure: there will also be less pollution in waters where it is used,” Dr. Modak stressed.
 

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• Cyanide is one of the most commonly used chemicals in gold mining, mainly because it is easy to obtain and is highly effective in recovering this metal. However, due to its high levels of toxicity, its use should be controlled to avoid leaks. This is the reason why the process suggested in the study led by Dr Julio Romero, professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of our University, is so important.

 

“These processes require very large equipment and a constant control, and may involve potential hazards, like leaks. This fact is particularly critical, because there may be gas streams containing cyanide as hydrogen cyanide flowing in the plant through large columns that could affect both people and the environment, if they are not handled with enough caution,” Dr. Julio Romero, researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering, said.

For these reasons and according to the research lines of the Laboratory of Membrane Separation Processes (LabProSeM) of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, the research team conducted a study to minimize the risk posed by the changing conditions of cyanide by means of a membrane absorption process. The study was published by the Journal of Membrane Science with the name of “Design and cost estimation of a gas-filled membrane absorption (GFMA) process as alternative for cyanide recovery in gold mining.”

“We developed and adapted a new process that requires only one confined and compact piece of equipment. It allows cyanide to pass from one phase to the other without having to change its condition to gaseous state in a circulating stream, thanks to a membrane that absorbs and desorbs this substance in one stage,” he explained. 

The system works as a selective barrier, partly similar to biological membranes. These membranes are commercialized in the market and they are adapted for this specific use.

“This time, we evaluated a membrane with gas-filled pores, specifically, air-filled pores. In this way, the two solutions- the one from which the cyanide will be removed and the one in which the cyanide will be kept- contact each other passing through the membrane pores. This allows a controlled operation, reducing the risk of cyanide escapes into the atmosphere,” Dr Romero said.

The study was developed as of some systems that simulated the composition of the water in a gold deposit. This increases the feasibility of the design in real operations, because it suggests a reduction in the energy footprint of the process. Besides, it produces a 35% more of the net value provided by the AVR system and is comparable to the SART process.

The published article is the result of a more extensive study related to the dissertation work of Humberto Estay, graduated from the Engineering Sciences PhD program with a Major in Process Engineering, at Universidad de Santiago. Students and academics at Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana have also contributed to this work.

Contributing to Green Chemistry

The LabProSeM has worked for more than 14 years on the study of membrane separation processes and their use in hydrometallurgical processes, food processing, biofuel separation and gas and waste management.  

Currently, the different studies supported by this laboratory have an ultimate goal: to incorporate the principles of eco-friendly chemistry. This idea was inspired by the green chemistry philosophy, based on 12 principles that intend to reduce the impact of future chemical processes.

“Membranes, as selective barriers, use a physical means to restrict the use of reagents and chemicals harmful to the environment. We would like to focus our research lines on the development of applications that respect the principles of green chemistry. We try to modify the design of our products, chemical treatments, processes and others, to make them eco-friendly. All this with the purpose of eliminating or considerably reducing the production of pollutants,” Dr Romero said.

Translated by Marcela Contreras