The Biomedical Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has 80 years of history. During that period, it has established itself as one of the leading scientific institutions in the field of health. While the most important thing is that it is already a necessary reference inside and outside our country.
For his part, the director of the UNAM, Enrique Graue Wiechers, stressed that its prestige and tradition are based on its high quality standards. In addition to the rigor for research and generation of new knowledge.
He said that the sample of its importance is the way in which this academic entity has contributed to the generation of knowledge during the health crisis due to COVID-19. Whether to understand the nature and effects of the virus, ensure effective epidemiological surveillance, or design promising solutions for disease control.
The rector also highlighted the high-level scientific production, recognized by its national and international peers; exemplary teaching and human resource training models; invaluable contribution to the growth and decentralization of scientific production in Mexico, as well as multidisciplinary capacity to address basic science and specialized research, generating close links with health institutions, society and the business sector.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of Scientific Research at UNAM, William Lee Alardín, assured that this academic entity seeks, from its inception, innovation and quality in research, with a view to training personnel and medical applications and clinics as a key condition for defining relevance in what they do.
History and current work
At the time, the director Imelda López Villaseñor recalled that the Institute for Biomedical Research emerged in 1941 within the Old School of Medicine. In the first instance it was called the Laboratory of Medical and Biological Studies. Thirteen years later he moved to Ciudad Universitaria and in 1969, under the direction of doctor Guillermo Soberón Acevedo, acquired its current name.
Today more than 180 academics work in the university entity that are part of 75 research groups located in two headquarters in CU, six Peripheral Units in National Institutes of Health, and two Foreign Units, in Xalapa and Tlaxcala. In all of them they carry out medical, biological and biotechnological research; as well as basic, applied and translational research.
He also highlighted his participation in the foundation of the Basic Biomedical Research Degree, which incorporates young people into scientific research, as well as in six postgraduate programs.
Meanwhile, the researcher Alejandro Mohar Betancourt stressed the importance of the peripheral units of the Institute, in which research on various pathologies is carried out and in which health regulations and public policies have been promoted in favor of society, an example of this is the neonatal screening program in Mexico.
Likewise, the researcher Carlos Arámburo de la Hoz stated that the decentralization of the Institute for Biomedical Research contributed to the deconcentration of scientific research and the emergence of new entities such as the current Center for Genomic Sciences and the Institutes of Biotechnology and Neurobiology.
Its academics have made nearly four thousand scientific publications and obtained more than 50 patents; His lines of research include breast cancer, development of vaccines and diagnostic methods, studies on toxicology, obesity, diabetes, production of biomolecules.
It also influences health policies, as its researchers encouraged Mexico to be the first country to establish an Official Standard to apply prevention and control measures for human and swine cysticercosis. In the case of Chagas disease, they contributed to the creation of yet another one to stop its transmission through transfusion, among many other contributions.