After two years of work, the closing event for the Fondef project “CuBacti, a feed additive to combat infections caused by marine pathogens affecting the salmon industry” was held. The initiative was led by Dr. Brenda Modak and researcher Dr. Mick Parra, along with a research team from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology.
One hundred and thirty thousand years ago, Earth entered a warming transition period, from an ice age to the beginning of the Eemian Interglacial Period. While Neanderthals were recolonizing northern Europe and Homo sapiens were exploring routes beyond the African continent, the planet was home to an impressive megafauna, including mammoths, mastodons, and saber-toothed tigers, during a period when global temperatures were higher than they are today and sea levels were several meters higher than they are now.
Chile is enduring one of the most severe mega-droughts in its history, with General Water Directorate (DGA) data recording over 15 years of continuous water scarcity. This unprecedented water crisis has drastically increased pressure on natural resources while raising critical concerns about the environmental footprint of major industrial sectors.
Early in the morning, silence still fills the hallways of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology at the University of Santiago de Chile (Usach). At the far end stands Dr. Francisco Cubillos’s lab—a vibrant, bright space filled with flasks, test tubes, and cutting-edge biotechnology equipment where groundbreaking yeast genetics research takes place.
The Chilean aquaculture industry faces ongoing productivity challenges, including emerging viral diseases that severely impact fish health and cause significant production losses.
To provide innovative solutions, the University of Santiago de Chile (Usach) executed the Fondef IT project: “Validation of a Prototype Vaccine Against Piscine Reovirus 1 (PRV-1)", demonstrating a pilot recombinant vaccine's protective potential in Atlantic salmon. The study was led by researchers Dr. Marcelo Cortez (Faculty of Chemistry and Biology) and Dr. Yesseny Vásquez (Faculty of Medical Sciences).
Plastic has become an omnipresent material in daily life—found in food packaging, water bottles, and utensils—yet scientific researchers warn that toxic chemical components in these plastics pose significant long-term health risks.
A primary example is bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic chemical compound linked to severe disruptions in immune, neurological, and endocrine systems. Due to these health risks, BPA regulations and usage restrictions have been implemented internationally, including in Chile.
Every year, millions of metric tons of plastic end up as waste, making plastic pollution one of the world’s major environmental challenges. According to global plastic waste statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), more than 408 million metric tons of plastic waste are currently generated each year, but only about 9% is effectively recycled; the rest ends up incinerated, in landfills, or improperly disposed of in natural ecosystems.
In winemaking, terroir factors—including climate, temperature, water availability, and soil characteristics—directly influence grape development and composition. Once harvested, the grapes undergo wine fermentation, a crucial process that transforms natural fruit sugars into alcohol, defining the wine's final quality, unique aromas, and characteristics.
"Today, understanding the fundamental mechanisms of life requires much more than superficial observation; it demands that we deconstruct and analyze the forces governing self-organized matter at its most intimate scale. At this intersection of physics and living systems, materials science—a field historically devoted to 'hard' materials such as metals, ceramics, and polymers—provides an extraordinary methodological foundation for addressing 'soft matter,' the very substance that underpins life.
Climate change and public policies to reduce carbon emissions are rapidly transforming Chile’s electricity system. This challenging shift involves a gradual move away from fossil fuel technologies like coal, diesel, and natural gas power plants, towards renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
Unlike conventional power plants, which operators could dispatch based on demand, these new renewable sources depend directly on climatic factors like solar radiation and wind intensity. This introduces a new level of variability and uncertainty into the electricity grid.