By Héctor Pereira and Sabela Bello |
Caracas, (EFE).- A revolutionary idea has emerged from the restless mind of a young chemist: converting shrimp shells into a low-cost healing agent. Sofía Salazar leads a team of researchers that makes this advance possible, with which she-she considers-science shows its power and validity in Venezuela.
At 31, he is clear about how he wants to continue his career and where he wants to go. Venezuela is the key. With the flagship national products and materials as accessible and disparate as cassava starch, shrimp peels or banana plants, he works on the formulation of glue -already on the market-, a healing product and cellulose.
In the laboratory of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), where she spends much of her time, the young woman brainstorms new ideas and dreams that her creations will become products that are distributed at low cost, something that would not be possible, she explains. to EFE, if it were necessary to resort to the importation of components.
Sofía does not think of large sums of money or of getting rich from her work, but of contributing ideas to science that make the world a better place. She is clear about it: she does not want to work for capitalism, but for people who need products like the ones she formulates and who can buy them without having to pay a large outlay.
Objective: health and well-being
Currently, she is immersed in the development of a healing hydrogel based on shrimp shells, with which tests she has already achieved great advances and from which she expects a solution to prevent and cure bedsores that form on the skin of people with reduced mobility. , to which he gives himself every day in body and soul.
The remains of these crustaceans contain properties that serve as the basis for the development of the product in the laboratory, where a group of chemists do the “magic” or, as they say, they simply advance their work, which they hope to finish in July, although the the road to its massive use is even longer.
Photograph of several vials with healing in a laboratory of the Central University of Venezuela. EFE/Rayner Pena
But the time does not matter if the vehicle to reach the goal is adequate and the means are chosen, voluntarily, from the beginning: Venezuelan techniques and products developed in the academic field, conditions that Sofia carries as her flag.
“We are talking about national technology and that, in addition, it comes from an academic and research institution. That for us is very important, ”the young woman tells EFE, that she does not hide the pride she feels for the creative movement that students and teachers keep alive at the“ alma mater ”.
Late vocation, brilliant result
Sofía, who works in the laboratory like a fish in water, admits that, as a child, she did not like chemistry, but when she reached fourth grade, a teacher infected her with her curiosity, so when the time came to enroll in college, he opted for this part of science that years ago he detested.
“I had a very good teacher (…) who made this look like it was something very simple, very easy. So, when I have to enroll in the university, I wanted to study medicine, but everything was very complicated and my second option was to study chemistry”, she explains.
Despite the fact that he loves his job today, he admits that, initially, it “took a lot of effort”, but when he got to “the practical part, the experimental part”, he decided to continue because -he assures- at that moment he fell in love with the career .
The necessary support
The current project, which receives funding from the National Fund for Science, Technology and Innovation (Fonacit), a program of the Ministry for Science and Technology, is called Development of Healing Hydrogel in Starch Matrices, which the Venezuelan chemist hopes to see grow.
“We have a project that is financed by the National Fund, for the formulation, with a view to making it a project now that grows for scaling,” explains Sofía with the illusion of seeing her dream come true.
A chemist performs a procedure in a laboratory at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). EFE/Rayner Pena
The team in which the young woman works also reached an agreement with a private company for the commercialization of the glue developed from cassava starch, thanks to which -she acknowledges- she can continue investigating.
“The company with which we have the agreement, with whom we developed the glues, continued to market (…) it was the way we found to be able to continue doing research in Venezuela”, a support model that -he considers- should be replicated in science, a area dominated by women in the country, something that also fills the talented young woman with pride.
Talent, work and discipline. Three words that are breathed when entering the UCV laboratory, where Sofía and her colleagues work tirelessly and without limiting her dreams.