HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 18 (ACN) The prevalence of high-level Cuban women professionals is so evident that in less than a month a group of them received international and national awards for the results of their scientific research.
Two of them were granted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the first of them, on September 30, to María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Science and Master in Virology.
The international organization announced that it conferred the L’Oréal-UNESCO International Prize (foundation) for Women in Science to Guzmán Tirado, director of the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine Research Center (IPK).
The award was in recognition of her pioneering work to better understand and treat dengue or tropical flu, a disease that mainly affects intertropical areas and infects between 50 and 100 million people worldwide each year.
UNESCO added that the mutual recognition only goes to five eminent scientists with exceptional careers, from the five regions of the world in its 24th edition, and this time in the category of Life and Environmental Sciences.
In October, UNESCO and the French company L’Oréal also honored Gladys Gutiérrez Bugallo, PhD, with the 15th edition of the Young Talent Award for Women in Science.
Gutiérrez Bugallo serves at the IPK, in its Vector Control Department, and has made outstanding contributions to research in neuroendocrinology, cognitive neuroscience and disease transmission.
Her colleague, Hilda Garay Pérez, PhD in Chemical Sciences, won the Latin American Women in Chemistry 2021 Award, granted by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Latin American Federation of Chemical Associations (FLAQ).
Garay Pérez was awarded in the category of Industrial Leader in the chemical, pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry, whose research and innovations have led to discoveries that benefit society. She is in charge of the Synthetic Peptides Group at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
Furthermore, Doctor of Science Marta Ayala Avila, General Director of the CIGB, received the Honorary Title of Heroine of Labor.
Ayala Ávila, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, is part of a great team that in these months of pandemic turned interferons and Jusvinza peptide into part of the fight against COVID-19.
Also recognized were Dr. Dagmar García Rivera, head of Research at the Finlay Vaccine Institute; Dr. Belinda Sánchez Ramírez, an expert on Tumor Immunology with the Center for Molecular Immunology; and Tammy Boggiano Ayo, of the Development Division at the same institution.
In the case of the National Assembly of People’s Power, this fact is obvious: since 2018, 53.2% of the deputies are women. Cuba has the second Parliament in the world with the highest number of women, only surpassed by Rwanda (61.3%).