HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 11 (ACN) Vicente Vérez Bencomo, General Director of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines (IFV), will receive today the honorary degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in Chemical Sciences in a ceremony at the Main Lecture Hall of the University of Havana (UH).
Since he finished his studies in 1977 and started to work as an instructor in the Department of Organic Chemistry of the UH’s School of Chemistry, Dr. Vérez Bencomo has strengthened the scientific and academic links with the university to work jointly in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines Soberana 01, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus. He is also the main author of the synthetic antigen vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).
Dr. Vérez Bencomo graduated as a Chemical Engineer from the Lomonosov Institute of Moscow and as Doctor of State from the University of Orleans, France, in 1983. Furthermore, he was Doctor Honoris Causa of the Canadian University of Quebec in Montreal and Member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba.
In 2008 he was appointed director of the Center of Biomolecular Chemistry, born from the merger of the Center of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and the University Laboratory.
He has earned many other awards, including the Special Award of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment for the Result of Greatest Scientific Relevance (1999 and 2004), the Gold Medal of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the 2005 Health Award granted by the Tech Museum of Innovation of San Jose (California), and the 2015 Order Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, the best known and most important French distinction bestowed on men and women for extraordinary merits.
On January 19, 1927, the year of the promulgation of the new statutes of the University of Havana, the bases for the granting of the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa were established. However, with the emergence of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES) in 1976, the honorary degrees are ratified by this body and the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.
MES Resolution No. 3 of January 21, 2014 lays down the procedure for granting the academic status of Doctor Honoris Causa.
