Main contributions and results in animal biotechnology
Cuba has the only vaccine marketed in the world for the control of bovine ticks, which are the main source of disease transmission. Gavac is a very environmentally friendly product with very important results in the control of ticks. It is registered in more than 8 countries: Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil and Bolivia, with more applications for registration, and to date there is no worldwide competition.
We have developed a vaccine against the classical swine fever virus, the main zoonotic threat to swine in Cuba. As further demonstration of its efficacy, on the Isle of Youth they began to vaccinate all pigs in 2017, where there was a history of outbreaks and mortality of hundreds and thousands of animals every year. And since 2017 there have been no more events of this type on the Isle of Youth.
Today we produce enough vaccines to vaccinate all swine genetic centers, all swine multipliers, and investments are underway to vaccinate all pigs in the country. This will make it possible, in a relatively short period of time, to eradicate this disease.
This vaccine has Cuban intellectual property. It was recently registered in Vietnam, and the first export to this country has already taken place, with very good results in the field. It is the beginning of the export of this good product for animal biotechnology that should be exported to other countries since this virus is present in many countries of Europe, East Asia and even Latin America.
A vaccine against rabbit hemorrhagic disease is under development. This virus is considered the Ebola of rabbits, because when it appears it has a very high mortality rate. This vaccine is being developed and produced at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) in Camagüey. We already have three batches of this vaccine, and in 2024 we must carry out Phase I, Phase II and Phase III studies to be able to register it.
We have in our portfolio other vaccines against African swine fever, bovine brucellosis and others for companion animals that, in the following years, will be released to improve the health of our animals.
Main contributions and results in biotechnology applied to agriculture
In the case of biotechnology applied to agriculture, we are working on the genetic improvement of seeds. We have improved corn seeds, to achieve simple transgenic hybrid corn. These would increase corn productivity with a potential of over 10 tons per hectare. They have been tested from Pinar del Rio to Ciego de Avila in different types of soil, with different productive forms and with outstanding results, achieving more than 6 tons in all cases. We have very specific cases in the municipality of Placetas where we have managed to partner with the Placetas Pig Farm, which today is a MSME. There we were able to produce 80% of the pig feed from soybean and corn seeds produced by the CIGB.
We have also achieved 6 Cuban soybean varieties that are multiplied, and we are studying the incorporation of 6 Bolivian varieties and 8 Argentinean varieties of soybean, which would complete an important variety of seeds of this crop, which would adapt to different types of soils, types of productions.
Undoubtedly, this would allow in the near future to achieve improved seeds with high productivity of both soybean and corn, which are so necessary for animal feed. This will allow us to have animal protein in our diets; therefore, the production of these grains is extremely important.
At the same time, we are working on the genetic improvement of sugar cane and beans, the control of citrus diseases and the development of diagnostics for the main diseases affecting the country’s main crops.
We work for a single health, we have to look after the health of animals, plants and the environment. If we do not work for a single health, we are mortgaging the future of the planet.
In the case of biotechnology applied to industry, we have two lines of work. We work very closely with Grupo Empresarial Azcuba developing industrial enzymes that can improve the development of the sugar industry and increase the value of our sugar. An example of this is an enzyme that transforms sucrose into a sugar called fructoligosaccharide (FOS), which has a composition that makes it hypocaloric, which allows us to sweeten food in a healthier way. One of its properties is that it is prebiotic, which favors the development of microorganisms favorable to the organism, and does not allow the development of other damages to health. When you eat a food sweetened with this sugar, you are acquiring a functional food. This sugar helps to recover the beneficial biota in the intestinal mucous membranes.
Other types of enzymes are also being developed to improve the digestibility of food in animals, to improve the quality of the sugar and the process of obtaining it. All these enzymes have been transferred to Grupo Empresarial Azcuba and, jointly, we produce them to improve the associated value of sugar in Cuba.
It is important to say that with these genetic improvements we are trying to develop organizational innovation, insofar as they are sustainable productive forms of these seeds, and we are trying to create a program for the production of highly productive seeds that can be used throughout the country.
It is criminal what the blockade is causing, because agricultural biotechnology is aimed at food production, since they are indirectly preventing the improvement of food production in Cuba.
Today the biofactories system has been rescued in the country for the production of sugar cane. We have a joint research project with the Sugar Cane Research Institute (INICA), which belongs to the Azcuba Sugar Group, where we have generated a genetically improved plant that should be resistant to the fungus that produces the charcoal disease. This is a disease that has done a lot of damage and has caused that high productivity varieties have stopped being used in the field because they are very affected by this fungus.
The use of this cane is in field trials. This would increase the productivity of cane per hectare, a benefit for the Cuban sugar industry. Once the efficacy and productivity of this new improved variant is demonstrated, it would be produced in Azcuba’s bioplant system in combination with the bioplant system that the Ministry of Agriculture may have in order to produce millions of vitroplants, necessary for agriculture and sugarcane planting.
Future lines of work
Currently, among the new generation projects that we are developing is the insertion in new lines of research such as the edition of plant genomes. This constitutes a new form of genetic modification that does not involve transgenesis. This new line will make it possible, in the future, to achieve improvements in seeds that do not necessarily have to be transgenic. On the other hand, we are introducing hybrid production as a technology in Cuba. This in itself brings an increase in productivity.
In the case of veterinary vaccines, we are using novel formulations that have allowed us to obtain intellectual property of all our vaccines, formulations such as the use of new molecular adjuvants, of new molecules that allow safer vaccines to be more effective and, above all, against diseases for which there are no vaccines in the world today.
In that frontier of knowledge we are performing, and we are sure that in the coming years we are going to have very profitable results for the country, for food production and the national economy, since we could export these products developed by Cuban biotechnology.
Source: Prensa Latina. November 2023.
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