12 new projects financed in the INACH contest

Black carbon contamination in the Antarctic snow, potential advances for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and studies to locate a future telescope in Antarctica, are some of the concerns of the 12 proposals awarded in the XVII National Competition for Scientific and Technological Research Projects Antarctic organized by the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH).

In this call, new institutions have been incorporated into the National Antarctic Science Program (PROCIEN), such as the Universidad Católica del Maule and Federico Santa María. In addition, the Andrés Bello, Chile, Border, Autonomous University of Chile, Catholic University of Chile, Playa Ancha, Concepción, Bío Bío and the Center for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones have benefited. With this, PROCIEN is made up of 25 institutions from Antofagasta to Magallanes.

The head of the INACH Competitions Unit, Elías Barticevic, comments that it has been an arduous work of evaluation due to the diversity of topics and disciplines in which 40 initiatives have been presented. “The interesting thing is that it has returned to an award rate of 30% of the applications, committing a little more than 600 million over three years for the development of polar science,” emphasizes Barticevic.

Katherine García, from the Autonomous University of Chile, points out that she feels happy and proud to have been awarded these funds, because her project stems from the joint effort of those who make up the B-Phan Network (phage-bacteria interaction in Antarctic marine environments), a multidisciplinary group of young professionals, eager to investigate and do quality science. “With this project we seek to understand the interactions that occur between bacteria and the bacteriophages that infect them. What could be better than having the opportunity to study these networks in an environment as extreme and unknown as the Antarctic continent is”, says García.

The director (S) of INACH, Andrés López Lara, underlines the importance of this contest that continues to open opportunities for national researchers, in this case with transfer funds from the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation. According to López, “this contest is the most relevant in the country on specifically Antarctic issues, allowing two execution modalities: field and office.”

Aparna Banerjee is a researcher at the Catholic University of Maule and for her “winning this project has been a great achievement that fills me with happiness and pride, since it has always been a dream of mine as a person to know and as a scientist to study the Antarctic region and this is a wonderful opportunity to do both.” Banerjee’s project focuses on bioprospecting in extreme environments (fumaroles) on Deception Island, where ideal conditions occur for the production of bioactive compounds of biotechnological interest, for example in the food industry.

The proposals awarded are the following:

INACH is a technical body of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with full autonomy in everything related to Antarctic matters of a scientific, technological and dissemination nature. INACH complies with the National Antarctic Policy by encouraging the development of excellent research, participating effectively in the Antarctic Treaty System and related forums, strengthening Magallanes as a gateway to the White Continent and carrying out actions to disseminate Antarctic knowledge among citizens. .