Academics from the faculties of Sciences and Cs. of Engineering award funds for the development of scientific-technological projects

Pedro Andrade Araos – FCI / Francisca Mansilla – Ciencia2030 UACh.- In offices of the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, in the Emilio Pugín Building on the Isla Teja Campus, the agreements for the proposals awarded within the framework of Fund for collaborative innovation projects in engineering and sciencean initiative promoted by the faculties of Science and of Engineering Sciences of the Austral University of Chile, through its projects Ci2030 and InnoviNG2030respectively.

The purpose of the call was to promote joint interdisciplinary lines of work between both faculties, tending to the development of new products, processes, services or the implementation of proofs of concept that allow establishing the basis for future technological developments.

In addition, the initiative seeks to promote collaborative work by integrating as a requirement that the team of each awarded project consider academics and students from both faculties.

In this way, there were two projects approved, each obtaining financing of $8,000,000 for its five months of execution:

• Conversa con Los Andes, improvement of access to knowledge about the mountainous territory of southern Chile through the creation of a database of scientific and technical documents and its integration with a ChatGPT-type language modelby Dr. Carla Marchant and Dr. Matthieu Vernier.
• Generation of a software prototype for the subclassification of type 2 diabeticsby Dr. Rody San Martín Araya and Dr. Daniel Sánchez Ibáñez.

On the occasion, the Dr. Enrique Suárez, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences, highlighted the relationship and valued “having a point in common with the Faculty of Sciences to collaborate that, although it is very probable that these collaborations have existed for a long time, the idea is now to intention them and generate spaces where this communion that the mission demands of us of the University calls us to work together on solutions for society. For sure, this will be a milestone within the context of the Ci2030 and Innovating2030 projects, and how we are generating these spaces to also obtain results that are a reflection of these joint actions”.

The Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and General Director of the South Consortium – Subantarctic Ci2030, Dr. Leyla Cárdenas, highlighted the importance of research associated with the territory and added that “we are building a bridge between the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Sciences to carry out research associated with regional problems. In fact, the two projects have that look and seek to solve local problems. The collaboration between the two is essential because it brings engineers closer to science and vice versa, and allows us to learn to work together to solve complex problems”.

On behalf of the winning initiatives, the Director of the project “Generation of a software prototype for the subclassification of type 2 diabetics”, Rody San Martin –academic from the Institute of Biochemistry and Microbiology-, explained that “having these funds is super important for our research since it supports data analysis and clinical studies that we cannot do in the biomedical field, but we need the engineering and software design. From this we will be able to carry out research studies, especially in projection of treatments, projection of the pathology, and try to transfer the product to clinical centers to be used”.

He Dr. Daniel Sánchez Ibáñez, Alternate Director of the same project and academic at the Teaching Center for Basic Sciences for Engineering, stated that “our project fills my soul a lot because it helps a little to the health of the population, which I consider quite beneficial. The contribution that we see from engineering is precisely from software engineering, such as data analysis, clustering and subsequent design. We intend to make a software prototype where a doctor enters the data of a person diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and will immediately be able to identify which subclusterization the patient is from, and there the doctor will see how to treat him in the most appropriate way”.

He Fund for collaborative innovation projects in engineering and science is within the activities proposed within the framework of the collaboration agreement between the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and the Faculty of Sciences of the Austral University of Chile, through their projects “InnovING2030: Innovating in Engineering from the south of the world ” and “Consorcio Sur-Subantártico Ci2030”, an agreement that has among its purposes to increase collaboration in areas of research, development, innovation and linkage with the productive sector, through the collaborative structure generated from the InnovING 2030 initiatives and Ci2030.