MONTEVIDEO, April 5 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Uruguay and China launched Thursday a Joint Laboratory in Montevideo for bio-nano-pharma to advance scientific innovation. The initiative is a collaboration between Uruguay’s University of the Republic (Udelar) and China’s Qingdao University.
The laboratory focuses on research in areas like nanodrug transport, biosensors, and biomaterials. The project reflects a strong bilateral relationship, with China being Uruguay’s largest trading partner for 14 years.
The Sino-Uruguayan undertaking stems from an agreement between the Ministries of Education and Culture (MEC) of Uruguay and the one of Science and Technology (MOST, as per its acronym in English) of China, entrusted to the University of the Republic (Udelar) and the University of Qingdao.
“For us, it is an honor, a pride, and a challenge. We hope to cooperate as expected for this Joint Laboratory,” Udelar’s Acting Rector Álvaro Mombrú said during the presentation ceremony.
He also stressed the “friendship” between Udelar and Qingdao University due to their joint management of the Confucius Institute of Montevideo since 2017.
On behalf of Qingdao University, Professor and researcher Wang Fei mentioned that the Laboratory already materialized collaborative projects in areas such as nanodrug transport, nanotechnological biosensors and implantable biomaterials.
Meanwhile, China’s Ambassador Huang Yazhong said that “this important project is further proof of the friendly cooperation between China and Uruguay.”
The diplomat recalled that Uruguay and China were “sister nations” given the outstanding bilateral economic ties between them. In addition, cooperation stretches to science and technology, an area in which he mentioned as a precedent a first project of a Joint Laboratory for soybean research in charge of the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA), Huang highlighted.
“There is a great scientific and economic complementarity”, the ambassador evaluated and qualified as a “good start” the project between Udelar and Qingdao.
Uruguay’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPP) Director Rodrigo Arim said that the Executive Branch headed by President Yamandú Orsi found “in China a country that shows a vocation for collaboration, cooperation and meeting in different areas, in this case in science, technology and innovation.”
“We have to celebrate the tangible, concrete achievements of a strategy of collaboration and cooperation developed in recent years on the basis of perseverance,” added the former Udelar Rector.
In the first stage, the laboratory will carry out research projects focused on strategies for the “rational administration of active products in specific pathologies through the use of advanced bio- and nano-technologies,” it was explained. New possibilities for joint collaboration between the two universities will be explored.
Udelar will receive this month the first visit of researchers from Qingdao University in the framework of this agreement, while a trip by Uruguayan researchers to Qingdao is scheduled for June.
In 2019, the University of the Republic applied in China for the creation of a Joint Laboratory in Bio-Nano-Pharma, which was agreed upon during the Joint Commission on Science and Technology between the two countries in November 2022.
After the signing of the agreement between the two countries in November 2023, MOST opened a call for proposals on a competitive basis in China, and Qingdao University was designated in May 2024. — NNN-MERCOPRESS