With great success the Seventh Workshop on Genetic Engineering was carried out at the Fundación

12/11/2008

Opinion leaders from several national enterprises and government, met once again at the Auditorium Enrique Méndez of Foundation Ciencia para la Vida between the 16th and 18th of October, to attend to the VII Workshop on Genetic Engineering and its applications in Biotechnology.

For three days the seventeen participants dressed their lab coats to carry out laboratory experiments – such as the creation of transgenic cells – and to listened to the presentations of our scientists Bernardita Méndez and Pablo Valenzuela, followed by motivating debates.

The participants agreed on the importance for the development of our country  of being exposed to the new scientific knowledge and technologies. Ivan Vera, General Manager of IGT emphasized that “ it is important to close the knowledge gap between society and science. A first step is for leaders to get hold of this knowledge and make it their own. Indeed I will be more proactive in the sense of think in the future of what we want for Chile. If we do not build it ourselves nobody is going to do it. This workshop has motivated me to do something”.

Jani Brouwer, Director of the Program for Basal Financing of Scientific and Technological Centers of Excellence of Conicyt, expressed that she feels a deep admiration about the work being done at the Foundation, “it is one of the eight Centers that I have to manage at Conicyt, I wish there were more initiatives like this one. It is very important that this kind of institutions integrate political leaders, businessmen, economists to national scientific work, because I think this is the future of Chile”. In addition, she stressed the importance that children in school- age and scanty resources have the chance “to know this world such as I know it now. For that we must continue to increase the amount of resources for these Centers”.

For the journalist Patricia Politzer, it was very important to have the possibility of knowing and experiencing more closely these topics, which are constantly in the public debate, “the truth is that it is very impressive to see how little we know about these subjects and the task that involves a workshop like this is fascinating, it opens your mind. There are many things that are changing because of all this scientific and technological development and we must make efforts to learn a little more” she concluded.