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Life Sciences Foundation: Life Sciences in Chile

00:00:15.04 My name is Pablo Valenzuela.
00:00:17.13 I am originally from Chile.
00:00:21.07 I came to the US to get a PhD in 1967
00:00:25.02 and I have spent about, in that time, I spent about 25 years in the US
00:00:31.03 next as a postdoc, as an adjunct professor of the University of California, San Francisco,
00:00:37.20 and then eventually in 1980, we started a biotechnology company
00:00:44.06 co-founded with other two persons, called Chiron Corporation.
00:00:49.12 And I spent about 15 years in Chiron Corporation
00:00:53.12 as a research director, and it was a company where basic science was very important.
00:01:00.27 And we worked on infectious diseases, and our main contribution to the world
00:01:07.14 is that we made the blood supply safe.
00:01:11.05 Basically because we were very successful in first discovering
00:01:17.22 a new virus that was the transfusion virus called non-A, non-B
00:01:21.17 that for years was supposed to exist but nobody was able to discover it, to find it.
00:01:29.04 We found it and we were able to study the genes of this virus
00:01:33.09 and develop a test that was...is even today is being used in all the blood banks.
00:01:38.19 Also, we didn't discover the HIV virus, however, we were the first
00:01:44.17 that we were able to identify all the key genes,
00:01:47.08 produce proteins that were used for a test that was also used in the blood banks
00:01:53.02 to detect blood that is contaminated with the HIV virus.
00:01:57.25 These two things really solved a big problem at that time
00:02:02.23 in the blood supply in the world.
00:02:05.09 And the test that we developed are today exactly the same
00:02:09.08 are being used all over the world.
00:02:11.00 So that was a very interesting type of work
00:02:13.06 and eventually we did several things in this company, but my time came to leave after 20 years
00:02:21.26 and then I wanted to come back to Chile,
00:02:25.09 to go back to Chile and do something there.
00:02:29.00 We decided I was very interested in contributing somehow
00:02:34.27 in some role that was important.
00:02:36.21 I didn't want to go back to university.
00:02:38.27 I didn't want to go back to an industry.
00:02:41.09 We decided to form an intermediate institution, the Fundación Ciencia para La Vida,
00:02:47.12 with the vision that science is very very important for
00:02:53.24 economic development and for society.
00:02:56.09 A vision that in general in developing countries
00:03:00.11 is not easily understood by the people that govern those countries.
00:03:05.15 So, we came to Chile with that idea
00:03:09.08 to play the interface between university, academia, and industry.
00:03:14.11 The main problem in Chile is that
00:03:17.06 Chile is a country that exports... the economy is the old type of economy,
00:03:22.24 the economy of natural products, which for Chile is very important
00:03:27.25 because it is the salary of Chile today and
00:03:31.26 that is very important in terms of the society
00:03:37.13 and is the one that provides the money
00:03:40.13 that we obtain from exports.
00:03:43.02 It is a type of economy that is... that needs research,
00:03:47.15 needs mostly applied research.
00:03:50.06 The view of the government usually is short term
00:03:54.21 and it provides money for people
00:03:57.09 in developing...probably also in other developing countries,
00:04:01.21 to work directly on areas which impact the economy
00:04:08.24 like, for example, in Chile there are several groups that work
00:04:13.10 on the microbiology of the bioleaching process
00:04:17.06 that is the extraction of copper using bacteria.
00:04:20.27 Copper is a big part of Chilean exports.
00:04:24.10 It is about half of Chilean exports
00:04:26.09 and is being extracted by a method
00:04:28.22 that really is not good with the environment:
00:04:31.16 that produces toxic fumes, that requires a lot of energy.
00:04:35.18 And this bacteria do this process basically with the energy of the sun,
00:04:40.22 at lower temperature, and so probably in the future years,
00:04:47.29 most of the copper in the world is going to be extracted by bacteria.
00:04:51.28 But the process is not ready yet,
00:04:53.15 so it needs a lot of research to produce bugs
00:04:56.20 which can do this with more efficiency.
00:04:59.07 In Chile it is important the forestry and cellulose industry
00:05:03.12 so there is molecular biology being applied to produce trees
00:05:07.13 that can live with less water, in more salty soils,
00:05:13.14 or in areas of the country where... where there is freezing
00:05:18.02 and they could be resistant to this abiotic stress.
00:05:21.14 Also it is important in Chile the agriculture
00:05:25.04 so the research is being today pursued in the country
00:05:30.00 and some of that research we are doing in terms of the pathogens
00:05:33.23 that effect the agriculture like fungus Botrytis,
00:05:37.18 like RNA viruses that effect the grapevines and the table grapes.
00:05:45.23 We are also researching the area of fruit softening
00:05:50.24 and the fact that some of the fruit gets dark inside
00:05:57.27 and doesn't sustain the long trip that has to do
00:06:01.15 from the Southern Hemisphere
00:06:02.27 to the Northern Hemisphere where the markets are.
00:06:05.27 So, those are interesting projects. Also in salmon culture
00:06:11.14 you know the production of vaccines.
00:06:13.08 The main problem with the salmon culture
00:06:15.29 in the south of Chile is the pathogens
00:06:18.24 because you grow this fish very much together.
00:06:21.07 They are stressed, and so very prone to diseases.
00:06:26.23 So that is another field of work.
00:06:30.23 The real challenge of Chile is how we move
00:06:35.04 from this economy, which today is very important,
00:06:38.15 but for sure is not going to be the economy of the future
00:06:41.24 which is the economy of knowledge.
00:06:44.23 The economy that derives into new industries of the type of Google
00:06:51.07 or the new pharmaceutical products,
00:06:54.13 the new companies in the area of...
00:06:59.00 of communications, software, new energies and so on.
00:07:05.08 That is the economy... the economy of services,
00:07:08.22 global services and so on
00:07:11.02 that probably is going to be important for Chile
00:07:13.23 and for other countries, developing countries,
00:07:16.13 like Chile, for the future.
00:07:18.20 The challenge is that usually we have
00:07:20.14 very little money put in research.
00:07:23.03 The amount of money that developing countries
00:07:27.11 in general put in research
00:07:31.15 is only 0.4-0.5% of the national product.
00:07:35.07 So... and this area of the economy requires
00:07:39.19 a lot of investment and that's what has been happening
00:07:43.17 in countries like Israel, Finland, Australia, the US, or Europe.
00:07:48.19 Chile invests on the order of
00:07:50.28 twenty times less than developing countries
00:07:53.13 on this, which is very low.
00:07:57.09 So, how can a country from..from...like Chile
00:08:03.22 move into this area. One of the ways we do it,
00:08:07.10 and perhaps it can be used for other countries,
00:08:10.06 and can be used by other people within the Chilean country
00:08:15.04 is to have a strong interaction with somebody in the developed country
00:08:20.27 that is in the middle of this type of activities.
00:08:24.11 Strong basic research, giving rights to entrepreneurship,
00:08:28.19 new companies, all this new economy.
00:08:32.06 We selected to have a strong interaction with some friends
00:08:36.17 at the University of California, San Francisco
00:08:38.24 We have an exchange of professors.
00:08:40.26 We have an exchange of students every year
00:08:43.24 that has developed into the ability
00:08:47.16 that as a developing country we have now
00:08:51.10 to talk about science, to know what the new things are happening,
00:08:55.00 how can we interact with the people
00:08:59.00 who are starting new companies,
00:09:00.19 how some people from Chile can invest
00:09:03.02 in the new companies of the new economy
00:09:05.10 that are coming up in a developed country.
00:09:08.14 So through this interaction we believe that we can have a shortcut
00:09:14.08 and this is a way that we have selected
00:09:17.01 and perhaps it can be repeated in other cases.
00:09:19.10 The Chilean government is trying to use this program
00:09:24.12 that we started eight years ago as a paradigm
00:09:27.19 to try to repeat it with Europe, with Germany, or with the UK
00:09:34.17 with other groups, as a possibility of doing this.
00:09:39.25 So we have this nice operation now between
00:09:42.25 our foundation and the University of California.
00:09:47.10 We have a plan Chile California happening now
00:09:50.16 and we believe that it's given rise to interesting results.
00:09:55.28 We have companies now from the US
00:09:58.10 that are doing some operations in Chile.
00:10:00.23 We have new startups, new projects in the biomedical field
00:10:05.02 that basically are changing the situation of the country
00:10:10.19 in this area of the economy of knowledge.

This Talk
Speaker: Pablo Valenzuela
Audience:
  • Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
  • Researcher
  • Educators
Recorded: March 2011
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Talk Overview

When Valenzuela returned to Chile after spending 25 years in the USA, he founded the Fundacion Ciencia para la Vida (Life Sciences Foundation) to show that science was important for both enconomic development and society. He believes that investing in scientific research will improve Chile’s current economy and help to propel it in new directions.

Speaker Bio

Pablo Valenzuela

Pablo Valenzuela

In 1980, Dr. Valenzuela co-founded the biotechnology company, Chiron Corporation and served as the director of research for about 15 years. Upon his return to Chile, Valenzuela founded the Fundacion Ciencia para la Vida and continues to act as its director. He is also a Professor at the Catholic University of Chile and Andres Bello… Continue Reading

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