In 2018 Morelos presented the largest concentration per capita of researchers nationwide, with a rate of 100 researchers per 100,000 inhabitants; the entity houses the most important research centers, which have generated, among other things, inventions of great relevance to the daily lives of citizens.
Morelos has one of the pioneering centers within the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) in the production of scientific articles and inventions that have been successfully patented, the Southern Biomedical Research Center (CIBIS), located in Xochitepec, so far has 24 patents granted.
CIBIS is one of the five strategic centers that the IMSS has distributed throughout the country to conduct its biomedical research; since 1985 its mission has been to generate scientific knowledge in the areas of Pharmacology, Phytochemistry, Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical Technology and Medicine for the development of safe and effective drugs in the treatment of the most common diseases of Mexican society.
Alejandro Zamilpa Álvarez, director of CIBIS, explained that as its goal is to find a solution to the main health problems of Mexicans, they must identify which are the most common today but also which will be the real challenges for the system. health in the next 15 and 20 years; the most studied have been the problems of the central nervous system, dermatological, diabetes, obesity and cancer, which have had an impact on research that later becomes a technological development.
CIBIS has today applied for a total of 32 patents, of which the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) has granted them an average of 24, thus becoming the biomedical research center. of the IMSS with the largest number of patents.
In an express question, the doctor of chemistry mentioned that in order to complete a technological development that may be subject to a process of protection, several stages of research must be passed, the first comprising the basic research in which identify possible solutions to the most common health problems in Mexican society.
Each and every one of CIBIS’s developments involves the use of standardized extracts in the active ingredients of plant species used in traditional Mexican medicine.
The second stage consists of the pharmaceutical design of each extract to generate the different presentations of the phytomedicines, the disciplines that participate in this stage, explained, are the Toxicology and the Pharmacokinetics that help to determine the security, distribution and elimination of these medicines.
The idea culminates with clinical trials that allow them to demonstrate the safety and therapeutic efficacy of these plant medicines, drugs of plant origin made with standardized extracts.
Biotechnology, the researcher said, helps them guarantee the source of raw material to obtain a uniform production procedure for plant species or their active ingredients.
To date, CIBIS research has only directly benefited volunteer patients who have participated in its clinical trials; however, when the institution generates the license to exploit these patents or decides to use them to generate its own treatments, Mexican society in general will benefit.
Some of the registered patents have been: The use of active ingredients to make phytomedicines, as in the case of Galphimine B which is used to produce anxiolytic drugs, or the steroidal saponin SC-2 which has been shown to be effective and therapeutic in the treatment of candidiasis (infection caused by fungi).
The use of plant species such as Solanum chrysotrichum and Mimosa tenuiflora has also been protected to produce phytomedicines that help treat dermatological and gastric diseases, respectively.
Pharmaceutical preparations and extraction methods for obtaining active ingredients have also been the subject of patents, as well as the biotechnological processes that make it possible to obtain extracts and active ingredients and also the procedures for stabilizing extracts.
Most technological developments include a rigorous collaboration process between biologists, pharmacologists, chemists, biotechnologists and doctors, as well as external collaborations with taxonomists of specialized herbariums, for this reason, the number of inventors of each patent oscillates. Between three and seven researchers.
While for CIBIS each of the patents has been a great success in involving long years of research, they have a special case of a Galphimia glauca patent that has even been the subject of several awards in the area. of innovation.
CIBIS is made up of an average of eight researchers.