INL signs MoU with Mexican HRAEPY

The INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory and the Regional High Specialty Hospital of the Yucatán Peninsula “HRAEPY”, a decentralised body of the Federal Public Administration within the Mexico Government initiated a cooperation agreement in the field of nanomedicine.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) now signed during a remote ceremony, due to the pandemic, aims to carry out bilateral research, through the development of minimally invasive devices that provide rapid analysis with high precision and sensitivity. Besides, the miniaturization of the devices allows the integration and automation of complete applications of a lab-on-a-chip at a low cost. 

Likewise, the collaboration agreement will promote the investigation of early detection of circulating tumour cells (CTC’s) through liquid biopsies, the biomarkers at the nanometric level, early diagnosis through novel techniques, therapies, and targeted treatments of pathologies at the molecular level focused on the needs of our population, and finally, the exchange of researchers, medical staff and students between both institutions, among others.

Taking INL expertise to Latin America

According to Lorena Diéguez, coordinator of the INL Precise Personalised HealthTech Cluster, “the signature of the collaboration agreement with HRAEPY allows us to expand our horizons in the deployment of our Health Technologies in Latin America for the first time. We intend to start this collaboration in the area of translational medical oncology, by applying our liquid biopsy technologies developed at INL for the diagnosis, monitoring, and personalized treatment of gastric cancer in Mexico, where this disease has a very high incidence”. 

The Precise Personalised HealthTech Cluster of INL works at the interface between Engineering and Medicine, by developing novel nano-enabled Medical Technologies in collaboration with hospitals that can provide significant advantages for the prevention, earlier diagnosis, and personalized treatment of diseases. 

“For us to work in translational research that can be meaningful for the medical practice, it is crucial to collaborate directly with hospitals and patients. Also, since INL is an international organisation, these partnerships need to be established all over the world, to deliver our new HealthTech solutions in an efficient, accessible, and cost-effective manner”, adds Lorena Diéguez. 

HRAEPY was created in 2004 to offer highly specialised medical services, with the ability to solve particularly complex medical care problems, of low frequency, but seriously affecting the population of southeast Mexico.