(III) Homage to Dr. Clodomiro Picado. 45th years of the Clodomiro Picado Institute.

This is the Third and last part of the program. 
Interviews to the present director of the Instituto Clodomiro Picado, Dr. Alberto Alape-Girón. 

3rd PART
Starts minute 17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4GQYZKVFkc

P: On the first part we talked partially about the history of the Clodomiro Picado Institute with Dr. José Mª Gutiérrez, on the second part Don José Mª talked about the present reality of the Institute and the reasons behind it has become a research icon and on this third part we do have the pleasant visit of Dr. Alberto Alape-Girón, which is the actual director of Clodomiro Picado as well as investigator and professor of the Faculty of Microbiology, University of Costa Rica.

Thank you so much Alberto to be here with us to talk precisely about the future of the Clodomiro Picado Institute. As the director, could you tell us which are the future Clodomiro Picado goals on research, social action and academic education?

Dr.AAJ: Thank you so much Gustavo for the opportunity, in fact, we traced the road ahead in our second strategic plan that was stated three years ago, when I just took over the direction of the “Instituto” and basically, we will continue with our research related to “ofidismo” incorporating emerging technologies as geographic information systems, studies done at the “Instituto” in collaboration with other investigators allowed for example to draw a map to see in which regions of the country the snakebite accidents are more frequent and how this maps of incidence overlap with the maps related to de access to the medical care, to Primary Health facilities.

J. Venom. Anim. Toxins incl. Trop. Dis vol.20  Botucatu  2014  Epub Mar 06, 2014

Current challenges for confronting the public health problem of snakebite envenoming in Central America

José María Gutiérrez

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1678-91992014000200203

Figure 3 Incidence of snakebite in Costa Rica per district per 100,000 population (1990-2007). Prepared by Erik Hansson and reprinted from “Using geographical information systems to identify populations in need of improved accessibility to antivenom treatment for snakebite envenoming in Costa Rica” by Hansson et a!., PLOS Neglected Tropica! Diseases, 2013, 7 (1), e2009 [37]. Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL). 

Figure 4 Distribution of hospitals, clinics and ambulance stations in Costa Rica, and estimated time to reach hospitals or clinics in various regions of the country. As shown in Figure 3, regions where transportation to health facilities takes longer correspond to regions of high snakebite incidence. Prepared by Erik Hansson and reprinted from Hansson et al. [37]. 

This research will enable us to for example to suggest to the Health Authorities how to re-distribute those Health centers or how to develop strategies to care for those patients appropriately. Furthermore, related to the techniques for the study of the venoms and the anti-venom characterization, some years back, the university did an important investment on the Proteomics Laboratory, thanks to which we have been able to characterize virtually all the venoms of the Costa Rica’s snakes. An integral characterization that enabled us to see which are the toxins presents in each venom…

P: of the different snakes…

Dr.AAJ: yes, yes, of the different species… and also to see the “reactivity” of the anti-venoms: which toxins are better recognized by the anti-venom and which toxins are weakly recognized by it, in such a way that those strategies will enable us to “re-formulate” the immunization blend to prepare even more effective anti-venoms.

P: This kind of investigation you are already working on that…

Dr.AAJ: yes, sure, we have been doing it since some years but the impact that those studies will have is something that we will see in a future.

Another aspect that I would like to highlight is the empowerment related to technological research. The section of technological development has been reinforced, both with professionals and equipment, giving as result really important scientific advances like the production of new anti-venoms for other countries or new anti-venoms that are being developed for other countries…

P: So, the production will increase… in the future…

Dr.AAJ: Production will increase, yes, but… this area of development and technological transfer is like another track that we will be exploring on the next years. For example, an anti-venom was developed to be distributed in Africa, North Africa, which is effective…  another anti-venom for Papua New Guinea and nowadays a new anti-venom to be used in Sri Lanka is under development; in that case, we are exploring a new model of technological transfer because there is a non governmental organization that cooperates with a university of Sri Lanka and they are going to receive the technology to build an anti-venom production plant there (See post on Hypnale Hypnale for complete overview). So, the venom that we are developing for Sri Lanka, will not be produced by us but we are going to transfer the technology for that. In this case, they are covering all the financial cost of the development. As it is a non-profit organization and a university, we do not have any intention to profit but we consider it as an extension outside Costa Rica of our social activity.  

Dr. Alberto Alape Jirón at the Proteomics lab. 

P: Alberto, in Latin America, how many anti-venom production centers do exist?

Dr.AAJ: Well, the main centre is the Butantan Institute in Brazil, other countries... in South America and Mexico, they also have public laboratories that manufacture the anti-venom but on most of the cases, the production is not enough to cover all the needs even on their own country, the local needs, then… there is a private company in Mexico, another private company in Colombia and another private company in Argentina… but in general, we a living a problem of shortage of anti-venom, that it is not that marked in Latin America as it is in  Africa, were this is a major problem. This pathology, the snakebite envenomation, has been declared by the World Health Organization as a Neglected disease, type 3, precisely because the big trans-national pharmaceutical companies are not interested. This is something that affects poor people from poor countries so… many private companies that two decades ago were producing the anti-venom just retired from the market leaving without any supply... in Africa there are hundreds of thousands of people that cannot be attended because there is no anti-venom.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/09/07/Snake-bite-crisis-Sanofi-Pasteur-to-stop-producing-anti-venom/4711441655970/

Banywich Bone, a teenager from South Sudan, had to have his leg amputated following an infection from a snakebite. Photo by Pierre-Yves Bernard/Doctors Without Borders

P: Because commercially this is not… attractive

Dr.AAJ: Exactly, this is of no interest for them.

P: We have only one and a half minutes to finish and I would like you to talk about the donation you received, very relevant documents, of uniqueness historical value: The Doctorate title Honoris Causa of Don Clodomiro Picado as well as other documents… please tell us what did you received.

Dr.AAJ: We received the original titles that Dr. Clodomiro Picado received in France, the Honoris Cause title that he received from the University of Costa Rica. The donor is Dr. Carlos Roberto Páez, a relative of Dr. Clodomiro Picado’s wife. He had the generosity to donate those highly valuable documents, some of them are more than one century old. The documents were treated and preserved with the aim to be exhibited at the “Instituto”. We are very happy because this donation is coincidental with the 45th Anniversary. It was a nice anniversary gift.  

P: Those historical documents are… can be visited by any person for example listening to us in this moment?

Dr. Clodomiro on the Graduation day at the
Sorbonne University. Paris. 1913

Dr.AAJ: Sure! The documents are in the Auditorium of the “Instituto” and every person willing to see them is welcomed. The “Instituto” is an Open Door institution for general public and we are always ready and always helping people interested on the topic like students…

P: Even there are some extraordinary paintings like Clodomiro holding a “terciopelo” snake…

Dr.AAJ: Yes, another donation was an oil painted fresco of Cloromiro Picado, from 1954 that was restored and is on exhibition too.

P: Thank you very much Alberto I wish you all many congratulations for this 45^th anniversary of Clodomiro Picado and much more achievements!

Interesting links:
Link to the Instituto Clodomiro Picado website
http://www.icp.ucr.ac.cr

A blog about the Instituto (in Spanish)
https://plus.google.com/106487061985305087179

ॐ लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ॥

Om Lokah Samasthah Sukhino Bhavantu

May all beings everywhere be happy and peaceful.