CIB Microscopy Coordinator spoke about the role of equipment centers during the pandemic
08-27-2021
Dr. Ramón Ramírez is one of the founders of the Society of Specialists in Scientific Equipment (SEECA), which brings together professionals and specialists in the area belonging to different Chilean universities and which this month held the II Annual Meeting of Facility Managers, where the agreed, among other points, to prepare a database of all existing equipment in the country.
The coordinator of the Microscopy Hub of the Center for integrative biology of the Mayor University, Dr. Ramón Ramírez, was one of the speakers at the II Annual Meeting of Facility Managers, organized by the Society of Specialists in Scientific Equipment (SEECA), which brings together professionals and specialists in the area from different Chilean universities.
The academic, who is also one of the founders of the group formed in 2019 together with Jorge Toledo (Universidad de Chile), Miriam Barros (Universidad Andrés Bello), Nicole Salgado (P. Universidad Católica) and Ximena Verges (Universidad Austral), conducted the talk "Falicities in the Covid era", where he addressed the different strategies that the center and other study houses took to continue with their work and productivity in times of pandemic
For example, the main changes in the protocols were addressed and how they were addressed to maintain productivity in the services and the strategies to continue with the training in the equipment and administration so that all users had access to the service. In this sense, the participants agreed on the importance of forming networks and having communication between the different centers, since all the strategies that were used to face the pandemic could have been facilitated with joint and collaborative work
“For me, as a professional in the area of microscopy, it is of great importance to unify efforts to achieve a common benefit at national level, achieving a coordinated advance in the use of new technologies. The highest percentage of scientific publications at the national level focuses on works carried out by microscopy and it is vitally important for researchers to know the wide range of equipment and professionals existing in the country. In addition, generating these instances of conversation between the different facilities and microscopy centers serves to professionalize the field and create unified operating bases based on the experiences of the different centers, ”said Dr. Ramírez
For Dr. Alenka Lovy, academic coordinator of the HUB, “it was a pleasure to participate in the second meeting of SEECA. It was inspiring to see that highly trained professionals from various facilities across the country are building networks, sharing knowledge, and finding ways to develop their careers within the academy of sciences. I think it is important that these valuable positions have the support of institutions and the scientific community, and that they are more fully embedded and integrated within the academy. As a result, facility managers will be able to more easily participate in the advancement of science."
More than 40 centers belonging to institutions such as the Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Concepción, Universidad Católica, Universidad Austral, Andrés Bello, among others, participated in the meeting, as well as sponsoring companies such as Microxchile, Micromundo, PerkinElmer, Hlatam, Galenica, Urslab and Sax. In addition, prominent professionals in the area such as Peter O’Toole from the University of York, UK and Andrés López from ANID spoke.
At the end, the participants agreed to prepare a database of all the teams and specialists in the country, a legal framework and a coordinated organization of all the centers, among other points.
