Diseño de biocatalizadores de lipasas y su aplicación en bioprocesos

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Biología Molecular. Fecha de lectura: 29-10-2014The need for updating the existing processes, or finding new methods to meet environmental and legislation requirements, is an imminent task for all Chemical Industries. The path towards sustainability encourages the interest to find alternatives to traditional methods; this way, biocatalysis appears as a potential alternative to cope with the basis of a ‘greener’ chemistry. The use of enzymes as catalysts includes important advantages: mild operational conditions (temperature, pressure and pH), the possibility of shortening the steps of synthesis using high efficient, and selective transformations, as well as, obtaining safer and purer chiral products. Nevertheless, to call the attention of industrial transformations, enzymes must gather a set of improvements before their application. In this concern, in the last decades, a wide research in different enzimatical, biological and engineering fields, has been developed and definitely, contributed to the emergence of the first biotransformations in the Industry. Immobilization is a powerful tool that when carefully designed, could deal with some of the drawbacks of enzymes as biocatalists for industrial applications, and improve interesting properties; this tool is the simplest way for to reduce the cost of the enzymatic biocatalists, making them reusable; but it also may stabilize the enzyme or change its specificity. In this thesis, a group of lipases were immobilized in different hydrophobic supports. This is an easy-­‐to-­‐perform method that gathers immobilization and purification. The pool of immobilized lipases prepared, and other commercial available biocatalists, were studied and compared in terms of stability against several inactivating media and activity using different substrates. Two important biotransformations were also studied using these biocatalysts; esterifications, employed for the production of aroma and flavours under natural label, and transesterification, for the production of biodiesel. Albeit, results obtained showed some negative effects regarding thermal stability, thanks to this simple way for the immobilization of lipases, it could be possible to partition hydrophilic and deleterious substances away from the hydrophobic microenvironment of the immobilized enzyme. Thus, the immobilized lipases could be used in very heterogeneous media were several phases exist and even mechanical agitation is not capable to promote mass transfer through the different phases. Finally, the use of agitation under ultrasound technology was analyzed as an approach to improve mass transfer in esterification; results showed improvements especially in the reactions carried out by commercial biocatalysts immobilized in hydrophilic support

Proyecto de Intervención Asistida con Animales para personas con discapacidad intelectual en la Ciudad Residencial Sonsoles

En este proyecto se desarrolla el diseño de una intervención asistida con animales para personas con discapacidad intelectual en la Ciudad Residencial Sonsoles de Atades, como respuesta a necesidades previamente detectadas, para cubrir aspectos relativos a relaciones interpersonales, inclusión social y autoestima

Gamification as a tool for acquisition soft skills in the design field

Comunicació presentada a INTED2018, 12th International Technology, Education and Development Conference. (March 5-7 2018, Valencia, Spain).The current labour context is increasingly changing, driven by the continuous blooming of technological changes. So, the integration of recent graduates to the labour market, as new professionals, demand the acquisition of not only each field’s specific Hard Skills, but also generic, transversal Soft Skills which might facilitate the adaptation of these professionals to future contexts, while enabling them to develop their work career in a responsible way, as well as increasing their entrepreneurial spirit. These abilities are especially relevant in the field of design engineering, as the idiosyncrasy of the discipline leads their practitioners to offering solutions to diverse problems society and users have. So their professional development is inextricably linked to social changes and society evolution. In this way, in the “Sustainable Development Goal 4, Education 2030” (SDG4-Education 2030), regarding targets and commitments, the UNESCO defines the needs to emphasize the development of high-level cognitive and non-cognitive/transferable skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, communication skills or conflicts resolution, which can be applied across a wide range of occupational fields. Therefore, the acquisition of these Soft Skills by design professionals can ease their adaptation to a novel future scenario and guarantee a prolonged professional development over time. So, not only learners should be provided with opportunities to update their skills continuously through lifelong learning, but it is also necessary to give the chance for active professionals to adapt to new contexts in the future. This work presents an action proposal aimed to enhance the acquisition of Soft Skills by design professionals, in a playful way. So, a conceptual proposal of a methodology, based on the concept of Gamification, is suggested, where the degree of acquisition of some Soft Skills by the designer would be assessed. To do so, a platform where sharing and assessing evidences is to be developed. And the incentive for the participation of both new graduates and professionals lies in the detection of their professional weaknesses (from the evidences’ assessment) and the possibility of having a feedback consisting of professional recycling actions. The use of Smartphones becomes the vehicular platform for acquiring and assessing these transversal abilities, as these devices offer different technological possibilities for generating the designers’ own evidences, by means of actions such as voice recording, video recording, image capturing, text recognition, etc. Once generated, the evidences would be assessed by using a co-evaluation system, based on a peer review process, where the evaluation of colleagues’ work is presented as a part of a collaborative game and where the assessment process of peers’ work can contribute ideas for improving personal Soft Skills. Furthermore, all this may end up in the generation of a community with common interests. As a result, the suggested methodology can offer a useful tool for designers for continuously assessing the state of their Soft Skills, thus facilitating their progressive adaptation to the changes to their future professional contexts

Dermatitis atópica. Protocolo de actuación y derivación en la farmacia comunitaria

Entre un 2% y un 7 % de la población adulta padece dermatitis atópica. Uno de los aspectos más importantes para el tratamiento de esta enfermedad es su abordaje multidisciplinar. Con el objetivo de actualizar los conocimientos existentes sobre el tema, se realizó una revisión bibliográfica acerca de los diversos aspectos que estaban englobados en la dermatitis atópica, tanto en lo referente a su fisiopatología y tratamiento, como a la actuación por parte del farmacéutico en la farmacia comunitaria. Se llega a la conclusión que hace falta implementar un protocolo de actuación actualizado, para su manejo en Atención Farmacéutica. Se diseña para su uso en pacientes diagnosticados de dermatitis atópica o signos de padecer la enfermedad. Consta, de un algoritmo apoyado en un cuestionario para valorar si la lesión es atópica. Recoge recomendaciones para un correcto cuidado de la piel atópica, que por sus características, posee unas necesidades muy especiales. Estos consejos incluyen productos que son más recomendables para la hidratación de la piel y hábitos de higiene y alimentación. Se pretende con su uso, mejorar la atención que recibe el paciente

Study of the Influence of Sintering Atmosphere and Mechanical Activation on the Synthesis of Bulk Ti2AlN MAX Phase Obtained by Spark Plasma Sintering

The influence of the mechanical activation process and sintering atmosphere on the microstructure and mechanical properties of bulk Ti2AlN has been investigated. The mixture of Ti and AlN powders was prepared in a 1:2 molar ratio, and a part of this powder mixture was subjected to a mechanical activation process under an argon atmosphere for 10 h using agate jars and balls as milling media. Then, the sintering and production of the Ti2AlN MAX phase were carried out by Spark Plasma Sintering under 30 MPa with vacuum or nitrogen atmospheres and at 1200 °C for 10 min. The crystal structure and microstructure of consolidated samples were characterized by X-ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction patterns were fitted using the Rietveld refinement for phase quantification and determined their most critical microstructural parameters. It was determined that by using nitrogen as a sintering atmosphere, Ti4AlN3 MAX phase and TiN were increased at the expense of the Ti2AlN. In the samples prepared from the activated powders, secondary phases like Ti5Si3 and Al2O3 were formed. However, the higher densification level presented in the sample produced by using both nitrogen atmosphere and MAP powder mixture is remarkable. Moreover, the high-purity Ti2AlN zone of the MAX-1200 presented a hardness of 4.3 GPa, and the rest of the samples exhibited slightly smaller hardness values (4.1, 4.0, and 4.2 GPa, respectively) which are matched with the higher porosity observed on the SEM images.España, Universidad de Sevilla CITIUS under the grant PPIT-2021, project no. 2021/00000691España project funded by the Madrid region under program S2018/NMT-4381 MAT4.0-C

Prenatal exposure to persistent organic pollutants and anogenital distance in children at 18 months

Background: Anogenital distance (AGD) is a measure of in utero exposure to hormonally active agents. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between prenatal exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and AGD. Methods: POP levels were measured in pregnant women, and the AGD was recorded in 43 offspring at 18 months. We used linear regression models to analyze the association between maternal POP exposure and offspring AGD. We defined the anogenital index (AGI) as AGD divided by weight at 18 months (AGI = AGD / weight at 18 months [mm/kg]) and included this variable in the regression models. Results: AGI measure was 2.35 (0.61) and 1.38 (0.45) in males and females, respectively. AGI was inversely associated with lipid-adjusted concentrations of PBDE-99 (β = -0.28, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.51, -0.04) and PBDE-153 (β = -0.61, 95% CI: -1.11, -0.11) in males. We did not find any statistically significant relationship between any POPs and AGI in females. Conclusions: Environmental exposure to POPs may affect genital development and result in reproductive tract alterations with potentially relevant health consequences in maturity. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.This study was funded by grants from FIS-FEDER (PI04/2018, PI09/02311, and PI13/02429), Fundación Cajastur-Liberbank, and Universidad de Oviedo.Peer reviewe

Evaluation of styrene-divinylbenzene beads as a support to immobilize lipases

A commercial and very hydrophobic styrene-divinylbenzene matrix, MCI GEL® CHP20P, has been compared to octyl-Sepharose® beads as support to immobilize three different enzymes: lipases from Thermomyces lanuginosus (TLL) and from Rhizomucor miehie (RML) and Lecitase ® Ultra, a commercial artificial phospholipase. The immobilization mechanism on both supports was similar: interfacial activation of the enzymes versus the hydrophobic surface of the supports. Immobilization rate and loading capacity is much higher using MCI GEL® CHP20P compared to octyl-Sepharose® (87.2 mg protein/g of support using TLL, 310 mg/g using RML and 180 mg/g using Lecitase® Ultra). The thermal stability of all new preparations is much lower than that of the standard octyl-Sepharose® immobilized preparations, while the opposite occurs when the inactivations were performed in the presence of organic co-solvents. Regarding the hydrolytic activities, the results were strongly dependent on the substrate and pH of measurement. Octyl-Sepharose ® immobilized enzymes were more active versus p-NPB than the enzymes immobilized on MCI GEL® CHP20P, while RML became 700-fold less active versus methyl phenylacetate. Thus, the immobilization of a lipase on this matrix needs to be empirically evaluated, since it may present very positive effects in some cases while in other cases it may have very negative ones. © 2014 by the authors.We gratefully recognize the support from the Spanish Government, grant CTQ2009-07568 and CTQ2013-41507-R and CNPq (Brazil). The predoctoral fellowships for García-Galán (Spanish Government) and dos Santos (CNPq, Brazil) are also recognized. The authors wish to thank Ramiro Martínez (Novozymes, Spain) for kindly supplying the enzymes used in this research. The help and comments from Ángel Berenguer (Instituto de Materiales, Universidad de Alicante) are kindly acknowledged. We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)Peer Reviewe

Calificar individualmente trabajos grupales sobre la base del diálogo: ventajas e inconvenientes

Esta comunicación nace a raíz de la realización de un proyecto de innovación docente (PID). La principal inquietud de este grupo de docentes universitarios de diferentes disciplinas es cómo calificar los trabajos grupales de forma más justa en función del trabajo realizado por cada uno de los miembros. La presente comunicación tiene como Objetivo, desarrollar sistemas dialógicos de evaluación y calificación con el alumnado, permitiendo al alumnado formar parte activa del proceso se centra en el análisis cualitativo con el software Atlas-ti de tres grupos de discusión llevados a cabo con alumnado que ha formado parte del PID. Para ello e utilizó como instrumento de recogida de información los grupos de discusión. Como conclusiones podemos señalar la importancia de las relaciones interpersonales y su influencia a la hora de tomar decisiones, así como aspectos positivos y negativos de esta forma de calificación, y la importancia del diálogo a lo largo de todo el proceso

Prenatal Exposure to Cigarette Smoke and Anogenital Distance at 4 Years in the INMA-Asturias Cohort

Smoking by women is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as spontaneous abortion, preterm delivery, low birth weight, infertility, and prolonged time to pregnancy. Anogenital distance (AGD) is a sensitive biomarker of prenatal androgen and antiandrogen exposure. We investigated the effect of smoking and passive smoke exposure during pregnancy on anogenital distance in offspring at 4 years in the INMA-Asturias cohort (Spain). Women were interviewed during pregnancy to collect information on tobacco consumption, and anogenital distance was measured in 381 children: Anoscrotal distance in boys and anofourchetal distance in girls. We also measured maternal urinary cotinine levels at 32 weeks of pregnancy. We constructed linear regression models to analyze the association between prenatal smoke exposure and anogenital distance and adjusted the models by relevant covariates. Reported prenatal smoke exposure was associated with statistically significant increased anogenital index (AGI), both at week 12 of pregnancy (β = 0.31, 95% confidence interval: 0.00, 0.63) and at week 32 of pregnancy (β = 0.31, 95% confidence interval: 0.00, 0.63) in male children, suggesting altered androgenic signaling.Funding was provided by CIBERESP (PhD employment contract and fellowship for short stays abroad—2019), FIS-FEDER (grants PI04/2018, PI09/02311, PI13/02429, and PI18/00909), Obra Social Cajastur/Fundación Liberbank, and Universidad de Oviedo

Stereoselective Synthesis of Iminosugar 2-Deoxy(thio)glycosides from Bicyclic Iminoglycal Carbamates Promoted by Cerium(IV) Ammonium Nitrate and Cooperative Brønsted Acid-Type Organocatalysis

The first examples of iminosugar-type 2-deoxy(thio)glycoside mimetics are reported. The key step is the activation of a bicyclic iminoglycal carbamate to generate a highly reactive acyliminium cation. Cerium(IV) ammonium nitrate efficiently promoted the formation of 2-deoxy S-glycosides in the presence of thiols, probably by in situ generation of catalytic HNO3, with complete α-stereoselectivity. Cooperative phosphoric acid/Schreiner's thiourea organocatalysis proved better suited for generating 2-deoxy O-glycosides, significantly broadening the scope of the approach.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SAF201676083-RMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-097609-B-C21European Cooperation in Science and Technology CA18132Consejo Europeo de Investigación ERC-COG: 64823