Havana, Cuba.- People aging and the new medicines to face it are among the priorities of the Cuban National Program of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, which boosts this scientific branches to develop the country, an expert explained today in this capital.

Luis Felipe Desdin, researcher for the Center for Technology Application and Nuclear development, told the news agency Prensa Latina that the program, presented in December, aimed at facing the country’s most important social and economic challenges.

Those challenges include assistance to the elderly, faced with the fact that diseases in the third age need more advanced medicines, but new methods are also necessary in the country to treat recycled water, purification and to be able to desalinate it, he said.

We need to add value to the products of the biotechnology industry, extend patents, which should be more effective, and also develop catalysts for the crude oil industry, Desdin said.

The researcher, who is participating in the Conference of Science, Technology and Innovation, in session in this capital until Friday, said the program had the objective to find solutions, by means of nanotechnology, in areas as construction and agriculture.

For Desdin, the main challenge of implementing this program, which is included in the country’s Economic and Social Development Plan for 2030, was coordinate actions and unite the scientific community for more interaction among institutions and to train more human resources.