Violeta Fernández Santana

Violeta is an author of one of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba Awards in 2004 and the "Sofia Kovalievskaia" Prize of 2005, for her work: Development of a conjugated vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b, from a synthetic antigen.

Violeta graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Havana in 1982 with excellent academic performance. Once graduated, she began her specialization in Carbohydrate Chemistry, initially as a researcher at INOR and two years later joined the group of colleagues who founded the Laboratory of Synthetic Antigens of the Faculty of Chemistry, to which she dedicated an important part of her scientific life. There she began as a synthetic chemist, standing out for her work in obtaining antigens from the blood groups of the Lewis system, spacers for them and conjugation procedures to proteins that constituted her doctoral thesis. She founded and directed the glycoconjugation laboratory of the Synthetic Antigens center, standing out for her decisive work on the vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b from a synthetic antigen, which she always classified as one of her 3 children. Because of it, she did not hesitate to broaden her scientific horizons by taking on tasks in difficult and unknown fields for her until then, such as analytical chemistry, biochemistry, technology, and quality systems. She began by developing and perfecting the conjugation procedure, turned it into technology and transferred it to the production plant.

She developed the entire analytical system with a new conception for our country, taking into account the complex nature of the molecule and its production system. It should be mentioned that the most complex analytical procedures she had to perfect at the NIBSC in Great Britain.

She also conceived the entire quality system for the antigen and the vaccine. There was no task requested of her for this vaccine that she did not undertake and overcome, whether it was to her professional liking or not, establishing herself as an example of a scientist committed to her time, her revolution and her country. From the most eminent scientist to the humblest worker among the hundreds who participated in that epic unanimously learned to admire and love her.

She received numerous awards from: the University of Havana, the City of Havana, the Academy of Sciences, the MES, the CITMA and the Sofia Kovalievskaia prize from the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. Worthy of separate mention is the 2005 award from the "Tech Museum" of San Jose, California in the Health category, for the invention that according to the organizers would most benefit Humanity. In the group of 5 authors who would receive this prestigious award on behalf of the entire collective, she was unanimously selected as the second. She was also in the article in the journal Science, published in 2004 despite all the embargoes and blockades. Here again we find a faithful exponent of the virtues that accompanied her throughout her life. She stripped herself of any trace of selfishness or individualistic vanity and with the same spirit as Engels put her brilliant and intelligent mind to work for the vaccine as a collective achievement without asking anything in return. Thus she became the most indispensable. For her principles she was a fervent promoter of maintaining the same spirit with which we fought to achieve the vaccine and donated the $50,000 USD from the prize to the purchase of medicines for the country. When the Center of Synthetic Antigens was created in 2001, she became its deputy general director, a position she held until the creation of the Center for Biomolecular Chemistry in 2008 when she became its vice director of research until the time of her death. In recent years she dedicated all her energies, as she always did, to the new center, to its organization and within this special attention to the project of the Cuban vaccine against pneumococcus, with the great modesty that always characterized her and her spirit of collectivism, paying great attention and dedication to the training of young people and as in each of her actions squandering infinite love for children, for others and for life. Upon her death, not only was