Cuban researcher Vicente Vérez receives Honoris Causa degree from the University of Havana

November 11, 2021

Dr. Vicente Vérez received this Thursday the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Chemical Sciences from the University of Havana, a distinction that exalts his work dedicated to vaccine development.

"I have always been called a dreamer, but all those dreams I had when I graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Lomonosov Institute in Moscow, Russia, have been fulfilled and having the Soberana vaccine line against COVID-19 and all the other immunogens produced in our country is proof of that," said the director of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines.

"It is the first official degree I have received from the University of Havana. My relationship with UH is unusual: I did not graduate as an engineer in its halls, nor did I do my doctorate, but I am bound to it by close ties of love. Here I built most of my dreams," he highlighted.

It was within its facilities where I researched a lot and realized that I love teaching, he noted.

"I have a connection of more than 30 years with the University and having its Honoris Causa in Chemical Sciences is something emotional and extraordinary," added the principal author of Cuba's synthetic antigen vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b.

Vérez acknowledged that his long career as an outstanding national and international scientist is not the result of work alone, but of a group of researchers whom, he said, "I have managed to fall in love with."

Vérez emphasized that reaching what he is today has been the result of the work of the Cuban Revolution, guided by Fidel Castro.

"It has been this tremendous work that led the country to have its own vaccines and decide when, how and to whom to administer them. Other nations had to ask for permission or borrow, but the three pillars of education, health and science drove us forward. The Revolution brought us to this point, and there is no other alternative," he added.