Marcelino Maneiro: «We try to copy what is in nature»

Does our society value the importance of scientific research in its development? Or is there still a long way to go? On the occasion of Scientific Researcher's Day, a date that seeks to highlight the role played by researchers in the progress of humanity, we had the pleasure of talking to Marcelino Maneiro, an established researcher who began his career in the '90s and contributed to the evolution of research in our country.

Currently, Marcelino Maneiro is a full professor of Inorganic Chemistry, a professor at the Faculty of Sciences and the Polytechnic School (EPS) of Campus Terra, and head of the research group Bioinorganic and Supramolecular Chemistry (SUPRABIOIN).

His extensive background gives him valuable insight into the current state of scientific research and the relevance of increasing funding to retain grey mass and facilitate collaboration between the university and the business community.

Throughout the conversation, Maneiro, a sports and travel enthusiast, stresses the vital importance of basic research, defends the need to bring chemistry closer to the new generations through dissemination, and tells us the keys to pioneering research being carried out at SUPRABIOIN: the development of catalysts that have a protective effect against oxidative action and that could be used at a medicinal and pharmaceutical level, but also in the industrial field, in the food sector or the fight against the climate crisis.

In addition, Marcelino Maneiro reminds us that through science, not only can the world be changed, but it is also possible to travel the world thanks to research stays and congresses where scientific passion and the desire to know new places go hand in hand. 

-Today is the Day of the Scientific Researcher. Do you think that society is aware of the relevance of this figure, or do we need to vindicate it to understand that without scientists, we are far from progress?

-Society is increasingly aware of the importance of science, especially since the pandemic. Even so, the importance of research and science as pillars of society's development must be sufficiently valued. Moreover, this development is pivoting around the scientific advances currently taking place.

In fact, at the Galician level, young scientists with excellent training are being expelled and migrating to other countries where they are very well-received. This migration of grey matter occurs because our young scientists are not given the ideal working conditions or sufficient means. That is why our society does not value research and science as it should.

-Transfer vs. basic research. Those far from the academic and scientific universe often witness a dichotomy between these two lines of work. Have you noticed this dichotomy?

-As its name suggests, basic research is the basis of everything. There can only be applied research with intense basic research. We are working on a more theoretical aspect when discussing basic research, but this is different. The Internet, for example, was the result of basic research.
Basic research sometimes directly produces tools and products. At other times, with it, it is possible to develop applied research and transfer it to society.

In the SUPRABIOIN research group, we work in chemistry and carry out basic research. However, the products we synthesize, characterize and study their properties can then be transferred and applied to society.

Why? Researchers select these compounds, and we know how they behave- how they respond to different stimuli. This allows us to understand how they can be applied.

-Beyond this debate, the relationship between researchers and the business world needs to be improved to enhance the value of their capabilities and those of others. Are the proper channels and mechanisms being created in Spain to connect these two worlds?

-We are moving in the right direction. However, we still need to catch up to other countries where both universities and companies know that they complement each other and that the progress of many companies is based on the knowledge generated by universities and education.

Here, the collaboration mechanisms between companies and universities could be better suited. The responsibility is mutual. There is a need for more pedagogy between the two and for forums in which more universities and companies coincide. The institutions are trying to provide these tools, but the changes are not rapid. There is inertia in the way of working, from one side and from the other, that must be changed.

It is also true that countries with adequate collaboration have very powerful university transfer departments. We must bear in mind that on many occasions, projects go ahead because economic and human resources are invested in them. Therefore, there must be a commitment to set up more powerful transfer departments than the existing ones, which can channel all the fields of knowledge and research, for example, in Campus Terra: chemistry, computer science, and biology... To this, it must be added that there are automatic mechanisms for collaboration between universities and companies in many countries.

Budget limitations are imposed regardless of the desire and interest in promoting this collaboration. There are countries around us that invest more than 3% of GDP in research; in Spain, we do not reach 1.5%, and in Galicia, we are around 1%.

-You work with catalysts that have the potential to become antioxidants. How is this research carried out? What is the pathway of these compounds for human health? And for food?

-We try to copy what is natural. Our body has antioxidant enzymes that can control the excess of oxidants generated naturally during the respiratory process or by external causes, such as the response when we suffer radiation, a concussion or environmental pollution.

We copied these enzymes and developed catalysts that mimic their function by synthesis in the laboratory. This essential research work found that they protect against external oxidative action. These compounds act as catalysts in redox chemistry (oxidation/reduction of electrons), so in addition to having the potential to control oxidative stress and be used in the pharmacological field, they can also develop another catalysis beyond this field.

One of the projects funded by Campus Terra, on which we worked multidisciplinaryly with researchers from other areas, involved studying how to include these compounds in a polymer manufactured by algae, alginate, which also has a natural origin. The idea was to make packaging that contains these antioxidant compounds and prolongs the shelf life of the food. This would be another level of possible transfer of these compounds.

In addition, we discovered that these new materials containing our compounds could be more rigid and used as packaging. Still, with another approach, they can have a more gel-like appearance so that they could be converted into wound dressings since the compounds' antioxidant activity would favour healing.

This discovery shows us that when looking for a certain applicability of a basic research compound, we can find new applications that we did not expect, and that can be very interesting. To achieve this, you have to work hard, keep your radar open, and know how to interpret a result correctly.
In this sense, I am fortunate to work in what I like, which pushes me to be more interested in learning. Research scientists have a very rewarding job.

-Can the compounds you have developed also be applied in the industrial field?

-Yes. In fact, some companies have already contacted us to show their interest in developing these compounds, not only in the pharmacological field.  

This is possible because our research group does redox chemistry (reduction-oxidation), which means that the compounds can be applied in the pharmacological, food, industrial, and energy fields. Some of the compounds we synthesized can catalyze the production of hydrogen through the reduction of protons.

-Can some of the compounds you are working with be used to reduce carbon dioxide levels? To what extent could they be a pillar in tackling the climate crisis?

-The redox processes encompass everything that is electron exchange. So, some of the compounds we develop can catalyze the oxidation of CO2 to carbonate or get CO2 to bind to an organic compound to oxidize it and get a carboxylic acid from this organic compound.

There are several ways to use CO2 as a reactant in a reaction. We are looking to optimize that reaction and see if it is possible to capture CO2 and reduce its emission. This is important because we are talking about a pollutant, one of today's significant challenges.

The society we live in has consumed considerable energy since the Industrial Revolution. The current CO2 levels are the highest in the last 400,000 years, significantly influencing climate change.

-In your career, you have spent time in different institutions and research groups in several countries. How do you value this experience? Do you have any specific lessons to take away from it?

-It was very enriching, both from an academic and educational point of view and on a personal level. Twenty or thirty years ago, when I made my first stay, several countries had much more resources than we do, so I could use tools and means I did not have at my disposal here. Fortunately, today, there is no longer that distance, although they still have more economic resources.

When I was in the United States, I had the opportunity to work with scientific researchers from many countries: Japanese, Russians, Turks, Dutch, and so on. This allowed me to meet people from other cultures.

One of the things that impressed me the most was how strict the security measures were in the laboratory. This contrasted with the situation here, where some laboratories still had wooden floors and no fume hoods to remove the vapours that arise in the reactions. In these years, we have also made a lot of progress in this area.

-What is the Funil Project, an open online chemistry course that you launched?

-Through Project Funil, we recorded videos of laboratory practices to show how they are developed because if we study the evolution of the history of chemistry, we can see that its evolution was all based on experimentation.

For generations, chemists have learned experimentally, which contrasts with our educational system, where we have many more theoretical classes and chemical reactions are learned theoretically.

What we were looking for with this course was to show how chemistry can be taught and learned in the laboratory. After all, it is much easier and more stimulating to understand a reaction if you can see a change take place (e.g., the colour of a component changes, and smoke arises) than if you see it written on the blackboard.

We are very satisfied with the results obtained. The videos had a fantastic reception and exceeded 400,000 visits, of which a good part comes from other countries such as Mexico or Brazil, although they are in Galician.

In addition, we have the website of our research group, CienciaNOSA, where there is a series of activities on the history of science. We also presented our research at the congresses organized by Science Teachers of Galicia (ENCIGA), where hundreds of high school teachers were present.

-In your curriculum, we find another even more curious project, which leads us to ask you the following question: Does IES Lucus Augusti have the oldest periodic table in Galicia?

-Probably yes. Years ago, our group made a catalog of the laboratory material that existed in the oldest Galician high schools. Although Lucus Augusti has several locations, it is the oldest institute in Galicia, having been around for more than 150 years. As a result, it has a series of historical materials, among which is a periodic table that is the oldest in Galicia among those known today.

How do we know this? Although the year it was made does not appear, we can catalogue it by the chemical elements that occur and those that still need to be shown because they have yet to be discovered. It is a piece of interest that can be seen in the science museum that the institute has and that I encourage people to visit.