The IIS Aragón, present at the European researchers' night

Several researchers from the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) participated on Friday, September 24, in the European Researchers' Night, which aims to show the most human side of science and bring the figure of researchers closer to citizens so that they know their work and the benefits it brings to society, as well as encourage the choice of a scientific career among students. The organization of the event, which this year had sustainability and the environment as its guiding theme, was carried out by the University of Zaragoza, with the collaboration of different institutes and research centers.

In the talk session, IIS Aragón researcher Marta Baselga addressed 'The environmental impact in times of pandemic: masks and air quality control'. The presentation discussed the environmental impact of single-use plastic, linking it to the IIS Aragón research on the manufacture of masks using plastic bottles. She also spoke about the importance of the air we breathe, linking it both to environmental pollution and the presence of COVID-19 aerosols in closed spaces.

In the experiment area, IIS Aragón was represented with two activities. On the one hand, Ruth González Gómez and Rocío Bayona Ramón y Cajal taught the DNA workshop "Identifying biological contaminating agents." The doctoral students explained that water contamination is a very worrying issue and that there are many types of contamination, such as chemical contamination with some metal or biological contamination, which occurs by microorganisms or bacteria. These living beings that contaminate water have genetic material (DNA) that can be detected by a method that has become well known thanks to the pandemic, PCR. In order to analyze this material, it must first be extracted from the water and isolated. So, since contaminated water can be dangerous to health, in the workshop they showed how to isolate that DNA from strawberries in the same way they do it in the laboratory.

Likewise, Sofía del Río explained how a mask works against COVID-19 and against bacteria, explaining why one mask filters more than another, what it depends on and what types of fabric there are. During the workshop, different fabric patterns were recreated (corresponding to the different masks that can be found on the market and the retention capacity of each of them was checked, using small objects to simulate the virus and other larger ones to recreate bacteria. This helped explain the physical mechanisms involved in filtration and how each type of mask (mesh, hygienic, surgical, cloth and FFP2) responds to them.