In our country, to attend to patients with different needs, it is necessary to collect 600,000 units of blood per year. According to the Ministry of Health, so far in 2023, only 136,399 units have been collected.

In this context, and with the aim of encouraging voluntary blood donation and the collaboration of research projects, the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) has signed an inter-institutional agreement with the ONG “Corazon que late, necesita donante”, which will allow students and researchers to make contributions on issues related to cancer and blood.

“Corazón que late needs a donor” is a non-profit organization that since 2015 develops actions for the benefit of babies, children and adolescents with cancer diagnoses, burns, operations due to accidents or organ transplants in Peru.

The signed agreement contemplates UTEC as a strategic ally in raising awareness of blood donation, so the university undertakes to encourage volunteer actions around this problem, as part of the professional training of its students.

“It is very pleasing for us to sign this agreement, as it will allow us to have a positive impact on the lives of many patients. We are sure of the positive results that this synergy of efforts will bring and that this new agreement will mean in time a great work to promote awareness and research on blood donation,” said Sonia Rodriguez, president of the NGO.

For his part, Dr. Julio Valdivia, director of the Department of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering of UTEC, commented that “the donation of blood is one of the most important acts of empathy of the human being and that our university is involved not only promoting donation, but generating solutions to this problem allows us to grow integrally in its formation”. He also highlighted the solutions that students could provide; among them is the development of new devices that facilitate the donation, review and optimization of supply and transport chains, implementation of systems for rapid diagnosis of infected blood in situ, detection of anemia problems or other non-infectious diseases, etc.

At UTEC, we conceive of university social responsibility as an opportunity to achieve institutional coherence and integration between our purpose and everyday practice in our classrooms and laboratories.

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