A group of young Mexicans won different medals at the Ibero-American Biology Olympiad (OIAB) that took place last September 13th in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
The Mexican team, selected from the National Biology Olympiad (ONB) , which is coordinated and organized by the Mexican Academy of Sciences (AMC), won a gold medal, with the highest score in the competition, a silver medal, and two bronze medals.
“I started to have contact with biology since I was in middle school; I started little by little and won a bronze medal in my first national competition. I kept studying and reading and I finally won gold in the 2018 ONB , with which I was selected to represent the country,” said Adrián Guadalupe Rodríguez Villareal , winner of the gold medal, in a release issued by AMC .
Adrián, who is studying to become a Bacteriological Parasitological Chemist in the Autonomous University of Nuevo León , feels proud of being part of the team that represented Mexico; he is very interested in cell biology and is convinced of focusing on research “thanks to the Olympiad.”
He liked the practical test the most: “In one of the labs they gave us pieces of paper that symbolized lizards; in each of the sheets there were images of insects, that represented their diet. With that information, we had to calculate the frequency with which lizards feed, if species fought for food, etc.”
For his part, Leonardo Uriel González García, who won a silver medal, shared that the competition was a great experience and said that “what I liked the most of this Olympiad were the tests, because they make you think like a scientist, that is, to develop critical thinking and to analyze problems .”
The young student, already enrolled in Genomic Biotechnology at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León sends a message to other youths to participate in this kind of competitions promoted by the AMC “because everyone can; with discipline and effort and love for science , great things can be achieved for this country.”
In a release, the AMC pointed out that the other two bronze medals were for Samuel Ruiz Pérez (State of Mexico) and Eduardo René Jiménez Castañeda (Jalisco), who competed with students from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Perú, and Portugal.
mp