National Autonomous University of Honduras

Honduras has historically faced major barriers to building a sustainable health research system, including minimal R&D investment and limited institutional infrastructure. A Canadian-funded initiative (2007-2012) established the first research-oriented MSc program, a non-clinical ethics board, and modern laboratories at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH).

This article examines how health research capacity evolved between 2013 and 2025, highlighting long-term outcomes, enablers, and barriers, and situating these within a regional Central American comparison. The narrative, largely anecdotal, reflects on the experience and impact of biomedical research at UNAH, particularly through the Instituto de Investigaciones en Microbiología (IIM).

Alumni trajectories and institutional transformations are illustrated with concrete examples. Bibliometric analysis contextualizes scientific output, complemented by broader indicators (GDP, R&D investment, tertiary education, PhDs per million) from World Bank sources.

More than 30 MSc graduates have strengthened biomedical and public health institutions, with several completing doctoral training abroad and returning to Honduras. Since its formal creation in 2014, the IIM has produced over 170 publications, representing more than 20% of UNAH's health-related output since 2012. Challenges to sustainability include chronic underinvestment (< 0.1% GDP in R&D), rigid bureaucracy, limited career pathways, and brain drain. Enablers have been international partnerships, the academic diaspora, and strong local leadership.

The Honduran case illustrates how targeted, multi-level investment in individuals, institutions, and governance can foster long-term research capacity in resource-constrained settings, while underscoring the need for national policies, career structures, private sector engagement, and sustained international collaboration.

Persistent HPV infection causes cervical cancer, but most infections are transient. Triage methods identify high-risk women needing further evaluation or treatment. We assessed short-term repeat HPV testing as an alternative triage option.

In ESTAMPA, women aged 30-64 years were screened with HPV testing (HC2 or Cobas) and cytology. Screen positives were referred to colposcopy approximately two months after screening, where cervical samples were collected again for repeat HPV testing. We evaluated the performance of repeat HPV for CIN3+ among HPV-positive women and explored its combination with limited HPV genotyping (HPV16/18).

Among 5390 HPV-positive women (including 629 CIN3 cases and 53 cancers), 61% retested positive at ~2 months (median: 1.8, interquartile range: 1.2-2.8). Repeat HPV sensitivity for CIN3+ was 81.5% (95% CI 77.2-85.2) for HC2 and 87.7% (83.7-90.8) for Cobas. Specificity was <50% with referral rates of 57.4% (55.7-59.0) and 68.2% (66.1-70.2) for HC2 and Cobas. HPV16/18 genotyping followed by repeat HPV among non-HPV16/18-positive women did not greatly improve performance. However, HPV16/18 positivity doubled the risk of CIN3+, supporting its combination with repeat HPV when available.

Short-term repeat HPV testing could be a practical option for triaging HPV-positive women, either alone or in combination with limited HPV genotyping.

ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01881659.

The primary goal of antiplatelet therapy is to inhibit platelet aggregation without increasing the risk of bleeding. Treatment resistance and recurrence of thrombotic events are common, underscoring the need to identify new molecules with antiplatelet activity. In this research, we synthesized and characterized spiro-hydroquinone derivatives substituted with various aliphatic chain lengths (1-9 carbons) and evaluated the effect of these modifications on platelet activation. The structure-activity relationship study revealed that increasing the aliphatic chain length did not enhance antiplatelet activity; instead, it increased cytotoxicity and negatively affected solubility. Notably, the shortest molecule, SD3A, inhibits mitochondrial function and acts selectively on collagen-mediated activation, resulting in reduced thrombus formation without affecting coagulation, thereby representing a low risk of bleeding in vitro. These results identify ortho-carbonylhydroquinone spiro derivatives, specifically SD3A, as a promising antiplatelet molecule, demonstrating an optimal combination of low cytotoxicity and pathway-selective activity against collagen.