Andrés Otálora

• Bachelor of Science
• University of Valle

Yam, inhame, or ñame, is one of the food crops with the greatest relevance for the population of different developing countries in Africa, Asia, America, and the Caribbean. Specifically, this crop includes several species of Dioscorea genus, which have been recently studied from a metabolic point of view to deal in depth with an understudied and un...

Sweet potato is one of the root crops with economic and nutritional relevance in poor regions of many developing countries in Asia, Africa, America, and the Caribbean. This crop contributes to the food security of these regions and is widely used in food preparations and pharmaceutical recipes, competing with other important root crops, such as cas...

Sweet potato cultivation is one of the most important root crops in many tropical and subtropical countries. The high energy and nutritional content of sweet potato roots and leaves, their adaptive developmental properties, and low input requirements have facilitated their extensive production in Asia, Africa, and America. This productive developme...

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is a crop that has acquired great relevance as a food and source of inputs for the population of different developing countries due to its adaptability to different edaphoclimatic conditions, the content of starch and other nutrients in its tuberous roots, in addition to its nutritional content. Likewise, the presence of differ...

Anacardium occidentale, commonly known as cashew, is a plant widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions due to the increasing demand for the consumption of its fruits. The cashew has had an increasing productive development since the end of the last century, reporting in 2018 a world production of almost 6 million tons of cashew nuts, wi...

The productive development and commercialization of cashew (Anacardium occidentale) have increased considerably in recent years, producing 5.9 million tons of cashew nuts and importing 2 million tons in 2018, worldwide. That growth is associated with different factors, such as the adaptive and growth properties of cashew plants, the generation of i...

Manihot esculenta, commonly known as cassava, manioc, or yuca, is one of the largest crops around the world, mainly in tropical and subtropical areas. Its important adaptive characteristics and low requirements for its growth, in addition to its nutritional value, have allowed the growth of its productive and economic development since the middle o...

The production and importance of cassava as a staple food crop has increased since the end of the last century, not only from its nutritional point of view but also associated with the generation of employment and inputs in agricultural communities, mainly in developing countries. In this review, different aspects associated with its crop, producti...

Cassava, or more specifically Manihot esculenta Crantz, is one of the largest staple food crops in the world. The participation of this crop in the human nutrition and economy of hundreds of countries in tropical and subtropical regions has increased its importance and research interest. Several studies focused on determining its metabolic profile...

Thiol- and disulfide-containing polymers are an important class of functional polymers, also included in the so-called “dynamic covalent polymers”, characterized by notable properties such as self-healing ability, redox response, high mucoadhesive nature, and relevant metal-ion complexation capability. Since the end of the last century, these polym...

The study and application of dynamic covalent chemistry have allowed the development of new multifunctional systems and materials, including three-dimensional polymer systems such as hydrogels (HGs). Dynamic covalent bonds (DCBs) inclusion in polymeric HGs provides various properties advantageous within the biomedical field, such as self-repair, st...

Fouling is the most important drawback in membrane-based separation processes due to its implications in terms of limited performance and energy/cost increments. Different approaches have been studied to deal with this problem, making surface modification of the membrane one of the most promising since it is simple, versatile, and efficient. Thus,...

In this work, a novel one-pot synthesis of polymeric hydrogels (HGs) based on isocyanate click chemistry is proposed and evaluated. In particular, the proposed synthetic route allows to easily and effectively obtain HGs with different types of carbonyl groups, such as urea, urethane, thiourethane, and amide groups, as an approach to impact and modu...

At present, the conservation of the environment and the production of food are aspects of great interest. Both aspects are pillars of sustainable development goals; although under current production systems, these methods are not compatible. This underlies the fact of the strong impact of industrial agricultural production on the environment. There...

Currently, human beings face different problematics associated with environmental pollution, including the continuous degradation of the quality of water and, in this sense, its availability to be used for many purposes. Various factors are responsible for water pollution; however, anthropogenic activity (industries, agriculture, domestic processes...

The understanding of progressive advances in the development of intelligent systems based on biocompatible, biodegradable, and renewable resources and their applications in important fields, such as medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and industrial, have increased attention in the use of cellulose for obtaining stimuli-responsive materials. Wit...

Nowadays, in the medicine, the design and obtaining of biocompatible and biodegradable materials, with specific functional and structural properties, are highly required. In this way, hydrogels have been suggested as potential materials meeting these requirements, therefore, new alternative of hydrogels with adaptable properties are desired for man...

The spectral overlap is a common problem in the study of mixtures by mid-infrared spectroscopy. This creates difficulties for the assignment of spectral signals and, therefore, the correct interpretation of the spectrum. Some common methods for the study of overlap show a high operational complexity, while others have relatively high analytical com...