Further developments in the 1980s led the Cuban scientific system to its maturity, allowing it to achieve striking results in various fields and to demonstrate its substantial autonomy. The physics sector was profoundly reorganized. Nuclear physics and technology acquired pre-eminence thanks to the decision to build a nuclear power plant provided by the Soviet Union. Other sectors were also reorganized, and surprising results were reached in the completely new field of superconductivity. But the most enduring results were achieved with the development of a self-reliant field of biotechnology, just as it was emerging worldwide, and without any aid whatsoever from the Soviet Union. As always, this initiative, strongly supported by Fidel Castro, was prompted by the emergent demands of the health system after the typical third world diseases had been practically eradicated. Interferon technology was learned and quickly reproduced and mastered in the early 1980s through contacts with American and Finnish specialists. Soon after, recombinant DNA technologies were independently developed. In the late 1980s a large industrial scientific complex was built which soon started producing and commercializing Cuban-made medicines and vaccines. © 2016, The Author(s).

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