Student Scene
Bridging the Scientific Resource Gap
There is a one-room laboratory at a university in Nicaragua that is one of only seven labs in the country with the capacity to do PCR. There is no formal curriculum in molecular biology, no masters or doctoral program, but the brightest students still compete to work in the lab.There is a hospital in El Salvador that receives a gift of a PCR machine old enough to have been one of the first ones built, back in the late '80s. Television, radio, and newspaper crews arrive to document its arrival.
There is a lab in Venezuela where the researchers are so dedicated they spend a year renovating a building that had been overtaken by the brush--installing new flooring and pipes by hand--so they can house the only cryo-electron microscope in Central and South America.
These labs are real, and the problems they face in trying to do scientific research are common in developing countries. Scientists in these countries, whether conducting HIV diagnostics or developing aquaculture transgenics, confront serious obstacles in obtaining equipment and reagents, current journals and other scientific publications, and most of all, training in current molecular biological techniques. At Harvard we have incomparable access to resources, from the latest expensive equipment, to reagents that arrive within 24 hours, to journal articles available at the click of a mouse. We might as well be living in another universe, and it would be easy to suppose that the gap between our research environment and that faced by our counterparts in developing countries is too great for us to bridge.
Members of the International Science and Health Network include (front, l to r) Jason Heindl, Nina Dudnik, Justin Yarrow, (and back, l to r) Matt Stremlau, and Karen Wepsic. (Photo by James Cha)
But a group of HMS/DMS students is actively working to address some of these problems. Last spring we founded the International Science and Health Network (ISHN) to find ways in which Harvard students can address the resource problems of scientists in developing countries.
What Can Students Do?
When we looked at the labs in which we worked, one thing became clear: we have an abundance of equipment, much of which goes unused or is discarded when newer machines are purchased. Our first project, beginning in November 2002 and culminating in March, was to collect unused equipment from HMS labs, clean and check it, and find new homes for it abroad. We collected more than 300 pounds of equipment, including vortexes, centrifuges, PCR machines, and smaller items like Eppendorf tubes and glass bottles. On one intense Saturday afternoon we scrubbed, tinkered, tested, and took photos to post on the Web.|
ISHN has already begun to find ways in which students can act as a bridge between resource-rich and resource-poor institutions. --Nina Dudnik |
At this point we were fortunate to have a connection to Dr. Eva Harris and her organization, the Sustainable Sciences Institute (SSI). SSI trains scientists and clinical staff in Central and South America in molecular diagnostic techniques and epidemiological methods, and adapts molecular protocols and equipment to be used in settings where there might be problems such as unreliable sources of water and electricity. We were contacted by two labs that had worked previously with SSI--one in Guatemala and one in Paraguay--and with help from SSI, we were able to ship our collected equipment to them. The scientist running the lab in Paraguay, who is working on curbing local epidemics of dengue virus, wrote us to say, "The equipment will be like a 'gift from heaven.'"
More Resources for Wider Audiences
The equipment recycling program has been very rewarding, but we want to reach more people. Our second focus, therefore, has been to develop a website with resources for both developing country scientists and students like ourselves. For local students, we are compiling lists of funding opportunities to conduct science abroad and local organizations and seminars addressing science, development, and human rights. We have included practical advice such as tips for writing and publishing papers.Other resources are aimed at helping scientists in developing countries, such as directions to free Web-based literature search engines. In the future the site will also feature methods for adapting established protocols for resource-poor settings and carrying out low-cost experiments. The latest feature of our website is a database of Harvard students' experiences doing science and medicine in developing countries. This database is interactive: students can find new contacts within the Harvard community who have had fellowships and jobs abroad and submit descriptions of their own work experiences.
Bridging the Gap
In a recent editorial in Science magazine (March 7, 2003), the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged scientists to address the imbalance between developed and developing countries in manpower and money allocated to research. This will require efforts at all levels, from government to private enterprise to nonprofit. But there is a place for student involvement in this endeavor as well, and ISHN has already begun to find ways in which students can act as a bridge between resource-rich and resource-poor institutions. By taking advantage of the resources we have at hand, we can help close the gap between the working conditions of scientists in developed and developing countries.For more information on ISHN, see www.scihealthnet.org.
--Nina Dudnik, a second-year genetics student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Harvard Medical School, its affiliated institutions, or Harvard University.