See It: The Community being helped

Seeding Labs, a Boston based non-profit organization, reclaims and refurbishes laboratory equipment from universities, hospitals and biotechnology companies in order to equip talented scientists and clinicians living and working in the developing world.

Developing countries rarely invest even 1 percent of their GDPs toward building scientific infrastructure, driving an annual exodus of over 20,000 of their most talented professionals to other countries. A 1990 World Health Organization report documented that the diseases burdening 90 percent of the world’s population capture only 10 percent of global health research funding. Scientists in developing countries are perfectly positioned for and have a vested interest in studying and curing local diseases, but they are hampered by a critical lack of material infrastructure.

Seeding Labs creates a unique re-use strategy that encourages well-funded institutions in the developed world to donate their previously overlooked surplus of scientific equipment. It mobilizes young scientists from universities and biotech companies to collect and redistribute this equipment to their peers worldwide in a novel bottom-up approach to scientific capacity-building. By investing in overlooked, but highly qualified scientists in the developing world, Seeding Labs can help facilitate the development of new research communities. Ultimately, Seeding Labs aims to integrate these researchers in the developing nations into a global collaborative network of scientists, sharing knowledge and expertise across national boundaries, advancing global research, and training the next generation of scientists.

Seeding Labs, founded by graduate students at Harvard University in 2002, and as of this summer sponsored in part by Echoing Green, aims to help these scientists by donating surplus equipment and supplies. Every year, the 400 or so laboratories affiliated just with Harvard Medical School dispose of several hundred pieces of lab equipment still in good working order. Seeding Labs works with laboratory managers to identify and collect this equipment; our volunteers then inventory, clean, repair (if necessary), and ship these supplies to scientists in the developing world. By donating everything from microscopes to centrifuges, test tubes to plasticware, Seeding Labs enables these scientists to pursue their own research, and to use their limited budgets for other important laboratory costs (personnel, reagents, journal subscriptions).

There are many non-profits and foundations that aid scientists with grants and fellowships, or build new hospitals in developing countries. Seeding Labs is unique in providing the equipment of day-to-day research directly to scientists. We never send scientists what we think they need – we send them what they know they need. Over the past several years, we have been able to provide roughly $300,000 worth of lab equipment on a budget of roughly $8000. We have helped scientists and medical clinics in nine countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. This past spring, we sent off chemistry, biology and physics lab equipment for the teaching labs at the Congo Protestant University’s brand new medical school in Kinshasa.

Seeding Labs continues to expand at Harvard, and in greater Boston as well. Between the eight premier research universities and hundreds of biotech companies, we are in a hub of labs that can donate equipment. Our goal is to replicate our program at both public and private institutions in greater Boston, and ultimately beyond the Boston area.

Our recipients have produced real results with equipment that we have reclaimed and sent to them. One such recipient is Dr Ricardo Morbidoni. When he returned to Argentina from his post-doctoral fellowship in New York, he had a lab with tables and chairs (see included pictures). He sent us a list of his needs, and we were able to meet them with equipment collected from Harvard and MIT labs. Today his lab is well stocked (see included before/after pictures). He has received funding from American agencies to pursue his tuberculosis research, has collaborations with scientists in the US and France, is training students, and has publishable data.

We see our efforts for equipment redistribution as the first step in a larger process of capacity building. The transfer of equipment from developed to developing countries corrects the infrastructure imbalance. University and corporate donors save disposal costs and reusing equipment is an environmentally friendly alternative to simply discarding it. The scientists who receive our equipment are now more equal partners to start productive collaborations with scientists here. They also commit to recruit their colleagues abroad – we provide equipment, they provide training – and this leads to an ever-growing pool of scientists and collaborations. Everyone benefits from a stronger international research community.

To find our more information, please visit our website (www.seedinglabs.org).