Health

Latin American Scientists Teach Each Other Via Sustainable Sciences Institute

Tuberculosis students at Paraguay Workshop (from left to right): back row, Vicente Martínez, Norma Candia, Ciro Mendoza; front row, Fernando Valle (instructor).

"It is only now…that I will be able to put into practice what I learned in my training in Germany."

Departing from the expected norm is what Sustainable Science Institute's work is all about. Often, when it comes to medical or scientific knowledge, North American trainers are the only ones using their technical skills to train scientists in developing countries. Not so for SSI.

An example was a recent workshop in Asuncion, Paraguay that trained scientists in molecular biology techniques. They were studying tuberculosis, dengue fever and leishmaniasis - common infectious diseases all over Latin America.

But instead of only U.S. scientists doing the teaching, co-instructors hailed from Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. The 24 Paraguayan researchers exchanged ideas and information with their Latin American colleagues. Participants emerged from the workshop prepared to continue their work on their own.

One workshop participant, Maria Elisa Vero, explained the importance of bringing scientific knowledge to make it work on a grassroots level: "I was trained abroad, and it is only now that SSI helped adapt the technology to our laboratory conditions, that I will be able to put into practice what I learned in my training in Germany."

The Paraguay workshop was but one in a series of collaborations and projects planned among scientists from Paraguay, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua and the USA. Future topics will include hepatitis C, dengue fever, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.

For more information, contact Tina Knight, of the Sustainable Sciences Institute, at (415) 348-8939 or tmknight@ssilink.org.