Team:USP UNIFESP-Brazil/HP/Silver
AlgAranha Team USP_UNIFESP-Brazil
In order to fulfill the requirements for the human practices silver medal, our team explored a huge issue : hardware accessibility in the developing world!
All the restrictions that we and other motivated research groups face such as:
- Restrictions due to outdated bureaucracy and hierarchy
- Economic/funding limitations
- Dealing with closed equipment
- Being free, with autonomy, to create and improve hardware
Brazil is a beautiful country presenting a great biodiversity and a rich culture, which is full of dialects, different fruits and flavors. However, it still faces some problems, as technological dependence, which is related to low research funds. The Nature Journal released the following report on September 30th, 2015: “Brazilian science paralysed by economic slump”. This reports highlights the scarce economic funds and its consequence, as unpaid electricity bills and a delayed participation in a microscope project (GIBNEY, 2016). Another report from the brazilian Journal “O Globo”, released on August 1st, 2016 is entitled: “Capes has 3,000 post-graduation scholarships suspended in Brazil” (MARIZ, 2016). Capes in one of the main brazilian funding agencies, so this cut in research budget directly affects the technological innovation. Still, it is uncommon for the funding agencies to give grants to students that are not formally connected to a research group and there is a lack of official programs for sponsoring competition-oriented groups.
According the brazilian Journal “Exame”, Brazil has the highest tax burden in Latin America (NAKAGAWA, 2016). Brazil has more than eighty-five taxes (HIGGINS; PEREIRA, 2014), and depending on the product, the federal and state taxes may increase in 100% the importing cost (NES, 2012). This issue has direct impact on science and technology, as laboratories and a good quality research demands high standard devices and reagents that, many times, are not produced in Brazil due to the little expressivity of national suppliers. Moreover, everything needs to be ordered through bidding, which significantly increases the time taken for stuff to get to the lab.
Socially speaking, there is little involvement of brazilian society with science, generated in part by the huge gap existing between Academia and the public. This situation legitimates the wrong idea that the science done in the university is disconnected from elementary schools and real world problems.And, of course, inhibits innovation in multiple forms, including independent igem groups.In this way, customized devices built on a low cost basis represent a powerful tool to empower not just our own team but also the whole scientific and educational community.They are a shortcut for global access to tools essential for synthetic biology.
Brazil invests 1.3% of its GDP in research and development, while Israel and Finland invests, respectively, 4.2 % and 3.6 % of theirs GDP (CALEIRO, 2016). Jailson de Andrade, the secretary of Research and Development Policy and Programs of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication, said, during an interview, that Brazil needs to increase investment in science (LOURENÇO; QUEIROZ, 2016). This statement gives hope to the future of brazilian science.
How do we deal with brazilian’s science current difficulties?
Besides all the problems cited above, we still love science and we fight for our objectives! During the development of our project, we faced many obstacles, as broken devices and few options of laboratory equipment suppliers. These equipments could not be quickly repaired due to bureaucracy and/or the high values charged by the fixing companies. An example was the budget to fix the vaccum pump, what resulted to be the value of a new equipment. These issues led us to a discussion about closed and open hardwares / softwares.
The choice of closed hardwares / softwares have been traditionally adopted in many laboratories due to their reliability and quality. However, several small laboratories are not able to afford their price. As an alternative, there is the open hardware and software. These framework are based in information sharing, what makes it accessible to everybody that has internet connection, often becoming a good cost-benefit choice. Based in this concept, a centrifuge (named “Harry Potter”) was developed during our project using open hardware. This equipment cost less than 10% of any option we had available in the market, and also achieved the same capabilities.
What´s inside the “magic boxes”?
When we are in a laboratory we live surrounded by "magic boxes", so we only press a button and we have an action, as a cell optical density result, without having the knowledge of their technology. Thus, free hardwares facilitate the comprehension of an equipment, enabling us to customize it, as the “Harry Potter” centrifuge that we made and the device named “Cyclops”. We had some problems with these devices however, as they were made with an open hardware, it was easier to repair, mainly because all of the team members participated of its development.
This “learning by doing” experience gave us an insight about what is inside the “Black boxes” we deal with in the lab day by day. The closed devices purchased from companies come to us sealed and “untouchable”, leaving the user limited to the interface. Hacking these devices was empowering, since we became familiar to them to the point of even redesigning and building them up from scratch!So, now we have autonomy!
The iGEM project helped us to solve problems that we were not able. Today, we are much more confident, and we know we can contribute positively to brazilian science!
REFERENCES
- CALEIRO, J.P. 15 Countries that invest in research (Brazil in 36°). Exame, Sep. 13th, 2016. Available in:
- GIBNEY, E. Brazilian science paralysed by economic slump. Nature, 16-17, 2015. HIGGENS, S.; PEREIRA, C. The effects of Brazil’s taxation and social spending on the distribution of household income. Public Finance Review, 42 (3), p. 346-367, 2013.
- LOURENÇO, L.; QUEIROZ, A. Brazil needs to increase investment in science. Agência Brasil, 2016. Available in:
- MARIZ, R. Capes has 3,000 post-graduation scholarships suspended. O Globo, 2016. Available in:
- NAKAGAWA,F. Brazil has the highest tax burden in Latin America. Exame, Mar. 16h, 2016. Available in:
- NES, C.F. Importing to Brazil. The Brazil business, Sep. 10th, 2012. Available in:
