Mircens Help Bring First-Rate Science To The Third World

Microbiologist J.K. Arap Keter is betting that some recently collected strains of the bacterial genus Rhizobium will soon join the family of other nonpolluting, inexpensive, microbial biofertilizers currently in use by thousands of East African farmers on legume crops. But first he and colleagues in the department of soil science at the University of Nairobi in Kenya must show that the new isolates can foster different plants' growth by helping the plants use nitrogen. After that, they must culture large enough amounts of the microorganism for farmers to cheaply add the bacteria to different legume seeds and increase their yields. Farmlands in developing countries crave nutrients, but because farmers can neither afford the chemical fertilizers nor live with the pollution they create, they opt for biofertilizers like rhizobia. Meanwhile, at microbiologist P. Atthasampunna's lab at the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research in Bangkok, re- searchers are using microorganisms in an environmentally sound way to process the massive waste generated by the cassava, an important crop whose roots are used to make food starch. The scientists recently built a pilot plant to ferment the waste into fuel ethanol; the plant also treats the wastewater made in the process. What these microbiologists have in common is a scientific methodology that exploits microorganisms to inexpensively solve an agricultural or biotechnological problem in an underdeveloped or developing country. Their work has also been facilitated by the fact that they both belong to a MIRCEN, or microbiological resource center. MIRCENs are components of a global network involving some 200 scientists in 23 worldwide facilities dedicated to research and the training of investigators in the use of microorganisms for economic development and environmental management of the less industrialized regions of the world. To achieve these goals, MIRCENs in 19 countries (see map) act as centers for local and international collaboration between MIRCEN scientists and others in organizations with similar missions. MIRCEN researchers characterize and preserve microbes they and others have collected, and host training sessions. They also play a role in helping developing countries adapt to the sophisticated information and research technologies beginning to creep into their backyard. But the most significant objective of the MIRCEN program midway through its second decade of operation, is to stimulate more local scientists to take their results out of the lab and create industries for their communities. MIRCEN administrators hope to accomplish this technology transfer with foreign investment. Birth Of The Movement When the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environmental Program, and the International Cell Research Organization agreed to start the MIRCEN program in the late 1970s, they did so because scientists in these organizations saw the need to conserve and preserve the world's diminishing supply of microbiological germplasm. Along with flora and fauna, microbes were disappearing as natural habitats were being decimated by human population growth and industrialization. In 1984, six pilot MIRCENs were organized in Brazil, Egypt, Guatemala, Kenya, Senegal, and Thailand. Congress isn't the only group struggling to make up its mind on the merits of the space station, the most visible of the current megascience projects in the president's budget. The scientific community is having an equally difficult time achieving a consensus. This summer 14 scientific societies formed a coalition to persuade the Senate to trim its support for the space station and spread the money around to the rest of science. In a July 9 letter to each member, they warned that the station's hefty price tag--$2 billion next year and growing--might beggar other, more worthy, scientific projects. But that coalition turned out to be less cohesive than its leaders had hoped. Representatives from two of the three organizations that put together the first draft of that letter wound up not endorsing the final product, and other prominent groups never considered jumping on the bandwagon. "We are not fundamentally opposed to their [the coalition's] position," explains Chris Brantley of the 250,000-member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which declined to endorse the letter. "But we wanted to make clear, because of the nature of our membership and their participation in space projects, that we felt the United States could do it better and cheaper, and that NASA isn't looking at all the options." One month earlier, IEEE's Technology Policy Council had declared its support for a smaller, less costly station that would focus on biomedical research. It urged NASA to spend its money instead on developing such technology-driven ideas as remote sensing and satellite communications, telerobotics, and hypersonic flight, projects in which IEEE members are likely to play a role. Political pragmatism was the reason given for the withdrawal of the second group, the 6,000-member American Astronomical Society. "After you've been thoroughly beaten once, and it's clear you don't have the votes, you don't keep pushing," says Peter Boyce, AAS's executive director. Boyce was referring to an unsuccessful lobbying effort by AAS members to oppose an amendment before the full House of Representatives that restored funds for the station after the House appropriations committee had shifted the money to other projects. "We heard reports [after the House vote] that supporters of the space station were bragging about how they had beaten the scientists, and that the same thing would happen in the Senate if the scientists tried again," says Boyce. "That kind of talk just hardens positions on both sides, and we didn't want to contribute to that type of thinking." Boyce says that AAS plans to emphasize the need for a balanced program for NASA, NSF, and the other federal agencies that support space-related science, a bread-and-butter issue for his members. The man who put together the coalition, Robert Park of the 35,000-member American Physical Society, says that there's no hard feelings toward those who didn't come on board. "I understand where the engineers stand, and I can accept the fact that the astronomers decided it was bad strategy to take two losses in a row," says Park, who is director of APS's Washington office. "But physicists are used to fighting for justice and truth, and we felt it was important to tell it like we saw it, regardless of the outcome." Park also thinks that this issue will come up again, and that it's helpful for scientific societies to have staked out a position in the political tug-of-war over funding the space station. "You have to start laying the groundwork for next year," he says. "We want Congress to know where we stand." --J.M. Another rationale for the MIRCEN program is that these workhorses of the microscopic world can benefit the Third World. "Microorganisms require very little investment, yet clearly have very high returns," says Edgar DaSilva, the MIRCEN director in the UNESCO office in Paris. Such dividends include help in mining for metals, cleaning up oil spills, creating perfumes, leavening bread, controlling insect pests, and manufacturing oral contraceptives. To accomplish their mission, MIRCENs, now located in both underdeveloped and developed countries, are usually linked to other scientific facilities. All are affiliated with local governmental and academic institutions. Such associations exist because funding to the MIRCENs from the U.N. and the United States State Department is not extravagant--about $250,000 to $300,000 a year. The limited money gets spread among the different MIRCENs in response to grant requests that are sent to UNESCO headquarters in Paris, with the most needy facilities getting the money. Says Rita Colwell, chairwoman of the MIRCEN directors' council, "A little money can go a long way in a developing country." Colwell runs the MIRCEN in College Park, Md., is director of the Maryland Biotechnology Institute Center there, and is president of the science society Sigma Xi. Although it can make do with limited amounts of money, the MIRCEN network could use some more funds, says its director. "I don't need a million dollars," says DaSilva. "I have been saying all along that a little more money, like another $50,000 a year, could help. Too much money tends to kill enthusiasm. When they [scientists in the Third World] know [funding] is highly competitive, there is greater efficiency and output." Nevertheless, when the U.S. pulled out of UNESCO in 1984, funding levels for the MIRCEN program decreased. (Although the U.S. left UNESCO, the State Department still supports MIRCEN activities, but to a lesser degree.) MIRCENs located in the developed world provide technical, professional, and educational backup for the ones in the developing world. MIRCENs in industrialized countries can keep the large repositories of microorganisms because they have more resources. MIRCEN scientists from developed nations go abroad and offer training on the latest equipment and experimental procedures. Visiting scientists from the Third World also take advantage of their lab facilities. Besides fostering invaluable Third World regional teamwork, the MIRCEN confederation promotes cost-effective international scientific solidarity. "It is a modest effort conceived in a practical fashion, a perfect example of the `small is beautiful' concept," says Robert Stephens, the director of the American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, Md., one of the largest repositories for animal, plant, and microbiological specimens in the U.S. "With international collaboration and coordination, people in one area of the world profit from the experience of people in other areas." For example, 10 years of data from working with rhizobia in Africa were given to scientists doing similar work in Guatemala's MIRCEN. And any African MIRCEN scientist can access the sophisticated database of 571 worldwide microbiological collections in 65 countries managed by the MIRCEN in Saitama, Japan. Three Orientations Each MIRCEN has one of three orientations: agriculture, biotechnology, or informatics. "MIRCENs in regions that have agrarian-based economies and expanding populations focus on agriculture, with particular interest in microbial processes that increase food production," says David Pramer, associate vice president for research at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., who has been involved in many MIRCEN training programs. The thrust of activity of the agrarian MIRCENs is rhizobia. The Nairobi MIRCEN has evolved to such a degree that today it sells, at low cost, packets of high-quality rhizobia for the cultivation of soybeans and other legumes to 20,000 farmers in Kenya and East Africa (see story on page 16). The trade name of the inoculant is Biofix. When the venture first started in 1981, its production was 40 kilograms per year. Today it is 1,500 kilograms, although sales are lighter than expected. But the scientists who run the venture hope to do better marketing and advertising of their product, according to the 1990 edition of MIRCEN News, a yearly newsletter published by UNESCO since 1980. Networking Another sign of the flourishing sophistication of the agricultural MIRCENs is the establishment of an electronic mail network, created by the Stockholm branch, for professionals interested in biological nitrogen fixation. Biotechnology MIRCENs also hope to strengthen their countries' economies by using biotech to improve health and the environment. "They [the MIRCENs] are making every effort to see that less industrialized countries benefit from the biotechnology revolution and not be its victim," says Pramer. Besides doing classical biotechnology--using microbes to transform wastes into proteins of nutritional value or convert pollutants to harmless products--MIRCENs are beginning to take advantage of the principles and practices of microbiological molecular biology. In research and training programs, recombinant DNA techniques are beginning to be introduced and used. The tools of molecular biology have changed the face of Western science for some 20 years. But Colwell notes that Third World countries "operate at a different level of technological capacity. It isn't worse or bad. The people are industrious, and good work can get done.... These countries are people-rich, and are often high-tech and non-tech at the same time." In her cholera studies in Bangladesh, for example, Colwell found that local scientists used the latest monoclonal antibodies and gene probes for diagnostic purposes. But when monsoons came and power went off, the research was delayed. Some MIRCENs, located in industrialized societies, focus their attention on computers and other high-tech devices. While these "informatics" MIRCENs serve the needs of their host countries, their facilities and knowledge are used to counsel and train scientists in developing nations, as well. The Stockholm MIRCEN, for example, concentrates on introducing computer conferencing to facilitate information exchange. Scientific Communication While computer conferencing and E-mail communication may facilitate global scientific communication among a few individuals, live conferences still bring many more people in touch with each other in formal and informal ways. MIRCEN researchers and other scientists involved in applied microbiology meet through the Global Impact of Applied Microbiology (GIAM) Conferences that DaSilva convenes. There have been eight in the last 15 years; the ninth is scheduled to be held in Malta later this month. Third World scientists also publish. In 1985, the MIRCEN Journal of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology was conceived by UNESCO as an outlet for research papers on topics relevant to the developing world. Last year, in a joint venture with the International Union of Microbiological Societies and Oxford Ltd., a publishing company based in London, the journal was expanded and renamed the World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology. "The success of the journal can be gauged by its transition from a quarterly to a bimonthly this year," says DaSilva. "Before this journal, a number of people in the developing world were denied scientific expression because of mundane things like page charges or lack of a typewriter. Now they have an outlet, and they are making their mark on the world." The Future Part of the MIRCEN network's vision for the future is to continue to advance the competitiveness of scientists in developing nations. Although there is not a lot of technology transfer from the MIRCENs to local business, the centers' resources are currently being underutilized by Western industry, say MIRCEN officials. "These [MIRCEN] scientists have a feeling for developing countries and the spirit of international cooperation," says DaSilva. "We have a tremendous resource here, but the problem is marketing the talent," Colwell says. And, Pramer adds, "MIRCENs are capable of performing contract research." As they begin to strengthen investment ties with the West, MIRCENs can help their local regions and participate in solving global problems, such as pollution and infectious diseases, that need scientific solutions. "MIRCENs are ideally suited to this role in a world dominated by science and biotechnology," says Pramer. "MIRCENs can function as convenient centers for the deposit and exchange of research materials such as DNA sequences, gene probes, hybridomas, and genetically engineered organisms." Do the scientists from Third World countries fear that Western science will be accompanied by Western ideology, irrevocably altering the non-Western societies? "No," says Colwell. "There has been a change in [the traditional] ethos that West is best." Besides, she says, the technology that does come to these areas is adapted to the local environments. Are these researchers concerned that American or Western industry could exploit the developing countries by taking resources without compensation to the perhaps less savvy non-Western scientists? Answers Colwell: "Should liaisons between industry and MIRCENs come about, legal issues will have to be resolved. We are trying to develop relations with UNESCO to deal, for example, with international intellectual property laws." Responds DaSilva: "When we are working with the international community, there is always that risk. But I always prefer to err on the side of good will." Much of the information in this article was provided by David Pramer, vice president for research at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J.

Mircens Help Bring First-Rate Science To The Third World

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of