Environ. Sci. Technol. 43, 9050–9051
Closing the Environmental Toxicology Gap BARBARA FRASER
JUPITERIMAGES
Researchers in Latin America battle obstacles with education, collaboration, and determination.
The apparent incongruity between a lack of basic services and a drive toward cutting-edge research characterizes the growing field of environmental toxicology in Latin America. Despite progress in recent years, the region still lags behind the U.S. and Europe, and researchers are trying to close the gap as quickly as possible. As a region, “we’re coming from far behind, and the [environmental] problems don’t wait,” says Jorge Herkovits, a physician and the president of the Prosama Foundation in Argentina; his research has focused on the effects of chemicals on amphibian embryos. Sa´enz, who has been studying heavy metals in fish at the Ministry of Production, hopes that growing interest in aquaculture will spur research in environmental toxicology in Peru, just as the need to certify agricultural products for export has in the past decade in countries such as Argentina and Uruguay. Other incentives for research include tighter environmental standards and requirements for environmental impact statements. “The government is interested in cleaning up the bays. To clean them up, we have to know what their condition is,” Sa´enz says. “Without research, there is no progress. If you don’t develop researchers, the country is never going to get ahead.” The task is daunting. Latin America and the Caribbean account for just 2.2% of the world’s R&D investment, compared with about 37% for North America and 26% for Europe, according to UNESCO. Latin American countries invest an average of 0.63% of their gross domestic product in R&D, compared with nearly 3.4% in Japan and 2.6% in the U.S. Whereas most research funding in Canada and the U.S. comes from the private sector, less than half the research in Latin America is privately funded. With nearly two-thirds of the region’s R&D investment, Brazil is Latin America’s research powerhouse. The country’s total R&D spending rose from $6.5 billion in 1998 to $14.6 billion in 2007, according to Mario Albornoz, coordinator of the Ibero-American and Inter-American Network on Science and Technology Indicators (RICYT) in Buenos Aires.
Education pays off
Chefs in Lima, Peru’s coastal capital, pride themselves on seafood dishes, but Luis Alberto Sa´enz steers clear of the fish. The city of nearly 9 million people pumps all its raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean, where it drifts along beaches with names like Waikiki and Sweet Water. In a country where 75% of the wastewater goes untreated and more than one-third of the population lives on less than $2 a day, it seemed both incongruous and coldly logical that this year’s meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry’s Latin America chapter (SETAC-LA), held there in October, ran heavily to endocrine disruption. 9050
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Brazil has invested in education and now offers enough doctoral programs and job prospects in environmental toxicology that students are less likely to gosand remains abroad, according to Gilberto Fillmann, an associate professor at the Oceanography Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande (Brazil). Argentina has launched a program called “Roots” to entice Argentinean researchers in other countries to return home. Science and Technology Minister Jose´ Lino Baran ˜ ao says the offer of paid moving expenses, lab facilities, and a salary subsidy has lured more than 700 researchers back to the country in the past 5 years, with $25 million invested in the past 3 years alone. Countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay still lag in education. The gap frustrates Jose´ Iannacone, a biologist at Ricardo Palma University (Peru). He and his 10.1021/es9033233
2009 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 11/19/2009
RICYT
In recent years, R&D investment has grown faster in Latin America than in industrialized countries, as these data from 1998 and 2007 indicate. The shaded bar in these graphs indicates Latin America and the Caribbean. colleagues spend more time in the classroom than faculty members in countries with higher research budgets. A 20hour-per-week course load spread over several universities, which is the norm in Peru, leaves little time for research, he says. Peru also has less funding for scholarships, so Iannacone’s graduate students tend to be “working professionals who study,” instead of students who can devote themselves fulltime to advanced degrees, he says. Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay have leveraged their educational investments through collaborations with research centers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Collaboration accelerates development of local research capabilities by providing researchers with advanced training, funding possibilities, and access to methods and equipment that may not be available at home, says Pedro Carriquiriborde, who is a biologist at the National University of La Plata (Argentina) and will serve as the president of SETAC-LA in 2010. “International cooperation has had a great impact on Latin American environmental toxicology,” says Ricardo Barra, a biochemist at the Environmental Sciences Center at the University of Concepcio´n (Chile). “If you look at the literature, much of it is coauthored with colleagues from outside the region.” Publishing can be a problem. Publication in major international journals requires a good command of English or specialized translation. The Brazilian Society of Ecotoxicology also publishes a journal, which draws submission from around the region, according to Fillmann, who is the editor in chief. But the journal, which is not indexed, is trapped in a vicious circle. Researchers who can publish in major international journals do so, making it difficult to ensure a steady flow of high-quality papers for the Brazilian publication. The journal has cut back to 2 issues per year, with 12-14 papers each; to qualify for indexing, it must publish at least 4 issues per year with about 15 papers each. The catch-22 frustrates Fillmann, who says the journal provides a forum for data of regional interest, such as studies that repeat previously published research but with native species.
An international perspective Some science courses in Brazil are taught in English, giving students a head start for publishing and for courses abroad. Young researchers from Brazil who study abroad come back with a different attitude, according to Afonso Bainy, a biochemist at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) and the president of SETAC-LA. “The way they see science is more professional,” he says.
Biologist Vance Trudeau of the University of Ottawa, who studies endocrine disruption in fish with colleagues in Argentina, says the benefits work both ways. His students learn about different ecosystems and see how their South American peers stretch scant funding creativelysa skill that comes in handy when the young researchers in Canada need to start their own labs, he says. Colleagues abroad can also help by providing reagents. Not only does slow shipping delay research but imported reagents are also “three times the price, and [Latin American labs] have one-third the budget” of Canadian or U.S. research centers, Trudeau says. “It becomes prohibitive.” Others emphasize the importance of collaboration within Latin America, at venues such as SETAC-LA. Meetings like the one in Lima provide an overview of work in the region, to avoid duplication of efforts, says Gabriela Eguren, a chemist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo (Uruguay). The papers and posters presented at the October meeting reflected the variety of issues around the region, from heavy metals to pesticides, sewage, and pulp-mill effluent. Although there has been some debate over the fact that more money is spent on applied research than basic research in Latin America, many researchers say countries will inevitably direct spending toward their most pressing problems. Countries that are still combating high poverty rates “need to learn to process and apply scientific knowledge, much more than to try to advance in areas of research in which they will have few opportunities in any case,” Albornoz says. Barra, however, says research on emerging topics, such as endocrine disruptors, is equally important. “These are issues that should begin to come up for discussion now, even though technical means, such as methods of analysis, are still not fully developed” in the region, he says. Identifying native indicator species, instead of using species found in literature from more developed countries, is also important, Fillmann says. Getting those issues into the public eye is not always easy, especially when other needs seem more urgent. When Bainy applies for grants to study the effects of metals or pesticides on fish, he tries to include funding for extension work in local schools. He also courts journalists. “Politics answers to the media,” he says. “If you get into the media, it helps a lot.” Trudeau is impressed with his South American colleagues’ determination. They “keep pushing for change in their countries,” he says. “That’s what we all should be doing.” ES9033233
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