For his experiments monitoring heavy metal pollution in aquatic environments, Daniel Guerra Giraldez relies on large amounts of a common lab enzyme that is sensitive to mercury in water. But he could only buy the enzyme through one U.S.-based company. That made it very expensive for a researcher in his country—about $1000 for a 6-month supply—with at least $1000 more for shipping on top of that, says Guerra Giraldez, a molecular biologist at Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University in Lima, Perú. And if he wanted to produce the enzyme himself, a different U.S. company that makes the equipment for producing it would only work with local brokers, who would then charge him three times the catalog price for it.
Companies don’t see scientists in the Global South as big customers, he says, adding that even after paying an exorbitant price, unreliable shipping could mean the chemical arrives in unusable shape. “Researchers like me do not represent a significant share of the market, so we are not worth the investment of time, money, and hassles.”
Guerra Giraldez is unfortunately not alone among researchers in the Global South struggling to access reagents—the biological compounds, chemicals, and other substances that are key to common lab methods—and equipment for innovative experiments. They are impeded not only by the practicality of shipping these chemicals from wealthy nations to various parts of less wealthy countries, but also by the high cost of these essential supplies. Besides equipment, enzymes, buffers, and other essential substances for experiments can cost twice as much as in the Global North.
He is now part of a group trying to address the problem. The Reagent Collaboration Network (Reclone) was set up in 2020 by researchers in Latin America and the United Kingdom, with researchers in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere joining later. To expand access to reagents, Reclone helps labs make their own by sharing production protocols and training scientists.
Just last month, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative awarded Reclone’s Latin American chapter $300,000 over the next 2 years to strengthen its regional hub in Argentina and establish new nodes in Chile and Peru. These aim to empower local labs with the tools and training to produce lab chemicals autonomously, enabling faster, cheaper, and more reliable research.
Science spoke with several people behind Reclone—including Guerra Giraldez; Reclone co-founder and University of Cambridge biotechnologist Jenny Molloy; Fernán Federici Noé, a molecular biologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and lead of Reclone’s Chile node; and María Teresa Damiani, a biochemist at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza and the Argentina hub lead—about the network’s challenges, successes, and ambitions to influence research equity in the Global South.
