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Maria Florencia Angelo (left), a doctoral student at the University of Buenos Aires, dissects a mouse during the in utero electroporation laboratory session at the recent PABSELA stem cell training course. She is assisted by PABSELA teaching assistant Alyssa Meleski, who is a research associate in the MGH lab of Dr. Paolo Arlotta, a PABSELA faculty member.
Through stem cell training program, PABSELA plays key role in the resurgence of scientific research in Argentina
Two years ago some 150 dignitaries and scientists gathered at the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace of Argentina, for the ceremonial launch of the Program for the Advancement of Biomedical Sciences Education in Latin America (PABSELA). The event was hosted by then-Senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who at the time was only months away from succeeding her husband as the country’s president. While much of the evening was spent detailing plans to develop research and training programs for young investigators, the event was also an occasion to mark a much needed scientific resurgence in a country where science had long languished.
Two years hence, PABSELA has held the second edition of an intensive stem cell training course for young Latin American scientists, and sparked interest from government and industry leaders who see science and innovation—particularly as pursued in cross-geographical collaborations—as critical to Argentina’s future.
PABSELA is a collaboration between Partners Harvard Medical International and the Fundación Crimson, an Argentina-based non-profit organization established to support science and education in the country. PABSELA’s charter is to create training opportunities for graduate students in Latin America and promote professional exchanges in the biomedical sciences field, with the long-term goal to contribute to the development of the Latin American biomedical community by providing unique educational and research opportunities for scientists, medical doctors, and graduate students.
Miguel Velardez, PhD, a neuroscientist, and Estanislao Bachrach, PhD, a geneticist, were postdoctoral fellows at Children’s Hospital when they hatched the idea for PABSELA and won the support of faculty and advisors at PHMI and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Impressed and amazed by the technological and human resources they saw at Harvard, Velardez and Bachrach conceived a vision of creating a pathway that would link those resources with scientists back home.
The main objective of the stem cell course (first offered in 2007) is to introduce participants to stem cell biology through lectures, discussions of scientific papers, and laboratory sessions, as well as to create new ties between Latin and North American researchers that may result in long-term research collaborations in the field.
The course is intensive: 17 lectures and discussions of scientific publications, 12 seminars, and 10 laboratory sessions—115 hours in all. Lectures provide the conceptual basis for contemporary research in identification, isolation, and differentiation of embryonic and adult stem cells, while the laboratories provide extensive hands-on training in up-to-date techniques essential for stem cell research. This year the program also included a two-day special mini-congress during which each student presented his or her research to the rest of the group and the faculty.
In the laboratory sessions, Dr. Paola Arlotta and Dr. Andrew Kung, both faculty at HMS, introduced students to cutting-edge stem cell research methods. Arlotta led an exercise utilizing a method of in vivo transplantation of neural stem cells and for electroporation of neural progenitors. Kung, in a session focused on in vivo tracking of stem cells in mouse models, instructed the students in a non-invasive technique that uses imaging to enable the analysis of stem cells.
The 18 students who completed this year’s course were predominantly doctoral candidates carrying out clinical and scientific research in academic institutions, including biochemists, physicians, biologists, and neuroscientists. Citizenship and active research in a Latin American or Caribbean country are among the selection criteria. This year Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico were represented.
The faculty included three stem cell scientists from Harvard Medical School (HMS) as well as leaders in stem cell research from institutions in Argentina and Brazil. Faculty from Yale School of Medicine, Columbia University, University of California-Davis, Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and the University of Oslo in Norway also lectured.
What’s next for PABSELA?
Plans are already in the works for courses in 2009, including another stem cell training program and a new course on infectious diseases. Velardez said the government of Argentina is keen to have PABSELA expand beyond the capital city. To this end, next year’s courses will be hosted by the National University of Cordoba, located northwest of Buenos Aires. Future PABSELA programs may reach out to other countries in South America as well.
The success of PABSELA and its ties to faculty at Harvard have not gone unnoticed in Argentina. “The government and private industry have been very supportive of what we have been doing, and are very interested in how we can help to strengthen the collaborations we have formed and create new ones,” said Velardez.
More information
- PABSELA gains crucial support for new research initiative (PHMI World, November 2006)
- PABSELA completes first stem cell research training program for Latin American investigators (PHMI World, July 2007)
- Fundación Crimson/PABSELA website
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