A Quick Overview of 37 years of UNU-BIOLAC

The United Nations University reached its 50th anniversary in January 2025. In March of the same year, the UNU Programme for Biotechnology in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNU-BIOLAC) celebrated 37 years of its official creation in Venezuela– one of the few countries that pledged a generous donation for the newly created University in 1975.

UNU-BIOLAC has pursued capacity building in Biotechnology through practical training and education, knowledge update dissemination, and information sharing. Thanks to this approach, we have developed a robust, sustainable set of activities that have proven resilient to the region's political turmoil and economic hurdles these years. Our activities have occurred in almost all Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, with two notable exceptions: the Guianas and most small Caribbean islands.

Countries with the most solid science in the region, namely, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, have organized more activities and received the most of our fellows. Venezuela was also an essential recipient of fellows in the past, which has dropped to zero in the last years in the middle of grave difficulties. On the contrary, Uruguay started to receive more fellows during COVID and post-COVID, a situation that has been more pronounced now when the political crisis in Argentina affected higher education and many Argentinians look for support to achieve academic goals in UNU-BIOLAC, even if their proposals are not related to Biotechnology. Finally, and for similar reasons, although under dramatically different scenarios, most students applying for financial support come from countries with deep structural or circumstantial crises. Just three countries, Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina, have been granted more than half of all fellowships during all 37 UNU-BIOLAC years combined. In terms of courses, most have been held in Venezuela, Argentina, and Mexico (slightly more than 50% when considered together), followed by Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Brazil (adding to an additional 30%), plus 13 others.

All kinds of organisms have been the subject of study from our allies. Still, a dominant portion has been done by researchers and fellows studying pathogens like Trypanosoma cruzi, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Plasmodium falciparum, or Brucella spp. Among pathogenic viruses, interest has been directed to Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, Orthoflavivirus denguei, Orthoflavivirus zikaense, etc. Many of our researchers delve into bioprospecting to find new enzymes, new ecological relations, agents of biological control of diseases in plants and animals, and potential sources of new materials or processes (like resistance to UV light or the generation of bioelectricity). Crop plants are another source of interest, along with methods for improving and propagating plants– particularly those cases requiring a solution, which fall under the umbrella of the detrimental multiplying effects of climate change. More recently, the impact of microbiomes on health and disease has stimulated the organization of several courses and has become the main focus of specialized internships.

During these almost four decades, we have witnessed the advent of big data generation and the challenges of analyzing and using it. Bioinformatics, in a broad sense, has evolved so much that neither data storage nor data analysis today represents an obstacle but a commodity. Bioinformatics is a fundamental part of every field in Biology, particularly biotechnology. Together with a sister approach and world of data, the 'omics' have become an everyday presence, augmented nowadays by the broad utilization of AI tools. During the first decades of the Programme, informative and hands-on courses in bioinformatics financed by UNU-BIOLAC were widespread in the region. What constituted an advanced tool became a daily chore for most biologists and biotechnologists. So, the formation in basic bioinformatics is now in charge of undergrad programs in universities all over the region. We must celebrate that what was available only for a few in the past is now employed by many in our academic and research institutions. The same has happened with many other technical advances, which received support from UNU-BIOLAC for decades but are now a part of the biology curriculum of most universities in LAC. We must renovate and train our young researchers in the tools that represent an advance in their careers and the Biotechnology being developed in their countries.

In April this year, we are to make public a UNU-BIOLAC document that will summarize the contribution of each LAC country, which generously organized the activities supported by UNU-BIOLAC during the last 37 years, received fellows from other countries in LAC or sent their own to learn new techniques, solve doubts or establish networks of collaboration with their colleagues in the region. After the last of those briefs, a summary of the statistics from this report will be presented, followed by concise information on all of the events and internships sponsored by UNU-BIOLAC, listed by country.

We hope this information will help to make the programme better known. It also represents a sincere effort to show our unbeatable gratitude to all course conveners and UNU-BIOLAC fellows who have made of our shared efforts the most pragmatic approach to achieve common goals when fostering Biotechnology as one of the most powerful tools we are using to build a sustainable future.

Caracas, March, 2025