How Latin America’s genomics revolution began- and why the field is under threat

In 2005 scientists in Cuernavaca, nestled in the highlands 50 kilometers southwest of Mexico City, led a government-funded project to sequence the genome of Rhizobium etli, a bacterium that lives on the roots of some bean plants, helping them to fix nitrogen. Mirroring a Brazilian effort at the University of São Paulo to sequence the bacterial plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa five years earlier, the project was an ambitious attempt to build up the country’s biotechnology infrastructure, providing with an opportunity to watch cutting-edge genomics at first hand.

Two decades later, the sequencing of a bacterium no longer sounds like much of a milestone, but with a US$ 11.6-million grant from the São Paulo government, the project’s leaders say the X. fastidiosa research received more state funding than any other single piece of Brazilian science. The Mexican project received $2 million, also a major investment. To scientists across South and Central America, these projects represented more than just a loosening of governmental purse strings. By funding Mexican and Brazilian scientists to sequence agriculturally important bacteria, which were significant to their own economies, the projects have helped to spark the region’s biotech revolution.

The sequencing of X. fastidiosa and R. etli showed the world just how much scientists in South and Central America could achieve with proper funding. The region’s political will to build on those early investments will determine how well future generations can maintain the progress that has already been made.¹

Read more here.

References

1. Arnold, C. (2023). How Latin America’s genomics revolution began — and why the field is under threat. Nature, 615(7953), 754–756. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00794-8

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