Word: cuba
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...There is even a particle gun that genetically transforms sugarcane embryos by peppering them with DNA-coated BBs. But what really impresses foreign visitors is the folding cot that occupies a corner of De la Riva's office. At the Centro de Ingenieria Genetica y Biotecnologia (CIGB) in Havana, Cuba, De la Riva explains, researchers strive to stay ahead of the competition by sleeping alongside their experiments...
...Cuba--that impoverished island 90 miles and an ideological half-century away from Florida--has begun bootstrapping itself into a biotech minipower. This improbable endeavor ranks as one of the most idiosyncratic of President Fidel Castro's ventures, and despite the anticapitalist rhetoric that resurfaced during last week's May Day celebrations, it may well prove to be the most profitable. The flourishing technological barrio that has sprung up on the outskirts of Havana is not only supplying state-of-the-art health products to local hospitals and clinics but also selling more and more of its goods abroad, bringing...
...Today Cuba is one of the world's largest producers of a recombinant vaccine against hepatitis B. It is the only producer of a vaccine against the bacterium that causes meningitis B, a particularly nasty form of the disease. It also makes a diverse line of pharmaceuticals: interferon for cancer treatment, epidermal growth factor for wound healing, streptokinase for heart attacks and monoclonal antibodies capable of diagnosing everything from pregnancy to infection with the AIDS virus...
...Cuba's biotechnicians are expanding into agriculture and industry. Late last year CIGB was host to an international conference at which 250 scientists from the U.S., Europe and South America got a look at some of the products wending their way through the laboratory. Among the most promising: a recombinant vaccine that protects cattle against disease-bearing ticks, crops genetically engineered to repel insects, and industrial enzymes that cut energy consumption...
...Cuba's research efforts have been highly pragmatic, aimed at solving real-life problems--of which Cuba has more than its share. Cuban agriculture nearly collapsed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, which for years subsidized Cuba with discount petroleum and petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides. So scientists at CIGB concentrated on improving the food supply. Among other things, they equipped sugarcane and potatoes with bacterial genes that confer pest resistance and added an extra growth-hormone gene to tilapia, creating a faster-growing variant of that tasty freshwater fish...