SPOTLIGHT 1369
Development 139, 1369-1370 (2012) doi:10.1242/dev.080416
© 2012. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
An interview with José Xavier Neto
The Latin American Society for Developmental Biology (LASDB) is getting ready for their Sixth International Meeting, which will be
held in Montevideo, Uruguay, from April 26th to 29th, 2012. To find out more about the society, and about developmental biology
in Latin America, we talked to LASDB president José Xavier Neto, who studies heart morphogenesis at the Laboratório Nacional de
Biociências in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
You’re president of the Latin
American Society for Developmental
Biology (LASDB). What’s the history of
the society?
What are your research interests?
I have been working on cardiac
development ever since I was first trained in
developmental biology. From this focus on
cardiac development, I slowly became
interested in evolution, and in using clues
that evolution gives us to understand
development. I have been trying to
incorporate a lot of that into our research.
Another research question that I’m very
interested in is: how can we use information
extracted from protein structures and the
evolution of proteins of interest to
understand evolution and development? But
my main interest has always been cardiac
development.
Which organisms do you work with?
I was trained as a mouse developmental
biologist, but when I returned to Brazil in
1999 after postdoctoral research at Harvard
University, I quickly realised that it would
have been impossible to continue my mouse
research here. Working with mice is
amazingly expensive, and in Brazil, at that
time, we did not have the facilities to handle
those numbers of mice. So I switched to
Interview by Eva Amsen*
Online Editor, Development
*Author for correspondence
([email protected])
The LASDB was created in 2003. It was
spearheaded by Roberto Mayor from Chile,
who had the idea to create a society for
young scientists returning to Latin America
from their postdocs abroad. Roberto is very
well connected and got a lot of support from
other people connected with Latin America.
In 2003 we had our first meeting in Valle
Nevado, Chile. After that we’ve had
meetings in Brazil, Argentina and in Chile
again. The next meeting will be in Uruguay
from April 26th to 29th, 2012. Over the
years, the society has grown, and it’s a great
pleasure to be able to witness more and
more people participating in the meeting.
Nevertheless, we have been able to keep the
quality of the meeting very high. That’s
something that was always on everyone’s
mind: we want to grow, but grow while
preserving quality.
As a society you cover almost an
entire continent. Are there any
particular challenges in dealing with
all those different countries?
Absolutely. Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and
Chile represent the major communities of
developmental biologists within Latin
America. There are smaller communities of
investigators in other countries, but when it
comes to setting up a meeting you need a lot
of local support, and not all countries can
support such a meeting.
This is a challenge. We would like to
spread developmental biology throughout
Latin America, to create a network, to get all
researchers integrated, to raise opportunities
for students and young researchers – but we
have to rely on local support to hold
meetings. As part of this mission, we’re
very happy to extend our meeting to
Uruguay this year. This has been a very
interesting exercise. Although Uruguay is a
big country, it’s not yet as easy to do things
over there as it is in Mexico, Chile,
Argentina or Brazil.
We would like to spread
developmental biology
throughout Latin America,
to create a network
How does the LASDB support young
researchers in particular?
The society does several things. We would
like to support students with scholarships,
but this has not been possible because we
don’t have the money yet. What we have
been doing is creating networks to link
people throughout Latin America. For
instance, last year members of the society
founded LAZEN – a network for people in
Latin America who work with zebrafish.
Another thing we have set up is the
website. We realised that if you want people
to connect and be involved, you should have
a lively website that provides a good
platform for people to interact. We’re trying
to do that now, and are keeping the site alive
with discussions on the forums. Through the
website we also hope to encourage people to
become paying members of the society,
which will help raise money to set up
fellowships to support students or sponsor
books. But that’s for the future. At the
moment we’re mainly concerned with
building networks and with extending the
society to all the countries of Latin America,
to create a base for interaction for the
society to work.
Are there any particular challenges
that researchers in Latin America
might have that are not commonly
encountered in other parts of the
world?
Yes, there are many challenges. Fortunately,
in Brazil, where I work, things have turned
for the good in recent years and in a very
impressive manner. Science funding has
been steadily increasing. Grants are
reviewed by professionals within the
community, and financial support has been
DEVELOPMENT
chicken, and that became my primary
model.
1370 SPOTLIGHT
Brazil really turned into a
good place to start a lab
Considering these barriers, how do
you make sure that people come back
to their country after a postdoc
abroad?
The brain drain has been a problem for all
emerging countries. But I can give you a
personal testimony about Brazil. I started
my postdoc in 1997 in the USA, when
research in Brazil was just picking up. After
one year in the States I was already eager to
go back because the place where I was
working gave me all the opportunities that I
needed to start a group doing my own
research back in Brazil. The state of Sao
Paulo has a funding body, called FAPESP,
which has been in existence since the 1960s.
They have a stable source of tax income and
distribute money in a peer-reviewed
fashion. If you are a young scientist in
Brazil and you do a successful postdoc in
the UK, Europe, USA or Japan, for instance,
you stand a very high chance of getting a
Young Investigator Award from FAPESP
when you return to Brazil. These awards
will pay for your salary, equipment and
consumables for five years. That is enough
time for you to move and get set up, and to
find a place to get a permanent position.
I tell all my former students that are doing
postdocs in the States: “Listen, Brazil really
turned into a good place to start a lab.”
Is the situation the same in other
Latin American countries?
Chile is ahead of Brazil in many ways.
When I was in Chile in 2003 for the
inaugural meeting of the society, I was very
impressed: I was in the hotel where they
were actually signing the Free Trade
Agreement with the European Union. In
Brazil we’re still discussing and negotiating,
but they had already done that. Chile also
has a very good customs system, so things
get there much more quickly than in Brazil.
They have very good universities and
research centres, a good funding structure
and good researchers.
Argentina has always had wonderful
researchers, and they have several Nobel
prizes. They have a good tradition and
fantastic research centres, but I’m not sure
about the quality of the funding there.
Uruguay still needs to spread research
throughout the country, but they do have
very good centres, such as the Institut
Pasteur. Finally, Mexico also has wonderful
universities and researchers. In the rest of
Latin America, the research situation is not
as good as in these countries.
What are the particular areas of
research at which Latin America
excels?
That’s a great question. I think we have a lot
of room here for creativity, to do very
creative research. As soon as we do
something that competes directly with our
colleagues in the USA or in Europe, who are
often building directly on earlier research,
we’re going to lose nine times out of ten
because we simply do not have the structure
yet to be fast and efficient. But in an
interesting twist, if you decide to go for
different subjects or if you try to think ahead
ten to fifteen years then you’re not worried
about what’s being done now. You have a
niche. This gives Latin American
researchers the opportunity to be bold and to
create something original.
DEVELOPMENT
stable. But Brazil still has classic problems.
For instance, the country has a very
complicated customs system that often
delays supplies. Animal research is another
problem because there is no professional
network of animal providers. Most of the
animal raising is undertaken at university
centres, which have not been up to the task
of breeding large numbers of high-quality
healthy animals. For some areas, such as
mouse developmental biology, this is a huge
problem. Part of the problem is that it’s very
hard for universities to hire technicians. So
a lot of services have been structured on a
very insecure basis, depending on people
that were there for two years on a
fellowship. When they left, new people
would have to be trained all over again. We
simply did not have all the instruments in
place to set up animal facilities.
Development 139 (8)