The Boston Globe - 02.09.2019

D2 Business The Boston Globe MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019

away money than on fund-rais-

ing.

“This is not a 99-year fund,”

he said. “It’s a lot closer to 20

years, and that’s OK.”

Much of the refocusing re-

volves around reducing redun-

dancies in the nonprofit space.

Does the Martin Richard

Foundation need to hold its

own service days? Perhaps it

can find a partner.

How can the foundation

support community groups

that could really use the mon-

ey?

uLEUNG

Continued from Page D1

The family, for example,

would like more money to go to

grass-roots organizations, espe-

cially in Dorchester, that might

otherwise get overlooked by

grant makers.

The one public event the

foundation will continue annu-

ally is MR8K: A Run for Grati-

tude. held on Labor Day. The 5-

mile run — organized in part-

nership with the Boston Bruins

Foundation, New Balance, and

DMSE Sports — takes place

this year at Warrior Ice Arena

at Boston Landing.

About 1,200 runners are ex-

pected to participate.

Last year’s run raised about

$100,000, and the proceeds

were donated to a McLean Hos-

pital program that supports

first responders.

Boston will never forget

Martin Richard and what took

place on April 15, 2013. Nor

will we forget how in the after-

math his family demonstrated

day after day that Boston

Strong is so much more than

just a slogan on a T-shirt.

Shirley Leung is a Globe

columnist. She can be reached

at [email protected].

Follow her on Twitter @leung.

Martin Richard Foundation reaches a turning point

JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2019

The opening of
Martin’s Park
in June was
marked with
children
playing on a
climbing
structure, as
well as a
celebration of
music and
family-friendly
programming.

US scientists starting their own
labs usually receive startup pack-
ages to buy lab equipment and pay
students and postdocs for the first
couple of years. “For a lot of re-
searchers going to places where re-
search isn’t as well-funded, you
don’t have any of that. It’s like,
here’s some space; go get some
grants. Figure out how you’re go-
ing to get the grant with no equip-
ment, no students, no postdocs,”
said Melissa Wu, the CEO of Seed-
ing Labs who met Dudnik in grad-
uate school and was part of the
student group.
Starting in 2003, when the
group officially became Seeding
Labs, it began collecting used lab
equipment from universities and
biotechs around Boston. It part-
nered with the Sustainable Scienc-
es Institute, a San Francisco non-
profit whose mission is to improve
public health in developing coun-
tries, to ship functional lab equip-
ment for postdocs returning to
their home countries to set up
their labs. From 2003 to 2008,
shipments were made to labs in
Central America, Argentina, Chile,
Nigeria, and the Democratic Re-
public of Congo.
Seeding Labs became a non-
profit organization in 2008 and to-
day, researchers from around the
world apply for equipment
through its Instrumental Access
program.
Recipients pay for procure-
ment, storage, shipping, and ad-
ministrative costs. The fee ranges
from $27,000 to $35,000, depend-
ingonthecountry,andresearch-
ers in return receive equipment
worth roughly $100,000 to
$150,000 on the secondhand mar-
ket. Though economical, the re-
searchers still need to raise funds
and garner institutional support.
“What we’re really trying to do
is create opportunities and help
scientists get the resources that
they need to use science to solve
the problems that they see in the
communities around them and
that they see globally,” said Wu.

Cultivating the ‘miracle berry’
Enoch Achigan-Dako was just
the type of scientist that Seeding
Labs had in mind.
In the tiny West African coun-
try of Benin, Achigan-Dako and
his research team are investigat-
ing orphan crops, indigenous
fruits and vegetables consumed as
food or used as medicines for local
communities but underutilized
and neglected internationally.
They hope their work can help al-
leviate the hunger and malnutri-
tion that afflict the country.
Now an associate professor of
genetics, horticulture, and seed

uSEEDING LABS
Continued from Page D1

science at the University of Abom-

ey-Calavi, Achigan-Dako learned

to conduct research during his

doctoral studies in Germany. Back

in Benin, he found little infrastruc-

ture available to pursue his re-

search.

“Either I travel back [to Eu-

rope] to continue having the work-

ing space available,” he said, “or I

stay home and forget about what I

have learned, and I continue my

life like anyone else. Those were

the two options.”

He made another choice. With

the help of funds from small

grants, he and his students built a

laboratory from scratch, but there

was no money to equip the lab.

One of Achigan-Dako’s students

told him about Seeding Labs, lead-

ing them to apply for the Instru-

mental Access program for the

lab. The equipment arrived last

October.

Suddenly, Achigan-Dako’s lab

became a place for scientists to

conduct research.

Today, the lab studies a variety

of indigenous vegetables, legumes,

and fruits, among them the Afri-

can spider plant, Cleome gynan-

dra,andthe“miracleberry,”Syn-

sepalum dulcificum.

The spider plant, found across

Africa, is a leafy vegetable high in

several nutrients, including calci-

um, magnesium, folic acid, iron,

and vitamins A and C. Locals tra-

ditionally used the plant medici-

nally, leveraging the anti-inflam-

matory properties of the plant to

relieve pain by rubbing the leaves

on affected areas. Achigan-Dako

and collaborators in Benin and the

Netherlands hope to cultivate dif-

ferent breeds tailored to the needs

of farmers and general consumers.

They also hope an indigenous

fruit, the miracle berry, can help

prevent the increasing rates of dia-

betes in his country and in the rest

of the world. Though the small red

berry gives off an unremarkable,

mildly sweet taste on its own, it

contains miraculin, a protein that

binds sweet taste receptors on the

tongue and transforms sour, acidic

foods such as lemons or pineap-

ples into delectable sweets. The

berries are difficult to grow, and

Achigan-Dako is testing methods

to ease the cultivation of the ber-

ries and ultimately reduce pro-

cessed sugar intake and lower the

incidence of diabetes along the

way.

A well-equipped lab might help

make both possible.

‘We were dumping equipment’

Today, Seeding Labs partners

with pharmaceutical and biotech

companies and research institu-

tions worldwide to take advantage

of their excess equipment and re-

sources. Its biggest sponsors in-

clude MilliporeSigma, Takeda,

Merck, GE Healthcare, and Cell

Signaling Technology.

“We were dumping our equip-

ment” before the partnership with

Seeding Labs, said Sonia Glace,

the global marketing leader at GE

Healthcare Life Sciences. Now the

equipment is refurbished and giv-

en new life.

In addition to donating equip-

ment, a few companies have also

partnered with Seeding Labs to

provide training and additional

scientific support to the awardees.

At MilliporeSigma, employees cre-

ate videos demonstrating equip-

ment usage through the Tele-

Science platform. “Our employees

love it because it gives them an

ability to share knowledge,” said

Renee Connolly, the head of global

communicationsatMilliporeSig-

ma, a division of Merck KGaA.

“With Takeda, we’re piloting a

virtual mentorship program,” said

Leah Lindsay, vice president of ex-

ternal relations at Seeding Labs,

“where their employees provide

input on equipment, questions,

and concerns that people have.”

Along with receiving equip-

ment donations, Seeding Labs also

receives financial support from

several of the companies for its op-

erations. According to Lindsay,

sponsorships range in size from

one-time awards in the thousands

to multiyear six-figure partner-

ships.

Revenue consists of 55 percent

corporate partnerships, 35 per-

cent Instrumental Access program

fees, and 10 percent government

grants and philanthropic dona-

tions.

Together with its partners,

Seeding Labs has supported 74 in-

stitutions in 35 countries with an

estimated $33 million worth of

equipment. Around 24,000 stu-

dents are trained on equipment

provided by Seeding Labs each

year, the group said, and 1,700

master’s and doctoral students

have used the equipment to con-

duct research.

Studying growing threats

Among the recipients is an In-

dian immunologist tackling two

diseases afflicting her country.

In India’s Gujarat state, the in-

cidence of oral cancers is growing

due to heavy tobacco usage. Ratika

Srivastava, an assistant professor

at Maharaja Sayajirao University

of Baroda, and her research team

are trying to develop affordable

therapies for people in the state.

Her lab is also conducting re-

search on lupus, a poorly under-

stood autoimmune disease in

which the body’s immune system

attacks its own tissues and organs.

The rate in India is climbing,

though, and Srivastava’s lab is

characterizing blood cells of Guja-

rati people with the disease, in

hopes of better understanding the

disease and ultimately developing

a treatment.

According to Srivastava, the

two diseases her lab focuses on

stem from her postdoctoral work

as a cancer biologist at the Univer-

sity of Maryland and as a lupus re-

searcher at Bristol-Myers Squibb

in Bangalore, India. After four

years at BMS, she started her own

lab.

Srivastava received equipment

from Seeding Labs in 2018, two

years after establishing her lab.

The lab was empty when she ar-

rived,andtheinstrumentsshere-

ceived have helped her build up

the lab.

Training the next generation

A glimpse into a 20-foot Seed-

ing Labs shipping container could

reveal small items like pipettes

and larger ones like chemical fume

hoods that protect researchers

from toxic substances they are

working on. There could be instru-

ments that help regulate reaction

temperatures or fixtures that pro-

vide uncontaminated space for

cells to grow, mix samples, sepa-

rate samples by density, and mag-

nify tiny objects.

Achigan-Dako, the scientist in

Benin studying orphan crops, said

he received equipment to establish

a microscopy unit, a “gene bank”

to store seeds of a variety of crops,

tissue culture space, a molecular

lab, and a biochemistry unit.

Although each lab receives any-

where from 100 to 200 pieces of

equipment, Seeding Labs is not

able to award all equipment on a

wish list. Achigan-Dako is still

hoping for an analytical chemistry

instrument to detect nutrients

from crops.

Still, Srivastava, the Indian sci-

entist, noted that even if a re-

searcher receives just 60% of the

equipment they request, they can

“save many years of [their] life.”

Having the right equipment is

essential to a research lab; it also

fosters partnerships.

For Dr. Robert Paulino-Ramir-

ez, the director of the Institute for

Tropical Medicine and Global

Health at Universidad Iberoameri-

cana in the Dominican Republic,

the equipment he received from

Seeding Labs in June 2016 was a

game-changer.

The equipment enabled him to

create the Institute of Tropical

Medicine and Global Health, a

center dedicated to health sciences

research at the university.

The institute worked with the

government to lead the implemen-

tation of pre-exposure prophylax-

is, known as PrEP, against HIV in

the Dominican Republic in 2018.

PrEP is a daily pill that substan-

tially lowers the risk of HIV infec-

tion among those uninfected but

vulnerable.

Another study at Paulino-

Ramirez’s institute is characteriz-

ing the prevalence of mosquito-

borne diseases, such as those

caused by Zika, dengue, and chi-

kungunya viruses across the coun-

try.

“The infrastructure is beauti-

ful,” Paulino-Ramirez said. “We

don’t have any others like this in

the region.”

According to the four scien-

tists, better-equipped labs also

present the opportunity to share

technical skills with other scien-

tists and pass on the knowledge to

students.

“All the research we do is fan-

tastic,” said Bandawe, the Malawi-

an scientist, “but I think the big-

gest contribution that we are mak-

ing to the country is that we’re

training this next generation, this

next group of scientists.”

Diana Cai can be reached at

[email protected].

Used lab gear finds new life across the globe

Among the

laboratory

equipment

donated to

Seeding Labs

are beakers

and other

containers, all

ready to be

inventoried,

packed, and

processed.

KAYANA SZYMCZAK FOR STAT

sweet corn and pork liver to marble

and bicycle tires.

After Sunday’s move, 87 percent

of textiles and clothing the United

States buys from China and 52 per-

cent of shoes will be subject to im-

port taxes.

On Dec. 15, the Trump adminis-

tration is scheduled to impose a sec-

ond round of 15 percent tariffs, on

roughly $160 billion of imports. If

those duties take effect, virtually all

goods from China will be covered.

The Chinese government has list-

ed American imports targeted for

penalties on Dec. 15 if the US tariff

hikes take effect. In total, Beijing says

Sunday’s penalties and the planned

December increases will apply to $75

billion of American goods.

Washington and Beijing are

locked in a war over US complaints

that China steals trade secrets and

unfairly subsidizes its companies in

its drive to develop competitors in

such high-tech industries as artificial

intelligence and electric cars.

‘‘I give the president credit for

challenging China on some of its re-

ally egregious behavior’’ on intellec-

tual property and technology trans-

fers, Toomey said. He hopes that’s

what Trump’s focus is, ‘‘not just the

fact that Chinese clothing and shoes

are popular among consumers.

That’s not the problem.’’

If China changes its behavior ‘‘in a

meaningful way in that area... then

we will have ended up in a better

place. That’s what I’m hoping for. But

let’s be honest. In the meantime,

we’re doing damage. It’s a double-

edged sword,’’ he said.

To try to force Beijing to change

uCHINA

Continued from Page D1

its trade practices, the Trump admin-

istration has imposed import taxes

on billions of dollars’ worth of Chi-

nese imports, and China has retaliat-

ed with tariffs on US exports.

Trump has insisted China itself

pays the tariffs. But economic re-

search shows the costs of the duties

fall on US businesses and consumers.

Trump had indirectly acknowledged

the tariffs’ impact by delaying some

duties until Dec. 15, after holiday

goods are on store shelves.

A J.P. Morgan study found that

Trump’s tariffs will cost the average

US household $1,000 a year. The

study was done before Trump raised

the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 tariffs to 15

percent from 10 percent. He has also

announced that existing 25 percent

tariffs on a separate group of $250

billion of Chinese imports will in-

crease to 30 percent on Oct. 1.

That could weaken an already

slowing US economy. Consumer

spending grew last quarter at its fast-

est pace in five years, but the overall

economy expanded at a modest 2

percent annual rate, down from a 3.1

percent rate in the first three months

of the year. Companies have already

reduced investment spending, and

exports have dropped.

And the University of Michigan’s

consumer sentiment index fell the

most since December 2012. ‘‘The da-

ta indicate that the erosion of con-

sumer confidence due to tariff poli-

cies is now well underway,’’ said Rich-

ard Curtin, who oversees the index.

Some retailers may eat the tariffs.

Target confirmed it warned suppliers

it won’t accept cost increases arising

from China’s tariffs. But many small-

er retailers won’t have the bargaining

power to make such demands.

Consumers apt to feel

escalation of trade war