Nina Dudnik

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2007

Nina Dudnik

Seeding Labs

http://www.seedinglabs.org

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Health

The Bold Idea:

Developing countries rarely invest even 1 percent of their GDPs toward building scientific infrastructure, driving an annual exodus of over 20,000 of their most talented professionals to other countries. The 1990 World Health Organization report documented that the diseases burdening 90 percent of the world’s population capture only 10 percent of global health research funding. Scientists in developing countries are perfectly positioned for and have a vested interest in studying and curing local diseases, but they are hampered by a critical lack of material infrastructure.

Seeding Labs creates a unique re-use strategy that encourages well-funded institutions in the developed world to donate their previously overlooked surplus of scientific equipment. It will mobilize young scientists to collect and redistribute this equipment to their peers worldwide in a novel bottom-up approach to scientific capacity-building. Ultimately, Seeding Labs aims to integrate the researchers in the developing nations into a global collaborative community of scientists, sharing knowledge and expertise across national boundaries, advancing global research, and training the next generation of scientists.

Biography:

Nina Dudnik has worked side-by-side with researchers in developing countries from Syria to the Ivory Coast and has seen the benefits of scientific research in agricultural production and health care. She holds a BS in biochemistry from Brown University, was a Fulbright Fellow at a rice research station in West Africa, and is completing her doctorate in molecular biology at Harvard Medical School.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
When you work in labs at major research universities in the developed world, you get used to certain things being so close to free that you dispose of them without a second thought (plastic tubes, pipet tips). There's nothing like working in a small, low-budget lab in an agricultural station in West Africa to change your perceptions. Our lab technician would wash and sterilize all that would-be disposable hardware so that we could reuse them for months on end. We used what we had, and did good research with it. That lab technician, despite being a single mother without a high school education, turned out to be an excellent experimentalist, and as she became more confident and knowledgeable, she became a leader in her community as well as a valuable colleague in the lab. She went back to school and put her daughter through school as well. When I returned to the U.S., I realized how casually we accept as fact the idea that our resources—material and human—are disposable. Not only are we throwing away a staggering quantity of those tubes and pipet tips, we're letting larger machinery, equipment that's in perfect working condition, just a little bit behind the technology curve, gather dust in a storeroom or take up space in a landfill. What we have in abundance, the rest of the world desperately needs. I've seen first-hand the difference a simple opportunity can make. Once I realized these things, everything else just seemed inevitable.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched problems in the world?
I’m a huge idealist. I can’t remember being in a situation in which I didn’t spend a significant amount of time assessing what was wrong and how to fix it. And I’ve never been worried about embarrassing myself by speaking up and criticizing entrenched ideas. With Seeding Labs, I have the background to back up that outspokenness: I’ve worked in labs with almost nothing and I’ve worked in the best-equipped labs in the world. I can speak to scientists about their work and I understand what they need to get it done. Most of all, I believe that science has the power to transform societies and that keeps me going.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change? 
Science has always been viewed as a top-down enterprise, orchestrated and supported by governments and international research bodies. The resource inequalities of countries as a whole are mirrored in their scientific institutions. We are making the most of science as a grassroots effort to change this. We are connecting young scientists to each other, so they can redress the material inequalities on a person-to-person basis, quickly and directly. This initial connection will lead to professional collaboration and these scientists will become the nucleus of a stronger and more collaborative international research community.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
I think you have to have an incredible emotional connection to what you are doing, possibly to the point that you would be heartbroken if you weren’t tackling this problem. And this has to be coupled to a degree of practical yet stubborn persistence. You have to accept that you are going to be swimming against a current of “how things have always been done." Being both stubborn and passionate means not only will you stick with your goals, but that you also might be able to change hearts and minds while you’re at it.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?  
Rokia Traore, Fluttr Effect, 1 Giant Leap, and one particular song by the Propellerheads.

What books do you recommend?
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, and The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.    

Which websites do you visit often?

• scidev.net
• npr.org
• thisamericanlife.org   

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
About three years ago, someone gave me a business card on which was printed, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  I’ve kept it in my wallet ever since, and those words have often been the final thing that propelled me over my hesitations.