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Published online 3 December 2008 | Nature 456, 550-551 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456550a
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Slow shipping hobbles Chinese science
A lack of laboratory reagents is taking its toll on researchers.
Shanghai
Earlier this year, a researcher in Shanghai requested antibodies from a collaborator at Harvard University. Working with customs and shippers to arrange the transfer, including extra dry ice to keep the materials cool, cost US$1,500 and took well over a month.
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This is obviously one negative factor affecting the decision of many potential "sea turtles". In China, the best way to solve this problem is a top-down approach. The Chinese government should step up to train the custom on how to deal with ever increasing biomaterial imports. Many of these reagents are DNA, proteins, antibodies or some small molecules. If they are from a reliable well-known source like Sigma and Invitrogen, they should simply examine the items and (if no obvious problems) just let it go. On the other hands, can all these distributors store a large stock in China? I guess the storeroom probably costs much. Then they can charge the extra to researchers. Or, if China is truly ambitious about becoming one of the biotech powers in the world, the government should subsidize to build a centralized stock room and pay the operation fee. Just some cents. - Feng
For fly researchers, it's even worse. They need do more genetic works using a set of fly strains, which are usually available at Bloomington stock center in U.S. Importing flies from Bloomington generally takes several weeks in Chinese custom and they often died already when they arrived. While it?s said this kind of shipping only takes a few day within U.S. Therefore it only depends on luck whether a student in China can finish his/her work before the competitor in U.S. even he/she works harder.