Sir

Your news feature “Blooms in the Desert” (Nature 416, 120–122; 2002) focused on chinks of light against a gloomy backdrop of poor or nonexistent science funding. We, writing on behalf of the Islamic Global Health Network (http://islamicprevention.homestead.com), believe the critical element is the need to build Arabic scientific human capital, by building communities of Arab scientists.

Funding is important of course, but improving science training is more so, to unlock creativity and innovation. We in the field of epidemiology are in the process of making this real through the establishment of a global information-sharing Arab network, a model that can easily be followed for other scientific disciplines. The Internet is growing fast in Arab countries, so this can be used for collaborating and training, conserving scarce resources.

We are in the process of developing an Arabic 'Supercourse' of free-access PowerPoint lectures for instructors (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/ighn.htm) as part of our global supercourse project, now consisting of more than 700 quality-controlled lectures from 118 countries (see Nature Med. 6, 358, 2000). We are translating the Supercourse lectures into Arabic and providing special, continuously updated lectures precisely describing health issues in various Arab countries. So far, 130 Arab scientists are collaborating to translate, share lectures and build an Arabic scientific Supercourse.

Through Supercourse, we are trying to raise the quality of research and teaching in Arab institutions, ending the isolation of Arab scientists through greater Internet interaction with non-Arab countries. We want to bring brilliant young people from Arab countries into science, both locally and globally.