HOW TO ISL

The In Situ Laboratory Initiative (ISL) was conceptualized in 2020, commenced in 2021  in Peru, to shift the needle back towards a less centralized solution for One Health research and ecosystem monitoring. Specifically, the ISL aims to give local scientists and in-country stakeholders the capacity to become independent contributors to research on wildlife population sustainability, pathogen emergence/spread, environmental toxicology, etc., by establishing sustainable, modern molecular laboratory hubs where resources are lacking. In the last decade, barriers associated with the high costs of genetic sequencing, concerns with perishable chemical reagents, inability to access computational resources, and absence of automation technologies have reduced substantially (REF). TRANSITION

For the past two years, we have systematically demonstrated that by making smart choices with limited resources, a high-throughput and reliable molecular field laboratory can be set-up and operated sustainably inside the Amazon rainforest; the same place where for centuries people have come to “collect and take home.” Consequently, surveys for coronavirus, molecular classification of wildlife communities, testing for parasites in livestock boarding natural protected areas, and population genetics monitoring of Amazonian species – comparable to studies of wolves and mountain lions of North America – can all happen in-country, close to the site of sample collection, with less expense and time wasted. The ISL hub in Peru now serves as the model for biosurveillance programs in development in four additional countries, across two additional continents (Figure 1).

In this document, we share what we have learned about creating an in situ laboratory, hopeful that our example and the decentralized ISL model are broadly appealing and helpful to researchers and in-country institutional stakeholders in other parts of South and Central America, Africa, and Asia Pacific.