C&EN Washington

Earlier this month, the Republic of Cuba celebrated the 40th anniversary of Fidel Castro's communist revolution. Despite the punishing U.S. economic embargo that has lasted nearly as long, it is a revolution that has survived, often beating the odds placed against it.

Beyond mere survival, there is also a very real sense in Cuba that the revolution has delivered--that untethered from the need to provide food, health care, and other basics, average Cubans today have more freedom to follow individual interests and passions. Gone are the days when their labor mostly served the corrupt Batista regime of the 1950s.

Since 1991, however, this island nation of nearly 11 million people has been locked in what the Communist Party of Cuba euphemistically calls the "special period." The term refers to the loss of economic subsidies from the former Soviet Union: That loss has contributed to as much as a 40% shrinkage of the Cuban economy in the 1990s. Coupled with a tightening of the U.S. embargo in 1996--after two sons of Cuban-American exiles were shot down and killed for invading Cuban airspace--it is a time of hardship that leaves many Cubans hungry at night and vulnerable every day to outbreaks of epidemic disease.

Spare parts for the U.S.-made system that treats most of Cuba's drinking water are no longer available because of the economic embargo. According to the American Association for World Health, the U.S. committee for the World Health Organization, morbidity rates for waterborne diseases in Cuba have doubled since 1989, and dirty water has been linked to rising hospital outbreaks of infections such as sepsis. There were 51 outbreaks in 1995, affecting 349 patients and causing 60 deaths.

Sidebar: Cuba today

The individual who has followed his dreams in this "workers' paradise" today might be a taxi driver who, on a rain-soaked Havana night, explains to a visitor that he is also a cardiologist. "A necessity," he says, tapping his fist lightly on the steering wheel of a rusted junker. "I have to feed my family."

Indeed, economic necessity drives many changes under way in Cuba today. One is an increased focus on diversifying Cuba's agrarian economic base. Along with tourism, nickel mining, and tobacco, Cuba is looking to science--particularly chemistry, biochemistry, and genetic engineering--to rescue its crippled economy from an overdependence on sugarcane. With a variety of new products, attractive marketing materials, and an infectious optimism, Cuban scientists see their work as key to renewed hope for one of the world's last communist systems.

Still, after 40 years of Castro's revolution--which has long promised free-dom from the backbreaking labor demands of the sugar industry--sugar remains the country's primary source of hard currency. Worse, the economics of sugarcane simply do not add up to a self-sustaining economy for Cuba, especially considering the obvious needs of its crumbling infrastructure.

After buoyant predictions for last year's harvest, for example, the Cuban government has announced 1998 crop yields so low that some analysts have placed Cuba's economic growth for the year at or near zero. One U.S. dollar buys about 20 Cuban pesos, and since Castro legalized the use of U.S. dollars in the 1990s, two economies have emerged creating distinct class differences between people who earn dollars--usually from tourism--and those who do not.

Economists--including dissident economists in Cuba--have criticized the Communist Party's sudden shifts in policy that seek new hard-currency inputs, including its efforts in science. They say it is too little, too late--especially after years of squandering Soviet subsidies on what is now an outsized Cuban military and internal security apparatus. Addressing some of the latest efforts in science, a 1997 U.S. State Department report, "The U.S. Embargo and Health Care in Cuba: Myth vs. Reality," accuses the party of "actively developing a closed, parallel health care system for the Communist Party elite, foreign 'health tourists,' and others who can pay in hard currency."

This dark view, however accurate it may be, is difficult to maintain on a tour of Havana's "Western Scientific Pole." Along a looping road near the outskirts of the city, it is a series of 38 scientific facilities staffed by many young scientists from throughout Cuba. The centers--Cuba boasts some 230 research centers nationwide--are devoted to R&D efforts in chemistry; biology; agricultural, industrial, and medical biotechnology; immunology; veterinary medicine; and pharmaceutical chemistry, to name several examples.

Each center is "forward integrated," meaning that R&D, production, and marketing all are carried out under the aegis--if not the very roof--of each center. And each center can work with others as deemed necessary. The aim, says Alberto J. Núñez Sellés, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and president of the Cuban Chemical Society (CCS), is to develop and market products for Cuba as well as for markets in developing countries where large multinational corporations do not dominate.

Already, centers in this scientific pole have developed products such as a vaccine against Type B meningitis that thwarted an outbreak of the disease in Cuba in the 1990s. Cuba is now successfully marketing this vaccine to other nations where children are at risk for contracting the deadly disease. Cuban scientists also have begun testing a vaccine against AIDS, Sellés says, citing another example of a scourge that has exacted most of its grim toll in developing countries.

The first center in Havana's scientific pole, founded in 1965, is the National Center for Scientific Research of Cuba (CNIC, its Spanish acronym). Its broad mission is to solve biomedical and scientific problems that have an economic or social importance to Cuba as well as to develop scientific-technical products that will be competitive in the international market. Lines of research span natural products chemistry, a neuroscience center, an ozone research center, a biotechnology direction, a chemistry direction, and a center for the development of biomedical and scientific equipment.

Sidebar: Ernest Eliel remembers the Cuba of a bygone era

Scientists at CNIC have developed new therapies for speech- and hearing-impaired children; treatments for sleep apnea and psychiatric disorders; the use of ozone to fight germs, speed the healing of wounds, and improve blood circulation; and an anticholera vaccine from techniques in genetic engineering. The center's chemistry division, Sellés says, also has produced materials for the controlled release of pharmaceuticals to treat asthma and chemotherapeutic agents to treat AIDS. Through its Dalmer marketing arm, CNIC is marketing its cholesterol-lowering drug, called PPG, as well as bone and ocular implants made from Cuban coral.

The center also is developing coatings to combat atmospheric and marine corrosion of building materials, and corrosion-resistant concrete--a particular need in Cuba's high-humidity tropical environment. Only one in six buildings is considered in good shape in Old Havana, for example, the result of neglect as well as natural environmental conditions.

At Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (CIGB), Director Manuel Limonta describes the center's humble beginnings in 1981. At the request of President Castro, a small group of scientists, including Limonta, sought to produce leukocyte -interferon, thought to be a possibly effective treatment for cancer. Working from a lab set up in a small house, the team managed to produce the interferon in just 42 days.

Today, Limonta explains, -interferon is better known for its use as an antiviral agent. Nonetheless, a grateful Castro rewarded the team's work with funding for the center that now supports more than 1,000 workers in eight divisions. A portrait of Castro--blowing a cloud of his once-trademark cigar smoke--dominates one wall of the entryway to CIGB's sparkling new building.

The center's laboratories--192 in all--instrument rooms, and groomed campus reflect a large part of Cuba's $1 billion investment in biotechnology in the past 12 years. Its product line, sold through its marketing arm, Herber Biotec, includes a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, a recombinant cattle tick vaccine, a recombinant epidermal growth factor cream, industrial enzymes, restriction and modification enzymes, diagnostic reagents and systems, and monoclonal antibodies. Herber's recombinant streptokinase--a medication used to destroy blood clots--has been patented in the U.S., Limonta says.

In the research pipeline at CIGB, Limonta says, is a possible AIDS vaccine and disease-resistant strains of coffee, papaya, and pineapple plants. And cigar tobacco? "There is no need to produce a new Babe Ruth," he says smiling.

At the Center for Pharmaceutical Chemistry (CQF), Sellés explains, some 200 researchers, graduate students, and technicians work in areas of organic and inorganic chemical synthesis, computer-aided correlation studies on structure-activity relationships, analytical and structural chemistry, biotransformation processes for obtaining bioactive metabolites, microorganism genetics, experimental pharmacology, preclinical toxicological evaluation, scale-up techniques, and process engineering systems.

"We look at products near patent expiration," Sellés explains, "do reverse engineering, and are ready when the patent expires." The most significant product development at CQF is "Q-Ulcer" for the treatment of peptic and duodenal ulcers. The center also has developed anti-inflammatory agents, prostaglandins for veterinary use, and antitumor drugs. The center maintains a minimum rate of one product per year for introduction to the world market, a rate that Sellés says can sustain CQF in dollars.

The economic benefit from such products from all of the research centers dovetails with values long espoused by the revolution. Since 1959--along with food and access to education--the government has emphasized health care for Cubans and other people among the world's poor. Rosa Elena Simeón, the minister of science, technology, and the environment, has said, "When I appraise science, I cannot think only about the millions of dollars it has meant for the country's economy. How do we value the lives of all the children who have not died since the vaccine against the meningococcus was applied?"

Behind all of this scientific activity is the revolution's vaunted educational system that has produced results--in terms of basic literacy and other measures--unparalleled in Latin America and rivaling most developing nations. By some counts, Cuba has trained about 62,000 medical doctors, some of whom recently were dispatched to aid flood relief in devastated Nicaragua and Honduras.

Education of Cuba's best and brightest begins at schools like the Lenin Vocational School near Havana, opened by Castro and former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1974. It is a boarding school--the equivalent of high school in the U.S.--and its 3,300 students are selected by exams and their earlier grades. There are 14 such schools in Cuba.

The Lenin School emphasizes science, but students are allowed to pursue a range of academic studies. They follow a rigorous schedule of study, athletics, and cultural activities that begins at 6 AM and keeps them busy until bedtime at 10 PM. They are allowed some television viewing in the evening, and home visits are possible on weekends. Ninety-five percent of graduates from these schools go on to attend a university.

At the University of Havana, founded in 1728, chemistry is among 14 liberal arts departments. The dean of chemistry, Leslie Yáñez González, earns about $25 a month. Unlike many Cubans who must depend on public transportation or shared rides, she does own a car.

University education is free to qualifying students in Cuba, and it includes textbooks and materials. Textbooks are recycled among students, however, and many textbooks are old and out-of-date--to say nothing of the department's lack of materials and laboratory equipment. The university, González says, relies on donations of textbooks or, when a professor travels, he or she may buy books that can be added to the chemistry library. Internet access and e-mail contacts have eased the situation somewhat, but those are certainly not long-term solutions.

The university also can make money by "renting out" professors to schools in other countries. "We can send a professor out for a semester and get a fax machine in return," González says. Professors who travel with a contract bring in money, and those who travel for research work may come back with a donation. All transportation, lodging, and so forth for any professor's travel must come from invitees or from sources outside the university.

Both students and professors are responsible for a student's success, González says. Because the economic situation limits textbooks and materials, there is a focus on the didactic aspects of education.

After five years of study, students receive a B.A. degree. The government quantifies the number of chemists the university should graduate, which is based on the current needs of Cuba's research centers and institutes. It is much the same system for other science disciplines. In the past 30 years, Sellés estimates, 160,000 people in Cuba have graduated with degrees in chemistry.

Graduating students take comprehensive exams and then are ranked according to their grades. This ranking allows faculty to match students with the various research institutes. Students with the highest ranking have the greatest number of choices in terms of where they will work for the required two years of government service.

Postgraduate study is more complex, especially today. Many faculty members at the University of Havana who spoke with C&EN completed their postgraduate work in the Soviet Union, its satellites, or at European universities. Today, obtaining a visa to travel abroad is difficult--many Cubans don't come back, confided one professor. But lack of money and the need to earn a living are probably among the biggest factors inhibiting postgraduate education. In the end, most chemists who do receive the equivalent of a Ph.D. degree in Cuba are in their late thirties.

Sidebar: A true believer

International interest in Cuban science--particularly in Canada and Western Europe--also has grown. In part, that is because Cuban scientists have been forced to work around the constraints of the U.S. embargo. Advanced scientific instruments built in the U.S. or marketed by U.S. companies, for example, are prohibited from sale to Cuba. More than one Cuban chemist told C&EN of "traveling to the equipment" or spending large amounts of money to obtain reagents or other chemicals that could be had for far less--if only nearby U.S. companies could sell them in Cuba. Rather than isolate Cuban scientists, the embargo has instead often drawn sympathetic attention to their plight.

In February 1997, five Cuban chemists were barred from entering and attending a scientific meeting in the U.S. According to Zafra M. Lerman, chair of the American Chemical Society Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom & Human Rights, at a meeting with State Department officials in May 1997 to sort out the situation, the officials told her and representatives from other scientific societies that they were wary of the Cubans' description as "quantum chemists," and thus entry to the U.S. was denied.

More recently, a group of U.S. scientists who sought licenses from the U.S. Treasury Department to spend money in Cuba to attend an international biotechnology meeting were first encouraged only to have their hopes dashed by Treasury officials as the date of the meeting drew near.

When canceling his registration and apologizing to Cuban colleagues, one of the would-be participants wrote in an e-mail message (a copy of which was provided to C&EN): "It is such a stupid policy. . . . Most people now feel as I do that it is now very risky to attempt to come to Cuba since if discovered by the State Department they could direct the [National Institutes of Health] or [the National Science Foundation] to stop our funding (end of career in science) as well as place high fines on us and force us to defend ourselves legally, which could cost a lot in lawyers' fees."

On the other hand, several U.S. chemists--including Lerman, who is a professor of science and head of the Institute for Science Education & Science Communication at Columbia College of Chicago--were granted licenses allowing them to attend the 3rd International Cuban Chemical Congress, held Dec. 1-4 in Havana, but only after Lerman fired off a round of letters to various U.S. legislators demanding Treasury Department action.

The U.S. chemists' trip was organized by Lerman with considerable assistance from John M. Malin, who heads the ACS Office of International Activities. With Lerman were Pratibha Varma-Nelson, Babu George, David A. Katz, and Morton Z. Hoffman--all members of the ACS Division of Chemical Education.

The Cuban Chemical Congress, cosponsored by the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry, drew more than 400 attendees from around Latin America. More than 643 papers were presented on a wide range of topics, including education, history of chemistry, environmental chemistry, chemistry in biology, and chemistry as a basic science. An opening ceremony, which included a presentation of Cuban music, was followed by a talk by Sellés called "Present Situation of Science in Cuba: Results & Perspectives."

For all of their time, effort, and frustration--one license to travel to Cuba was rejected by the U.S. Treasury Department on the first try--most members of the U.S. group departed Havana glad they had gone.

Paul H. L. Walter, who was ACS president when he attended the December congress, concluded that "The blockade does bad things for the U.S. and the Cuban people, and Castro and Canada win." He was referring to the fact that much of the business the Cuban government could conduct in the U.S. is done in Canada instead.

Among the many critics of U.S. policy toward Cuba and its impact on scientific collaboration, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)--a member of the House Science Committee who recently traveled to Havana with a delegation of the National Medical Association--has questioned the constitutionality of the travel restrictions. "Scientists should have a right to travel," she says emphatically.

Despite Cuba's achievements in chemistry and other disciplines and the impressive creativity of its scientists at a time of such dire economic and political straits, at least one chemistry Nobel Laureate, Herbert A. Hauptman, president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., nonetheless describes chemistry in Cuba as "backward." That state, he says, is because of the lack of advanced scientific equipment, including the X-ray crystallography equipment he invented along with Nobel corecipient, chemist Jerome Karle of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. "In all of Cuba, there is not one of these instruments," he said at a press conference during the recent Cuban Chemical Congress. "In the U.S., by comparison, there must be hundreds of these instruments."

Walter has a somewhat different take. Impressed with the rigor of the Cuban educational system, he says, "U.S. students must compete with those of Cuba, Germany, Singapore, and so on, if they are to succeed." He does criticize an overreliance on theory in the teaching of chemistry in Cuba--doubtless a condition of its overall lack of money and materials for experimental work.

Gabriel A. Infante, president of the Latin American Federation of Chemical Associations and a professor of chemistry at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, describes Cuban chemistry as "okay," but he, too, criticizes Cuba's chemistry education. He points out the lack of textbooks and the teaching of methods in analytical chemistry that are at least 15 years old. "The most important thing is they have the people to do it," he says. "It's just that they need help."

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Copyright © 1999 American Chemical Society