The new U.S. policy on Cuba is holding back science collaborations that can accelerate by years the development of early detection and treatment technologies for such diseases as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
of her departure at the end of December, Sablón said her “research goal was reached with the use of a radionuclide produced at WUSTL,” and she and her U.S. colleagues hoped to publish an article on the research to share their findings with other pioneers in the field.
Other Cuban researchers scheduled to work in U.S. labs through the AAAS Cuban Biomedical Fellows program are unfortunately blocked from obtaining visas in Cuba, after a change in U.S. policy occurred in late September with the hardening stance of President Trump toward the island nation and reports by U.S. embassy officials in Havana of having suffered mysterious health problems of unknown origin.
The AAAS program to bring Cuban medical researchers to work alongside their U.S. counterparts grew out of a long-standing history of scientific collaboration between the two nations and an agreement signed by AAAS and the Cuban Academy in 2014 to work together despite political obstacles on research important to the populations of both countries.
Darel Martínez is a researcher at Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology, which has pioneered cancer antibodies and vaccines approved in several countries around the world. At the end of 2016, he was chosen to be a AAAS Cuban Biomedical Fellow in the lab of U.S. immunotherapy expert Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania. His goal is to work on the design of a chimeric antigen receptor T cell to target a protein that plays a role in tumor development.
Agreeing, Avery Posey, associate director of the June Lab, explained that Martínez has an expertise in the biology and antibody targeting of epidermal growth factor receptors, the main technology behind his institution’s cancer vaccine. The Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, has expertise in the development of T cell immunotherapies that are built from parts of therapeutic antibodies. “We are not sure what the outcomes will be of this collaboration,” said Posey, “but one hope is that Cuba can figure out ways to drive down the manufacturing costs of CAR T cells.” CAR T cell therapy can cost cancer patients upward of $350,000 for a one-time dose.
Unfortunately, Martínez has been thwarted from coming to collaborate with June’s lab. After working through “a mountain of emails, immigration paperwork and contracts,” said Posey, Martínez received immigration documents and the lab paid fees for a visa interview in September.
He was waiting for that interview to take place at the U.S. embassy in Havana when Hurricane Irma hit Cuba, and the consular section of the embassy was closed. When it reopened, the U.S. policy prohibiting issuing visas to Cuban citizens in Cuba had been instituted. On instructions from the U.S. State Department, Martínez must travel to a visa interview in a third country to enter the United States, and lab officials are hoping he will arrive in February.
Cuban cancer researchers Tays Hernández and Janoi Chang have also been blocked in their attempt to participate in the AAAS Cuban Biomedical Fellows program. The two were to have arrived in Boston by early this year to work with researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital, using molecules made in Cuba that show promise in the development of new drugs and imaging tools for cancer therapy and autoimmune or inflammatory diseases. They have been unable, however, to even begin the visa application process.
A version of this article appeared in AAAS News & Notes in the January 26, 2018, issue of Science.