Connecting communities to empower single-cell genomics in Latin America

Single-cell approaches enable researchers to identify rare cell types and dissect cellular responses to disease, treatment, and environmental change by revealing the diversity and dynamics that are masked in bulk measurements. It has been particularly impactful in areas such as cancer biology and immunology, where cellular heterogeneity underpins function and pathology. 

More recently, their application has expanded into fields including infectious disease and regenerative medicine, supporting both fundamental discovery and translational research.

At the Earlham Institute, I have applied single-cell approaches in my research since 2018, first as a PhD student, and now as a postdoctoral researcher. Teaching has been a constant thread running through my work, having been involved in delivering single-cell training since my first year of PhD. 

As my expertise grew, I also had the chance to contribute to the Wellcome Connecting Science single-cell courses in Hinxton and at EMBL-EBI, where I first met their training team and my now-colleague, Lia Chappel. I left those courses with a quiet sense that this collaboration would resurface one day, even if I didn’t yet know how.

Teaching single-cell biology in Brazil was certainly not on my bingo card. But, like many of the most meaningful scientific opportunities, it emerged through a mix of the right people crossing paths at just the right moment.

That moment came when an unexpected email from the Wellcome Connecting Science Global Training team landed in my inbox. What followed was a conversation with Dr. Patricia Possik (Pati), an investigator at INCA, on plans to create the first hands-on single-cell course in Latin America, supported by Wellcome Trust, Royal Society and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative funding.

I joined the initial meetings expecting to share advice and help shape the curriculum, assuming that would be the extent of my involvement. It wasn’t until a few meetings in, once funding for the course was confirmed, that Pati turned to me with a smile and said, “Você vem, né?” (“You’re coming, right?”). I of course said yes!

Preparing for the course was intense but exciting. I was balancing it alongside finishing my PhD thesis, so while the timing made the opportunity possible, it definitely took effort to make everything fit! Working with scientists across LatAm, we navigated time zones to plan sessions, develop teaching materials, select participants, and organise the logistics of delivering this training in Brazil.

Arriving in Rio was a real pinch-me moment; returning to Brazil as a scientist stirred a mix of nostalgia, excitement, nerves, and perspective. I left Brazil at eight years of age when my family moved to the UK. Immigrating young has its advantages, you adapt quickly to new cultures and the language, but, in my experience at least, you also end up unconsciously suppressing parts of yourself to fit in. If you come young enough, you grow up with a confused sense of “I belong here… but not fully,” a split identity that becomes part of everyday life. I didn’t expect that incomplete sense of belonging to resurface so strongly in a city I’d never even visited before, but oh boy did it! The course took place in the same city where my parents first met, and where my mum began her career — it felt strangely, and beautifully, full-circle. Being involved in such an impactful project would have been meaningful on its own; returning to my home country to do it made it even more so.

Sentimental feelings aside, from the moment we landed, we had a tight 48-hour sprint to get everything set up before teaching began! Everything became very real and very busy, very fast. Within hours of arriving, I was in the lab meeting the Brazilian team I’d been so excited to see in person, seeing the teaching space for the first time, and dealing with the inevitable pre-course surprises that come with any complex, hands-on training.

The course was a huge success: participants from across LatAm joined us for seven intense days, covering everything from molecular biology theory, to performing single-cell RNA-seq from start to finish and single-cell data bioinformatic analyses.

What I gained from the experience far exceeded my expectations. Beyond new technical skills, I learned how to better communicate with people at very different stages of expertise, some fully computational and others from wet-lab backgrounds, but new to single-cell. I learned how to pace complex ideas, adapt explanations on the fly (sometimes in two languages simultaneously), and teach in a way that builds confidence rather than intimidation.

This experience has helped redefine how I approach teaching, reinforcing approaches that the Earlham Institute already values, such as interactive, discussion-driven sessions grounded in troubleshooting real scenarios. I came back with new ideas that I am already bringing into the courses we deliver at EI, helping to create learning environments that are engaging, supportive, and relevant across career stages.

One of the most exciting outcomes of this experience was seeing the momentum extend far beyond the courses themselves. The organisers — particularly Patricia Possik, Mariana Boroni, David Adams and colleagues — took the initiative to engage directly with the wider LatAm community, gathering perspectives from researchers across six countries through a regional survey designed to map needs, limitations and ambitions in the single-cell space.

This collective effort culminated in a review published in Cell released at the end of last year. The article offers a snapshot of the current single-cell landscape in Latin America, presenting data-backed arguments directly from researchers across the region on the persistent barriers they experience. The limited access to training, equipment and infrastructure means that only 6% of respondents can carry out the full single-cell workflow locally, with most relying on external laboratories or commercial providers. 

Seeing this first-hand brought me a much deeper awareness of the structural challenges facing researchers in LatAm: from cost and geography to the absence of regional reagent suppliers, and how these barriers can marginalise researchers and limit their visibility within the global scientific landscape. What is most striking to me is the contrast between these constraints and the extraordinary talent, creativity and problem-solving instinct I experienced, qualities that outpace those I’ve seen in far better-resourced environments. 

It is clear that equitable access to cutting-edge science does not happen by default; it requires intention, openness and sustained commitment. At a time when single-cell genomics is expanding rapidly worldwide, LatAm’s continued underrepresentation represents a significant missed opportunity, particularly given the potential of single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to address the region’s unique biological diversity and health challenges. Being part of this publication has been a source of enormous pride for me, and it has helped shape the direction I want to take in my future work.