The precursor to the Sustainable Sciences Institute formed in 1988 as the Applied Molecular Biology/Appropriate Technology Transfer Program (AMB/ATT). This group of young researchers craved the opportunity to wield their scientific knowledge in a way that would make a real difference in the lives of people who needed it most. Led by Eva Harris and Josefina Coloma (SSI’s current President and Executive Director), the AMB/ATT crafted customized training workshops for over a decade, where they taught molecular biology-based disease diagnosis and epidemiology to researchers and educators in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guatemala. They simplified and adapted technologies to the limited resource settings where they worked and channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated laboratory equipment, supplies, and reagents to Latin American researchers and institutions.

Most importantly AMB/ATT formed lasting partnerships with those they mentored and in doing so, sowed the seeds of future cooperation for research and public health programs that are still yielding results to this day.

In 1997, Eva Harris was awarded a MacArthur Genius Fellowship for this work, which led to an expansion of the AMB/ATT and the founding of SSI a year later.

To read more about SSI’s impact throughout the years you can view our previous Annual Reports