Natural Science Forum / Biology / Microbiology / May 2004

My friends and I are collecting teaching supplies to send to the
Microbiology Department at the University of Dar Es Salaam (UDS) in
Tanzania.  They are in need of textbooks, reference books and
laboratory supplies.  As you can imagine, in developing countries where
the average person lives on a few dollars a day, $150 textbooks are out
of reach of students and even professors.  The current biochemistry
class for 20+ students has one textbook.  Students can sometimes borrow
it for a few hours, but never overnight.

For next semester (starting in October 04) we have received UDS requests
for the following:

Books
* several copies of Biochemistry by Stryer (1995 or later)
* several copies of Principles of Biochemistry by Lehninger (1993 or later)
* several copies Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts (1994 or later)
* several Biotechnology textbooks
* teaching CDs
* one Genomes by Brown 2nd edition
* one Biology by Campbell 6th edition
* one Bioinformatics and Genome analysis (Vol 38) edited by Mewes
* one Biology of Microorganisms-Brock (10th edition, or 9th)
* plus other books on Microbiology, Biotechnology, Molecular Biology,
Genomes,  Bioinformatics

We have already bought some copies of Stryer, Lehninger and Alberts
on eBay, and we are sending them via USPS mailbag shipments to UDS.
This costs about $1/lb and takes 8-10 weeks, so these heavy textbooks cost
about $8 each to ship to Africa.

LAB SUPPLIES
Right now the UDS teaching budget is so tight that in the labs
they try to reuse tips and work in groups of three.  In order
to give the students "hands on"experience, UDS would like
to reduce the groups to two at most.  The UDS Microbiology
Department has given us this list of  their lab needs
for their October 2004 semester (15 weeks) of classes:

1) 1.5 ml Eppendorf (microtubes) tubes with safe locks - 20 packs @ 250 pcs
2) 200 microliter tips (yellow tips) - 20 pack @ 250pcs
3) 1000 microliter tips (blue tips) - 20 packs @ 250 pcs
4) white tips for pipetting 1-5 microlitre - 15 packs @ 500 pcs
5) Micropipettes, adjustable ( Hamilton or any other):
- 1000 microliter - 5 pcs
- 100 microliter - 5 pcs
- 20 microliter - 5 pcs
6) PCR Ready to Go beads  with the following specifications:
- Pure Taq-TM Ready-To-Go- Tm PCR Beads (27-9558-01) made in USA
- 0.5 ml about 300 tubes required.
7) As for the bench wracks, we need those that can accommodate both 1.5
ml  and 2.0 ml Eppendorf tubes.
8) Floating wracks for water bath incubations ( for Eppendorf tubes)
9) one tube of each restriction enzyme plus their buffer
The 3 restriction enzymes needed are
Hind III, Hinf I, Hae III with their buffers.
10) one tube of  T4 ligase

We have contacted some chemical supply companies and have
quotes for shipping these items to UDS in September just before
the next semester starts.  However, we are looking donations of
any of these items.  The Roel Nusse laboratory
in the School of Medicine at Stanford generously donated some spare
and refurbished lab supplies, and we have already made one shipment
of these lab supplies that has been received at UDS.  We are now
looking for new or refurbishable adjustable micropipettes, especially.

We are setting up a non profit(501)(3)(c) corporation
for tax deductible donations, but we do not expect to
get that status for several months.  If we do, we understand
that any previous contributions would be grandfathered.

If you send us any books, you may want to use
USPS "media mail" for the lowest cost book rate.
Even heavy textbooks can be mailed for less than $5.
Let us know if you need reimbursement for shipping.

And let us know if you need any more details about this
project.

David Saum
DSaum@infiltec.com
Richard Saum Foundation
108 South Delphine Avenue
Waynesboro, VA 22980
703-820-7696