A University of Toronto team has built a suite of portable, low-cost biotechnology tools that allow researchers anywhere in the world to produce high-quality biological materials without traditional lab infrastructure — no cold chain required.
A research team at the University of Toronto has developed a platform of affordable, portable biotechnology tools capable of producing research-grade biological materials in settings as remote as a mountain outside Whitehorse, Yukon — no cold storage, no specialized infrastructure needed.
The findings, published May 29 in Science Advances, outline how freeze-dried reagents paired with compact hardware could break the dependency many scientists in low- and middle-income countries have on costly, unreliable international supply chains.
The Problem With the Status Quo
For researchers in resource-limited settings, sourcing lab supplies is a persistent bottleneck. Reagents often require refrigeration throughout shipping, customs delays can stretch for weeks, and a single damaged shipment can bring an entire project to a standstill.
Senior author Keith Pardee, an professor at University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, has experienced those frustrations alongside his international collaborators.
“For labs in low- and middle-income countries, access to high-quality supplies and equipment is a chronic problem,” Pardee said in a news release. “Shipping can take a long time, it’s expensive, and products often require a cold chain to retain their effectiveness. This research is in response to those challenges to develop tools that are more accessible for labs in lower-resource settings and improve research equity.”
How the Technology Works
The platform centers on synthetic biology and cell-free systems — techniques that extract and freeze-dry the molecular machinery cells use to manufacture proteins. When researchers need to use the reagents, they simply rehydrate them with water, bypassing the refrigeration requirements that make conventional reagents difficult to transport and store in warm or remote climates.
The team also developed low-cost hardware to complement the biological components. Co-author Mohammad Simchi, a postdoctoral fellow in Pardee’s lab, designed a 3D-printed, hand-powered centrifuge — a device that typically costs thousands of dollars — making it possible to process samples without access to electricity or expensive equipment.
Together, these tools allowed research teams to manufacture a range of proteins used in life sciences, develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate that was subsequently tested in mice, and build diagnostic tools for several clinically relevant pathogens, all outside conventional laboratory settings.
Testing Across Continents and Climates
One of the study’s most distinctive features is just how broadly the platform was put to the test. First author Severino Jefferson Ribeiro da Silva, a postdoctoral fellow in Pardee’s lab, evaluated diagnostic tools for tick-borne pathogens and tuberculosis in Ontario’s Algonquin Highlands. Co-author Quinn Matthews, a graduate student in Pardee’s lab, traveled to the Yukon, where he successfully produced and purified proteins using the portable system on a mountain near Whitehorse.
Internationally, collaborators in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and India ran parallel experiments, ensuring the tools held up under the practical constraints those regions present. That global testing was central to the project’s credibility.
“Our work shows that it is possible to produce high-value bioreagents on site, essentially anywhere,” da Silva said in the news release. “Through this work, we demonstrated our tools across diverse international settings while maintaining performance comparable to commercial products.”
The research team didn’t just observe supply chain fragility from a distance — they lived it. Customs holdups and shipments of damaged reagents disrupted their own workflow during the project.
“Those experiences highlighted how dependent many researchers and labs still are on fragile international supply chains. If a shipment is delayed, an entire project can stop,” da Silva added. “This work makes it possible to reduce that dependency by enabling local production of key proteins directly at the point of need.”
Why It Matters for Students and Early-Career Researchers
For students entering the life sciences — particularly those working at institutions in Latin America, South Asia or other regions where supply chain issues are endemic — this kind of decentralized manufacturing model could fundamentally change what research is possible on a given budget or in a given location.
The platform is not aimed at replacing fully equipped research hospitals or pharmaceutical companies. Instead, it targets the vast middle ground of university labs, public health agencies, and field researchers who have the scientific expertise but lack consistent access to the materials they need to do their work.
“This work is really about access and scientific empowerment,” added da Silva. “Many labs worldwide have the expertise and ideas to conduct life sciences and applied science research, but they face major challenges accessing key bioreagents and essential materials. Decentralized biomanufacturing could help reduce those barriers and make research and diagnostics more accessible globally.”
The long-term vision from the Pardee lab is to help institutions in remote and underserved regions produce diagnostics and research reagents locally, reducing vulnerability to future disruptions — whether from pandemics, geopolitical tensions, or logistical bottlenecks — while strengthening the scientific capacity of communities that have historically been left out of global biomedical progress.
Source: University of Toronto – Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy