Team:Tec-Monterrey/teamfriends/helphow

Currently, customs regulations in Mexico do not allow quick access for biological material, which includes the kits containing the biobricks sent to each team. This is not a new problem; thus iGEM team Tec-Monterrey 2010 (link) did, as Human Practice, a guide that explained the process, step by step, of importing biological material to Mexico without problems. However, this procedure consists of preparing the documents, sending them to Mexico City and waiting for the response from the pertinent authorities, supposing said documents are not rejected. This procedure may take three months approximately, depending on the location in which the team resides. Generally speaking, this is a procedure that can’t be applied in the case of kits arriving from the United States.

This year, three teams in México had problems with the arriving kits, our friends and colleagues ITESM_Mexico, UANLMty_Mexico and us. After some conversations between the teams and the iGEM Headquters, we decided to obtain the kits and look for an alternative method to get them. We also wanted to help our collegues because we wanted a fair competition, where all teams could have their kits in order to work with them at the beginning at the summer, with the same rules and the same instruments to do our best.

At first, we didn’t know the enormous amount of problems that we would confront with Mexican customs. First, we contacted M. Sc. Manuel Tiscareño, custom manager of FedEx at the Monterrey International Airport FedEx Customs Agency, in order to seek advice and support in obtaining the kits. He gave us tips, support and contacts in order to solve the problem. He also was invited to the Micro Congress carried out by us during the summer in our university.

Because of this contact, a lot of e-mails and some calls, we were able to obtain two kits that were retained in the Mexican customs at the Monterrey International Airport. We gave one kit to the UANLMty-Mexico and we sent the other one to ITESM_Mexico team in the city of Queretaro, Mexico.

We thank the collaboration of Shannon Gmyrek and Vinoo Selvarajah that were also involved in the situation and helped us with the documents required for the discharge of the kits.