Even before starting med school, Lourdes Delgado had an interest in tropical medicine. Then, as a medical student, she devised a program to train “citizen scientists”, who report to her on the places where they find chipos, the vector that spreads Chagas disease.

Medical geneticist Venancio Simosa has dedicated his life to studying rare diseases. The country’s crisis has left him without colleagues and students, and without patients who can come to his office. He has had no choice but to continue his work through remote consultations over the phone with other physicians. He is one of the few medical doctors remaining in Venezuela with a specialty that is, at present, as rare as the diseases it studies.