tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73487437318429691132024-03-13T00:53:49.102+01:00SciTech GistScience and Technology Advancing Everyday Life
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-2360390545641835932017-07-16T03:29:00.000+01:002017-07-16T03:29:58.763+01:00How Can Nigerian Health Tech Startups Build Sustainable Businesses?<span id="docs-internal-guid-c462c6d5-4920-eb01-4ad5-2de59d9c0de2"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtl6q4mkIclqA54qinnXBaCLvviQtC1_uX8zLUpdeS44Mv2d_my56WRdIjv3GeUbbch9cYjgERa_tJE9-eLuEQPfkPXSu0eaDLCpGDcUAOTiGL9K1xfm-EFwy_t-6EQrtuSXO5E40Je0O/s1600/Health+Tech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="digital health in Africa" border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="1200" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtl6q4mkIclqA54qinnXBaCLvviQtC1_uX8zLUpdeS44Mv2d_my56WRdIjv3GeUbbch9cYjgERa_tJE9-eLuEQPfkPXSu0eaDLCpGDcUAOTiGL9K1xfm-EFwy_t-6EQrtuSXO5E40Je0O/s320/Health+Tech.jpg" title="healthcare and technology" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Health Meets Tech</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Between the 30th of June and 2nd of July, medical doctors, software developers, graphic designers, business development guys and many others gathered at the </span><a href="http://cchubnigeria.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Co-creation Hub</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Yaba, Lagos for a hackathon called "</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Health Meets Tech</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">" which was organized by a partnership of </span><a href="http://digitalhealth.com.ng/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Digital Health Nigeria</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="http://www.epiafric.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EpiAfric</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and covered by the </span><a href="http://nigeriahealthwatch.com/the-emergence-of-a-vibrant-health-tech-ecosystem-in-nigeria/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nigeria Health Watch</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Throughout the 3-day period 5 different teams, each comprising of medical doctors and other healthcare workers, software developers, graphic designers, business people and so on, worked on an idea that would </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>leverage technology to improve an aspect of healthcare in Nigeria</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I joined the program on the second and final day during which I went round to interact with each of the teams on what they were building. My interaction focused on the healthcare problem each team was trying to solve; whether this healthcare problem was a recurring pain point for the target market; the willingness of the target market to pay for the solution that was being built to address the healthcare problem; whether the business is for profit or a social enterprise; and the sustainability of the model on which the business will be built.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: white;"><br class="kix-line-break" /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Nigeria has a population of over 170 million people</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with almost 80% of this number living below poverty line: they have a very low spending power because most are not gainfully employed. This means the majority of the population place utmost priority to their immediate, recurring needs (and different means through which they can be empowered to immediately provide these needs) which are food, clothing and shelter; every other need, including healthcare surprisingly, is only given priority when the line between life and death becomes blurry. Therefore, businesses, especially for-profit ones, focusing on problems outside of these 3 immediate and recurring needs will have to be built around a sustainable model in order to survive. It is very exciting to dream up and build a cool idea that leverages technology to solve a particular healthcare problem; but reality dawns when the average Nigerian on the street, who reflects over 70% of the population, is asked to pay for this idea which is now a product or service. If it does not, in any way that is direct and clearly understood, bring food to the table or put money into the pocket, this person on the street will likely expect it to be free, and, to your surprise, give you his or her explanation of why it should be free: "if there is need for you to be given money for the health tech product or service you built, God will provide" (now that was what some Nigerian who wanted use the service of a health tech startup I worked with some time ago told me).</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, the question is how can anyone building a health tech product or service ensure they have a sustainable business model that will keep them in business in years to come in this part of the world where the majority of the population have a low spending power. In other words, how can the health tech product or service, built to start making profit after a certain period, get these people to willingly and regularly pay to use it? What I discuss here are not some golden rules and are not encompassing; they are my opinions as a medical doctor and are based on the little experience I gathered and observational analyses I made while working with a health tech startup over a short period of time and the discussions I had with people like </span><a href="https://ng.linkedin.com/in/ikpemeneto" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dr. Ikpeme Neto</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of Digital Health Nigeria. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For business to customer health tech startups, the terrain is much rougher, especially in this part of the world, when it comes to building anything that will ensure a recurring revenue from end-users. Establishing a recurring revenue model may require:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Partnership with Established Physical Health Institutions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While many hospitals may be slow at adopting innovations in technology into their operations, some may be open to partnerships with startups who are using technology to streamline access to solutions to certain healthcare problems which different segments of their patient base (end-users) find exhausting to access through the normal manual hospital protocols. Hence, it is left for anyone venturing into the health tech space to figure out a defined pattern behind access to solutions for these regular health care problems that constantly bring people to the hospital. The next step is to build the health tech product or service, or fine-tune an existing one, around this defined pattern and show with numbers how it is going to benefit the healthcare institution in terms of operational cost and possibly more clients. This model can also apply to pharmacies, fitness centres, physical rehabilitation centres, medical laboratories and so on, with revenue coming to the health tech startup on a per-end-user basis in form of a commission on what each user pays to the healthcare institution.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Working with the Health Insurance Sub-sector</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another way to secure a sustainable revenue model for health tech startups is through building products or services that serve the healthcare needs, especially preventive or non-urgent healthcare, of people with any form of health insurance, be it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>NHIS, HMO or community-based health insurance</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and working with health insurance players to pay a sustainable amount whenever an enrollee makes use of the product or service. This model is likely going to take a long time to achieve in this part of the world hence, it should form one of the cores of the business from the onset. Again, the success of this model will depend on its ability to save the health insurance companies money over a period of time: will it lead to their enrollees adopting a healthy lifestyle which ensures they go to hospitals less frequently? Will it it inculcate into their enrollees a culture of seeking healthcare immediately any health symptoms are noticed for prompt treatment to avoid complications with huge hospital bills? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, health tech startups can take the B2B route where they build technology-powered products or services for other businesses in the healthcare industry. However, the work for the health tech startup lies in identifying strategic operational processes in hospitals, pharmacies, fitness centres, medical labs and so on which technology can significantly improve in terms of saving time and money and improving clients' user experience. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The spending power of the larger segment of Nigeria's population is tied to their socioeconomic status which, currently and unfortunately, is still at the lower end of the spectrum. Profit-oriented health tech startups should not get lost in the illusion of the awesomeness of their ideas, products or services. While it is good to be excited about that cool mobile health app you are building it is wise to also factor in how you are going to get its target market to pay you, on a sustainable basis, right from the onset if you intend to make a business out of it in the years to come. You should also have a rough idea of how the business will scale both in users, iteration and revenue if you have any plans of raising money from investors within and outside Nigeria.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like I said earlier these are my opinions and they are not encompassing. We need more discussions on business sustainability of health tech startups in emerging markets like Nigeria from others in the health tech space; there may also be a need to have a meetup where established entrepreneurs can come to share their insights with people building health tech products and services in Nigeria.</span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm a medical doctor who is passionate about leveraging technology to improve healthcare in Africa. I worked briefly with </span><a href="https://www.kangpe.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kangpe Healthcare Services</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a Nigerian health tech startup which was part of the</span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/17/kangpe-is-a-mobile-service-connecting-africa-to-healthcare/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> last winter batch of Y Combinator's business acceleration program</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Silicon Valley. Now seeking a new, exciting and challenging opportunity in the health tech/digital health space.</span></span></div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-37477420150531486622016-10-03T12:33:00.000+01:002016-10-03T23:31:44.310+01:00The Need for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Nigeria's Tertiary Institutions <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to the late <b>Nelson Mandela</b>, <i>education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world</i>. This is very true at every level of education, beginning from the formative stage (basic education) where a solid foundation is laid; but the most evident manifestation of this Nelson Mandela quote is seen at the tertiary level. Tertiary education provides a platform which enables any individual to harness the foundational principles acquired during their formative education stages to learn and develop specialized knowledge, with the sole purpose of creating a new value chain whose applications make far-reaching progressive impacts on the society. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJN1lRY147UaO0Fkp-r7HESmK6yf485G_8ZIyp4vSXaKz1qpGMhJYIta5OBoFIwsp5rHbTDqUhEXeUSv-64DCPCyxVlZmhLJh2dEUylUKZwGp58q4-_cs2XdZJF2_nZiufLEpgXbBYv4Gg/s1600/Is-innovation-and-entrepreneurship-inspiration-or-hard-work-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="creativity and innovation" border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJN1lRY147UaO0Fkp-r7HESmK6yf485G_8ZIyp4vSXaKz1qpGMhJYIta5OBoFIwsp5rHbTDqUhEXeUSv-64DCPCyxVlZmhLJh2dEUylUKZwGp58q4-_cs2XdZJF2_nZiufLEpgXbBYv4Gg/s320/Is-innovation-and-entrepreneurship-inspiration-or-hard-work-21.jpg" title="Innovation and Entrepreneurship" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://manishjha.net/2015/05/21/7-catalysts-innovation-and-creativity-at-work/" target="_blank">What and which places spark and drive innovation?</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hence, one of the fundamental aims of tertiary education is the creation of new value chains. This means that tertiary education, in its true calling, does not produce individuals who end up in different industries/sectors of the economy doing only routine jobs that require no form of human ingenuity and creativity. In its pure form, tertiary education institutions are the centers of innovation and creativity, with teaching methodology and curricula constantly adjusting to the socioeconomic dynamics of their environment and the world at large. This very attribute has characterized world-class tertiary institutions like <b>MIT</b>, <b>Harvard</b>, <b>Stanford</b>, <b>Cambridge</b>, <b>Oxford</b>, the University of California campuses, and so on because at the heart of their ever-adapting curricula and teaching models lies creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.<br />
<a name='more'></a>These institutions pattern their curricula after current, and even future, real world problems that require breakthrough solutions, with students being taught, mentored, guided and supervised by faculty, in collaboration with leading players in different industries providing solutions to problems, to come up with and work on innovative ideas that will birth these breakthrough solutions. The students are motivated to study not necessarily because they want to score highly in exams, which passively happens, but by the possible impact any innovative solutions they create may have. The result of this form of teaching and learning at the tertiary education level is the production of graduates who are not only sound in their respective academic fields but are also creators of innovative solutions to real world problems and who go on to create and add new value chains to their society, whether they establish companies or take up jobs in already established ones.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unfortunately, tertiary institutions in Nigeria are at an immeasurable distance behind the above-highlighted attribute of tertiary education. Curricula, teaching methodology, facilities and even faculty teaching models and advisory/mentorship platforms are many decades behind in meeting the threshold training capability and capacity demands of current real world challenges and problems: students only memorize outdated concepts to pass exams; embark on shallow adventures (which are just replication of dust-laden research endeavours whose real-world problem-solving applications have long fizzled out) in the name of degree research projects which their institutions certify; and the majority of their faculty mentor them to follow old, traditional and conventional career paths along which most of these students end up doing routine tasks in their places of work (healthcare, oil and gas, finance, legal, engineering, agriculture and many other industries) which can and will easily be taken over by automation software and robots powered by<b> Artificial Intelligence</b> (well, this will happen during and after the <b><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond" target="_blank">Fourth Industrial Revolution</a>)</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s the way out for Nigerian tertiary institutions? A massive review of academic curricula across institutions and the creation of courses that are oriented towards solving current real world problems; retraining of academic faculty in dynamic teaching models that adapt to both students’ unique learning techniques and the changing nature of socio-economic demands of the world outside the four walls of academia; strong collaboration between tertiary institutions and leading players in various industries of the economy; and partnership with leading tertiary institutions around the world. Another very important step which must be taken by our tertiary institutions is the introduction of what I call the entrepreneurship and innovation dimension for every field of study: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gTEmwa4ORY" target="_blank">Mrs. Ibukun Awosika, the Chairman of FirstBank Nigeria Limited, shares this same opinion</a>. This means that every student in any tertiary institution will take real world problem-driven courses in entrepreneurship and innovation as regards their field of study; for instance, medical students will take courses patterned around devising innovative ideas/solutions to very critical problems facing medicine and healthcare practice and delivery in Nigeria and how these innovative ideas/solutions can be turned into features, products or services and companies; the same goes for law, theatre arts, economics, sociology, physics, agriculture or engineering students. Together with this entrepreneurship and innovation dimension course model, tertiary institutions can establish innovation labs, similar to the <a href="https://i-lab.harvard.edu/explore/about/" target="_blank">Harvard University Innovation Lab</a>, on their campuses to nurture students whose innovative ideas/solutions have strong potential for commercial success in the form of products or services; and they can also partner with established business incubators in the country like the <i><a href="http://cchubnigeria.com/" target="_blank">Co-Creation Hub Nigeria</a></i>, and international business incubators/accelerators like <b><a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/" target="_blank">Y Combinator</a></b> in Silicon Valley, California, USA, to ensure a smooth translation of classroom work, field projects and early innovative idea/solution prototypes into real world problem-solving products and services that will likely go on to become successful national and international companies/brands. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxV4FWw9ELCI7X_VbJB-OnPrBq96iPlneW1QSwVQGidhxN_F8nyCBIGzVDgJFZbYRWJwdcY28grxrWcg6pXXskaDLYJFxgy3abUQ0sumyddIOq6tALaMLKKhGQVs6tJ-g8AltTtRl93Y0L/s1600/Harvard_i-lab_Stock_Cover-photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="innovation and entrepreneurship " border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxV4FWw9ELCI7X_VbJB-OnPrBq96iPlneW1QSwVQGidhxN_F8nyCBIGzVDgJFZbYRWJwdcY28grxrWcg6pXXskaDLYJFxgy3abUQ0sumyddIOq6tALaMLKKhGQVs6tJ-g8AltTtRl93Y0L/s320/Harvard_i-lab_Stock_Cover-photo.jpg" title="Harvard i-lab" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i-lab.harvard.edu/" target="_blank">Harvard University Innovation Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To achieve this, a lot of dedicated and sustained effort and collaboration between the institutions, the public and private industries and the government will be needed at an unprecedented level; and it will take time. But the benefits cannot be quantified. One of the first and immediate benefit is that Nigerian tertiary institutions will become innovation factories producing individuals armed with the most sought-after, indispensable and irreplaceable skills needed by innovative companies across the planet, according to a <i><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/" target="_blank">2016 World Economic Forum report</a></i>, even if the majority of their graduates decides to work for already established companies. In addition, and even more profoundly, some graduates of these remodeled tertiary institutions will enter the real world with breakthrough solutions to problems affecting hundreds of millions of people and create products and services, and in the long run, companies that will create new value chains and add significant value to both the Nigerian and global economy. This projection is something that is already in play in places like the US. According to the <i><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond" target="_blank">2016 Reuters top 100: the world’s most innovative universities</a></i>, Stanford University, which made the top spot for the second time a row, is described as consistently innovating both at the student and faculty level; for the records, the ideas behind <b>Google</b>, <b>Instagram</b>, <b>Snapchat</b>, Hewlett Packard (HP) were conceived and developed by Stanford University alumni while they were still students (undergraduate or postgraduate), and the University, through its faculty and networks, played important roles at the pre-incubation phases of these now multi-billion dollar companies. A study carried out by the University in 2012 estimated that all the companies founded by Stanford entrepreneurs generate about $2.7 trillion in annual revenue; and according to the latest <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/02/stanford-mit-lead-in-graduating-funded-startup-founders/" target="_blank">Techcrunch CrunchBase report,</a> released earlier today, on US university-affiliated startup companies which received funding from investors this year, Stanford University was the undisputed leader, with more than 225 startup companies whose founders are products of the University <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhED3fZJ44vZv87hXtywkfIbzV-2ILjDC8IUzuIbV5CX2HQWTOP7gaYo74NdZ4V-m6u6jKvUkf6EnQgnxHHGzoiNoJnWhJLn01KDE3zYc-d05cOxSDvwTVYqzzi-CRHuwSKwXNBOi1a-5Rv/s1600/Stanford-University-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Stanford entrepreneurs" border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhED3fZJ44vZv87hXtywkfIbzV-2ILjDC8IUzuIbV5CX2HQWTOP7gaYo74NdZ4V-m6u6jKvUkf6EnQgnxHHGzoiNoJnWhJLn01KDE3zYc-d05cOxSDvwTVYqzzi-CRHuwSKwXNBOi1a-5Rv/s320/Stanford-University-1.jpg" title="Stanford University " width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">Stanford University</a>, 2016 Reuters world's most innovative university </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine if Nigerian tertiary institutions, after undergoing this proposed innovation-oriented remodelling, could produce innovators and entrepreneurs whose companies can generate (collectively at the national and global level) just 10% of this Stanford amount, $270 billion; imagine the impact of $270 billion (about N108 trillion at current exchange rate) in annual revenue on Nigeria’s economy—the jobs that will be created, the hundreds of thousands of people who will be lifted out of poverty every year. <i><b>Nigeria in economic recession </b></i>will be a thing buried in the mist of history. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From an individual perspective and for someone who will soon enter the real world, the medical/healthcare industry, as a medical doctor, I don’t intend to spend my entire life on traditional, conventional career paths: there are so many pain points that tens of millions of Nigerians, and hundreds of millions more worldwide, face almost on a daily basis as regards therapeutic modalities, healthcare delivery, availability, accessibility and affordability—and there’s a limit to what sitting in the clinic taking patient history, carrying out complete physical examination, interpreting investigation results and administering different treatment modalities (medical and surgical) can do for these tens and hundreds of millions of people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What about you? As a young engineer, computer science grad, lawyer or even someone who has worked for so many years in the civil service, do you intend to spend your entire active/productive life on traditional, conventional, innovation-starved career paths? As individuals, young Nigerians, we can help ignite this innovation revolution by constantly engaging in meaningful conversation on the importance of creativity and innovation in our education system; curiously questioning the old, out-dated ways of doing things in our fields of study in the tertiary institutions and in the workplace; and ceaselessly mapping out frameworks, even if they are only theoretical, for innovative ideas and solutions that can potentially replace the old and inefficient methods of solving the ever-dynamic real world problems faced by hundreds of millions of people around us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Happy 56th Independence Day</b>, once more, my dear country, <b>Nigeria</b>. The future is radiantly bright.<o:p></o:p></div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-64179201202776598462016-09-04T23:16:00.000+01:002016-09-07T13:54:12.842+01:00How Self-Driving Tractors, Drones and Virtual Reality will Transform Agriculture in NigeriaTechnology has enabled tremendous advances in every area of human life in every part of the world; but the rate of that advancement has been different and much slower in the emerging economies—Nigeria and most other African countries especially. <i><b>That the technology community has been abuzz for the past one week because of Mark Zuckerberg’s first visit to Africa—Nigeria first and then Kenya</b></i>—is something that a lot of young Nigerians have come to see as the beginning of a never-before-seen technology revolution that will sweep across the country and continent. Many young talented Nigerians are using technology to solve local problems, ranging from education through transportation to healthcare, and some of these were showcased to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/31/mark-zuckerberg-meets-with-african-tech-leaders-on-nigerian-tour/" target="_blank">Zuckerberg during his visit</a> at the <b><a href="http://cchubnigeria.com/" target="_blank">Co-Creation Hub</a></b> in Yaba, Lagos.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While these tech solutions to local problems were commended by Zuckerberg, he also stressed, during a <a href="http://howafrica.com/mark-zuckerberg-full-video-question-answer-session-lagos-nigeria/" target="_blank">Question & Answer session for entrepreneurs and developers</a>, that Nigeria and Africa have the talent to solve relevant global challenges. There are so many global problems today craving ground-breaking solutions; but one of such problems whose solutions can come from Africa is food security through agriculture not only because of how technology can be applied to scale agricultural production but also due to the fact that <a href="http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/the-fertile-continent-agriculture%E2%80%99s-final-frontier/" target="_blank">more than half of the earth’s arable lands, that can be exploited for agriculture without harming the green ecosystem, is in Africa</a>. This means that applying the right technology in agriculture could turn Africa into the food hub of the world, and there’s need to start work now not just for the sake of the world but also for the food safety of our country and the entire continent: Nigeria’s population is estimated to surpass that of the US by 2050, making the country <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2015-report.html" target="_blank">the 3rd most populous in the world</a>, and a strong food security will certainly prevent a lot of problems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mechanised farming has witnessed technological progress over the years, enabling large-scale farming within short periods of time. But Nigeria and Africa have not kept pace with this progress. The continent is stuck on only tractor farming; there’s no wide-scale system of monitoring soil fertility status, real-time crop health status and proactive surveillance of pest-induced diseases in crops. The result has been limited land use for agriculture, poor crop yield due to over-used soil and occasional mass loss of crops to disease outbreaks in plants like the <a href="http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/tomato-disease-outbreak-affects-5-states-fg/" target="_blank">recent case of tomato scarcity in the country from a pest infestation</a> (which skyrocketed the price of tomato).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmudbzUcl7k7WcHkBBeSj5f_eVBrTn5Npaw8wcR2AtTu3P9KMGuEfZ7UqpYTSirfVU3CY-cK6xu1JTSh_UV6pr3cxG9QGVazlev5lWEF8lqi1pTz9aJZgiy1Z15IqXCVimhE9hznyuAzzb/s1600/CNH+Industrial.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="self-driving cars" border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmudbzUcl7k7WcHkBBeSj5f_eVBrTn5Npaw8wcR2AtTu3P9KMGuEfZ7UqpYTSirfVU3CY-cK6xu1JTSh_UV6pr3cxG9QGVazlev5lWEF8lqi1pTz9aJZgiy1Z15IqXCVimhE9hznyuAzzb/s320/CNH+Industrial.png" title="Autonomous Tractor" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.cnhindustrial.com/EMEA/CNH-INDUSTRIAL-CORPORATE/LATEST-NEWS/cnh-industrial-brands-reveal-concept-autonomous-tractor-development/s/c6f89699-fc6a-4d99-b8d4-8699d2f06199" target="_blank">Self-driving Tractor model</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, we can leapfrog the traditional mechanised farming technology to the current emerging advanced technologies that are beginning to find their way into agriculture. Companies like <b><a href="https://www.tesla.com/models" target="_blank">Tesla</a></b>, <a href="https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/" target="_blank">Google</a>, <i><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on" target="_blank">Uber</a></i>, <i><a href="http://nutonomy.com/" target="_blank">nuTonomy </a></i>and so on are working on self-driving car technologies which would usher in autonomous cars to the streets in less than a decade from now. The self-driving technology is also getting to trucks as the world’s largest ride-sharing platform<b><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2016/08/24/uber-acquiring-otto-could-be-the-lead-domino-autonomous-vehicles-to-spur-ma-activity/#3c48513765ae" target="_blank"> Uber just acquired an autonomous truck startup called Otto for over $600 million</a></b>. And other players like <a href="http://media.cnhindustrial.com/EMEA" target="_blank">CNH Industrial</a> and <a href="http://www.autonomoustractor.com/" target="_blank">Autonomous Tractor Corporation</a> are working to bring affordable fully autonomous tractors to farmers in the US to replace the existing semi-autonomous ones. The advantages of a fully autonomous tractor on the farm are enormous: tractors that can weed, till and plant seeds on as many hectares of land as possible and do the harvesting without getting tired (because they don’t need on-site physical human drivers) in a short period of time compared to human-driven tractors. Nigeria, through the Ministry of Science and Technology, can leverage this by collaborating with these companies to train young Nigerian engineers in these emerging technologies as applied in agriculture for the long-term, while contracting the companies’ services to deploy these autonomous tractors to large-scale farmers in the country and training these farmers extensively on how to use them. Furthermore, autonomous driving technology can be incorporated into the mechanical engineering curricula of tertiary institutions across the country to equip their engineering students and also to stimulate further research on how to adapt it to suit and maximise the potential of this environment which can lead to the design and development of solar-powered autonomous tractors to harness the abundant solar energy here in Nigeria. An affordable solar-powered fully autonomous tractor made in Nigeria and whose use has been mastered by farmers all over the country will lead to an unquantifiable rise in farming and food production.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ga2E3nJcJreU3C5Mpoei4GlE3PG_7Jn03aS9e0uLrDbzXTZtR-9VRLUBArA1BVbGJ07KGS-9mFElJquVIuIoosvw0hfkBWFkhHo5vwb3J8G5QTw_UitE8CYv9750NVz_-O7Bcp2niXyB/s1600/AgricultureDrones.286192517_std.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="drones" border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ga2E3nJcJreU3C5Mpoei4GlE3PG_7Jn03aS9e0uLrDbzXTZtR-9VRLUBArA1BVbGJ07KGS-9mFElJquVIuIoosvw0hfkBWFkhHo5vwb3J8G5QTw_UitE8CYv9750NVz_-O7Bcp2niXyB/s320/AgricultureDrones.286192517_std.jpg" title="Agriculture drone" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://pgbcconnect.com/HCHSWEB15CTAE/wp/field-drones/" target="_blank">Agriculture Drone</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mass-scale farming capability alone will not be enough to achieve food security; there’s an equally important need to have access to data on real-time soil fertility and crop health status to enable farmers make informed decisions and take proactive steps to prevent crop loss and poor harvest. This is where real-time surveillance of soil and crops come in. Traditionally, farmers in developed parts of the world have relied on satellite imagery and manned aircraft surveillance for information on their soil and crops; these methods are very expensive and limited as they rarely provide real-time information on soil and crop health, making them unattractive to most farmers. However, the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles known as drones is disrupting the selling point of traditional farmland surveillance methods. <a href="http://www.precisionhawk.com/" target="_blank">Many startup companies in the US and Europe</a> are designing drones suited for real-time surveillance of large farmlands. These drones are equipped with precise autonomous navigation systems and high definition cameras that can shoot in the visible and infrared spectra, enabling analysis of crop health parameters such as change in chlorophyll colour which is visible in the infrared spectrum on a computer screen; in addition, they can be used to spray pesticides over large areas of farmland. The prices of these drones are falling every day due to competition among the different producing companies, meaning farmers can relatively afford them. There are a few <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/02/africas-commercial-drones-take-off/" target="_blank">African startup companies </a>who are already building and deploying drones for various services. Public and private sector funding can help interested Nigerian entrepreneurs establish companies that will design and build drones suited to the Nigerian terrain. Also, technology and engineering faculties in our tertiary institutions can be motivated, via funding and sponsored training of students and faculty members in unmanned aerial vehicle research labs in the US, to dedicate units to emerging technologies in agriculture whose work will be to adopt these technologies and modify them to maximise the agricultural potential of this environment; such units should also work to birth innovations such as solar-powered drones that will ensure longer flight duration of these drones as against existing battery-powered ones. Moreover, soil scientists, plant biologists, physicists, radiologists and other experts in the country can collaborate to work out the parameters that reflect healthy and diseased crop status and soil fertility in different parts of Nigeria, and how these parameters appear under visible and infrared light used by agricultural drone cameras, in order to give farmers access to all the necessary data they need to ensure sustained mass-scale agriculture and food production. </div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVppf8iZKDQn-gIpKKa_P4L120I7Z2jyyWOOgj3Uioe459AJk6vihjZHQO17El9Tcj4JxsR-D4hPGsyQx7Yz0nL70Uqd6gsVpz1t4gRCD8oKy9XcJxzWsh9FxAbfQFzNyDSIPOo9UK5A3/s1600/Agriculture-Drone-Buyers-Guide-flight-plan-for-quadcopter.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="commercial drone operation" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVppf8iZKDQn-gIpKKa_P4L120I7Z2jyyWOOgj3Uioe459AJk6vihjZHQO17El9Tcj4JxsR-D4hPGsyQx7Yz0nL70Uqd6gsVpz1t4gRCD8oKy9XcJxzWsh9FxAbfQFzNyDSIPOo9UK5A3/s320/Agriculture-Drone-Buyers-Guide-flight-plan-for-quadcopter.jpeg" title="Agriculture drone surveillance view" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bestdroneforthejob.com/drone-buying-guides/agriculture-drone-buyers-guide/" target="_blank">Drone Surveillance Analysis of a Farmland</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcAJJJ4-zBJ7-Ih1mes9A8fPs8LrWmpiMokVsD2WbWBMsSgCT0sDytZgk6chWgYRCSbPc-AgWyTpDAA9BQED-GwJwssW458WgOvwP84OBJkDNx2h6pJ5u-pAKR-OD8F1SUBDXfXyiM7cnl/s1600/VR+in+agriculture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Facebook Oculus Rift" border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcAJJJ4-zBJ7-Ih1mes9A8fPs8LrWmpiMokVsD2WbWBMsSgCT0sDytZgk6chWgYRCSbPc-AgWyTpDAA9BQED-GwJwssW458WgOvwP84OBJkDNx2h6pJ5u-pAKR-OD8F1SUBDXfXyiM7cnl/s200/VR+in+agriculture.jpg" title="Virtual reality" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://cast-science.blogspot.com.ng/2012_11_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Virtual Reality in Agriculture</a></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://www.techtimes.com/articles/5078/20140406/augmented-reality-vs-virtual-reality-what-are-the-differences-and-similarities.htm" target="_blank">Virtual and augmented reality technology</a></b> is yet to find its way into agriculture probably because it is still in the formative stage of its industrial applications. This is where Nigeria not only can set the pace in its agricultural applications but can become a global centre of excellence in agricultural virtual and augmented reality technology. While we, the young people, play around (games, movies and so on) with virtual reality headsets such as the <b><a href="http://www.samsung.com/africa_en/consumer/mobile-devices/wearables/gear/SM-R321NZWAECT" target="_blank">Samsung Gear VR</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.oculus.com/" target="_blank">Facebook’s Oculus VR headset</a></b>, it is time to begin imagining and working out frameworks on their applications in important areas like agriculture. Nigerian software engineers should start developing virtual reality applications that integrate and analyse real-time agricultural drone surveillance and autonomous tractor activity on the farm; this will enable farmers to monitor in virtual and augmented reality progress of work done by their autonomous tractors (and correct any problem they may encounter remotely), the fertility integrity of the soil and health status of their crops. Imagine the reward to a farmer having a hawk-eye view of his vast farmland in virtual reality or overlaid in his room (through an augmented reality headset). A group of young Nigerians, <a href="http://imisi3d.com/" target="_blank">Imisi 3D</a>, at the <a href="http://cchubnigeria.com/imisi-3d-first-virtual-reality-hackathon-in-lagos/" target="_blank">Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, </a>has kick-started discussions around virtual reality platform applications in Nigeria. Companies like <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/12/zuckerberg-future-vr-and-ar-gadgets-will-look-like-ordinary-glasses/" target="_blank">Zuckerberg’s Facebook’s Oculus Rift</a> and augmented reality startup companies like <i><a href="https://www.magicleap.com/#/home" target="_blank">Magic Leap</a></i> will definitely show in interest in such applications for global deployment and adoption through their hardware platforms. Such virtual and augmented reality apps will not only transform our agriculture sector but also will turn the Nigerian tech startup companies behind them into multi-million dollar businesses as they license their products for use in other African countries and countries beyond the continent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBE55jimUTHt7YDffqnSMJM2eqJTFFl90DxTDVcumBxPC7IDz8_jQTwuP-vVNszOUE4vdWuEeaLeUia4BvQ8C7zX9V-mdByX9M_-ypykc4aOAIBGMU2d8RQDfRnyHqQKxD_JphAtajJFz/s1600/VR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="future of virtual and augmented reality" border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBE55jimUTHt7YDffqnSMJM2eqJTFFl90DxTDVcumBxPC7IDz8_jQTwuP-vVNszOUE4vdWuEeaLeUia4BvQ8C7zX9V-mdByX9M_-ypykc4aOAIBGMU2d8RQDfRnyHqQKxD_JphAtajJFz/s320/VR.jpg" title="Virtual reality applications in the future" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1883584239"></span>Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality<span id="goog_1883584240"></span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
US government funding and support of military and space technology gave birth to so many innovations and inventions beyond military and space programs such as the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine (MRI) used for several investigations in medicine and unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, that are finding commercial applications in geographical mapping, agriculture, and film-making in Hollywood and so on. Public and private sector funding and investment in Nigeria into efforts by scientists and entrepreneurs working on and deploying emerging technologies in agriculture can equally birth technological innovations that will not only make Nigeria and the rest of Africa the food basket of the world's ever-growing population (because we will begin exporting rice, other cash crops and also processed products from these crops), but also find applications beyond agriculture both within Nigeria and other parts of the world.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
And in Mark Zuckerberg's words, there's this energy in Nigerian entrepreneurs; and though it may take several years, probably decades, they have the talent to and will leverage these emerging technologies to turn around different sectors of Nigeria's economy, including agriculture. If you are passionate about technology and how its applications can transform Nigeria and Africa, check out <a href="http://radar.techcabal.com/t/building-a-world-class-product-or-service-in-nigeria/8076" target="_blank">Radar by Techcabal</a>: it is an online forum where young Nigerians (technology enthusiasts, developers and entrepreneurs who are building the coolest tech companies in Nigeria and Africa) congregate to discuss technology and how it will shape the future of Nigeria and Africa</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-15440218062339583082016-02-01T21:24:00.000+01:002016-02-01T21:24:21.303+01:00Understanding the link between Zika Virus and Microcephaly (babies with small heads) <div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHE95sZVNZ3t4mcJUY1A8_8-1QM5Ae5s58lUCsamr33yeKzOeqLjCHRBRna2ICkeOmLP-25EHitz_SKF4iGoHau9IByReKL9nhqHoNoeFedmpp2c2l7ubv3VtvczGPrliZu4TXRogxyZyM/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHE95sZVNZ3t4mcJUY1A8_8-1QM5Ae5s58lUCsamr33yeKzOeqLjCHRBRna2ICkeOmLP-25EHitz_SKF4iGoHau9IByReKL9nhqHoNoeFedmpp2c2l7ubv3VtvczGPrliZu4TXRogxyZyM/s320/image.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby with small head (microcephaly) born to a woman <br />infected with<br />Zika virus. Image credit to <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/brazil-fears-birth-defects-linked-to-mosquito-borne-zika-virus-1.2714266" target="_blank">CTV News</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In the last few months, the world still recovering from the terror of the Ebola virus, has woken up to a new one in the shape of the Zika virus. And what makes this one a terrorist, unlike Ebola which kills its hosts and is very highly contagious, is the strongly emerging evidence of it being responsible for a condition called microcephaly in babies of mothers infected with the virus while they were pregnant (a medical condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads) as the virus has been isolated from the umbilical cord of these babies and from their mothers' blood. Microcephaly results from either a small brain substance volume; the premature closure of the sutures of the skull bones, or defects in skull bone growth and development, all of which then limit the growth of the brain substance to below the normal size. While the cause of these problems leading to an abnormally small head is multi-factorial, ranging from hereditary genetic disorders to environmental players like inadequate intake of some vital supplements by the pregnant woman and exposure to radiation in pregnancy---it's very vital to work out, in the smallest of details, how the Zika virus has come to be a player and the various mechanisms with which it likely employs to achieve this mischievous feat. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And working this out will start with the origin of the virus. The first case was reported in monkeys in the Zika forest in Uganda in 1947, with the first human case reported in 1954 in Nigeria, and whether there was any incident of microcephaly then has to be investigated. But then, much scientific attention wasn't given to it because it never posed a global threat. However, it drew a small attention when there was a small outbreak in 2007 on the island of Yap. The Zika virus is spread by the mosquito specie Aedes aegypti that also spreads Yellow fever and dengue fever. Like its malaria-spreading family member, the Aedes aegypti mosquito breeds in stagnant waters; but unlike the malaria-spreading mosquito, it's mostly active during the day. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGIFIT7rmmr3Qcz51GFQBmEpL9Sx-cHucmax3kbpmNC-UwhMrjDLgz8_7jSSCQeMeqP02K-OSpdhypfkedUXBtPc41OBwzH0GsVu62VG1XvbYTuZQ6zsjKmzZ2BVNLciI0cq85ojEHfVY/s1600/aedes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGIFIT7rmmr3Qcz51GFQBmEpL9Sx-cHucmax3kbpmNC-UwhMrjDLgz8_7jSSCQeMeqP02K-OSpdhypfkedUXBtPc41OBwzH0GsVu62VG1XvbYTuZQ6zsjKmzZ2BVNLciI0cq85ojEHfVY/s200/aedes.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads<br />the Zika virus. Image credit to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35423288" target="_blank">BBC</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The next is the life cycle of the Zika virus between the time of infection of a human host to when its new offspring is taken up from this host by the Aedes aegypti mosquito to infect a new host. And while the structural growth and developmental changes will likely follow the typical virus type to which it belongs, it will be very important to work out the structural and functional alterations this virus imparts to the host cells it invades and the various responses the host may mount to these alterations, and the relationships between these alterations and responses and the clinical manifestations seen in the host. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While the above may not be carried out in humans currently because of the more important need to curb the spread of the virus via mosquito control, there's still an inevitable need to carry out these studies as currently there's no vaccine or treatment for the infection (and even the soonest vaccine will take two years to come off the ovens and may take additional eight years to get global regulatory approval for deployment). Hence, the studies have to start at least in animals--mice and higher mammals like monkeys--along with current research studies towards vaccine development which have been kicked off by <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35423288" target="_blank">scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch. </a></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
With animal models of the life cycle of the virus and its varied clinical manifestations established, we can move on to studying the impact of the virus on pregnant monkeys, on the offspring of these infected monkeys to look out for microcephaly (baby monkeys with small heads). This aspect of the study would be approached by breaking down the study animals into groups based on the gestational ages of their pregnancy, from trimesters down to months and then weeks; and then infecting the trimester groups, the months groups and the weeks groups, taking serial blood samples from both the animals and their developing babies for genetic and molecular studies, while taking care of the animals till delivery to assess the outcome on the babies' brain growth and development. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The most important benefit of this research will be to reveal whether there's a window period in pregnancy during which Zika virus infection poses the absolute greatest risks to the unborn baby, while it may be harmless in other periods of pregnancy. Such a revelation of a catastrophic window, if also established through epidemiological studies in humans, in the face of no available vaccine or treatment, will ensure that pregnant women are put under strict holistic preventive health care surveillance during this window in areas of the world where both environmental efforts at mosquito control and all-round medical surveillance of pregnant women are facing stiff challenges in terms of funding, thereby effectively prioritizing limited resources to this critical catastrophic window period of Zika virus infection. In addition, the research will likely help in developing a rapid diagnostic test that can become part of the routine antenatal care for pregnant women. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And to perfectly understand the link between Zika virus and microcephaly, we can now directly infect animal embryos in vitro with Zika virus, tag genes involved in brain and skull bone growth and development with radioactive isotopes and then implant them into the respective animals for development to a viable foetus, while taking samples from the developing embryos and foetuses at different periods of gestation (developmental periods in the womb) for analysis of these genes and the various Zika viral components that may have contributed to the alterations of the genes. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The Zika virus outbreak is a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35459797" target="_blank">global public health emergency </a>mostly due to emerging link between it and microcephaly in babies and then Guillain Barre Syndrome, a disease of the nervous system characterized by ascending paralysis of the lower limbs that can progress to involve the muscles of the upper limbs, face and muscles of respiration which can lead to death; and about 30 million people are at risk of being infected, of which many of them will be asymptomatic and could travel to other parts of the world, spreading this virus. So, while the World Health Organisation map out strategies to battle this new disease terror and the search for a vaccine and treatment begin to sprout within the shells---<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35438572" target="_blank"> understanding and confirming the link between the virus and abnormally small heads in babies</a>, down to the molecular level, and working out possible safety nets for unborn babies in affected areas of the world are necessary weapons that should be developed and added to the possible arsenal to fight this crisis in the medium and long term. </i></div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-37022089589875594282015-11-03T18:45:00.000+01:002017-08-12T14:32:00.201+01:00Finding A Curative And Preventive Basis For Mental Illness.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqz2aIyafnW5iA41oRPsW1U9YpYnh3mOem4mGcdxSH3LBYgydTK9STsnbRmiLgLtzzsruK9LBOhXF7i6JsEskLg24TP-1Nodgd6SM_DIRIzhPk_ERFGFVR32GU3A1X2uOVE88wQGjrxgS/s1600/4657126657_d3dcf8bb08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqz2aIyafnW5iA41oRPsW1U9YpYnh3mOem4mGcdxSH3LBYgydTK9STsnbRmiLgLtzzsruK9LBOhXF7i6JsEskLg24TP-1Nodgd6SM_DIRIzhPk_ERFGFVR32GU3A1X2uOVE88wQGjrxgS/s320/4657126657_d3dcf8bb08.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mentally ill people need help not stigma<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://imgbuddy.com/mental-illness-people.asp" target="_blank">Imagebuddy</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I just finished a 4-week rotation through Psychiatry, and I must say I have learnt a lot about the disorders of the mind. Before the rotation, I used to have this stigma and nausea towards anything that has to do with mental illness and those with it because of the way the society has painted them--they are mad people. But the truth is people with illness of the mind are normal human beings with families, friends, dreams and ambitions; some have good education and are in different professions. Our first lecture introduced us to Psychiatry, and in it I learnt that everyone's mind is like an elastic spring suspended from a hook, with a board on one end. Now, life drops different loads on this board (what we call psychological stressors--challenges and trials), which stretch the elastic spring (remember Hooke's Law in Physics); but almost all the time, our minds will return to their original length after a "normal brief period" of reacting to the stretching (in the form of crying, sadness, feeling depressed, losing interest in everything, fear and anxiety, and so on) when we've got over the psychological stressors (every challenging period passes). It's important to note that some people's minds have higher elastic limits than others' (they can withstand much more severe psychological stressors than others) because of their genetic makeup. Hence, when those whose minds have low threshold for withstanding challenges are faced with very severe psychological stressors, their minds are stretched beyond their elastic limits and what results is mental illness--a state in which their minds remains in this stretched mode for an unusual length of time, in the form of depression, mania, obsession, hallucinations, compulsion, changes in personality and so on. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
And that's where the field of Psychiatry comes in--to study the mechanisms of these disorders of the mind and find solutions to them. But unfortunately, these solutions are not permanent because there are currently no clear cut (pathognomonic) basis for the development of pure mental illness unlike in other medical fields where there are definitive cause-effect mechanisms for a lot of diseases and the correction of which would permanently cure the patient of such a disease. Hence, most psychiatric conditions have a remission-relapse pattern in which the patient is treated and he or she gets well, but may likely come back with that mental illness after a long period of time (some patients are placed on medications for life). </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Throughout the rotation I saw people of different ages and backgrounds with different disorders of the mind which have impaired their functioning--social, educational, professional and even physical aspects of their lives. I became burdened with the thought that there should be efforts geared towards finding permanent treatment and cure and designing preventive measures for these pure disorders of the mind: nobody deserves to live with mental illness for life. And I started asking my consultants and lecturers whether there is such thing as Preventive Psychiatry like there's Preventive Medicine, where tests and strategies are designed to identify people whose minds have low threshold for psychological stressors so as to train these people to be able to handle challenging circumstances without losing their minds. To my disappointment there is nothing remotely close to this in Nigeria; I haven't researched whether this service exists in other parts of the world. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But I have come across a few research efforts that are looking towards identifying people at risk of developing some types of mental illness based on definitive parameters and trying to find ways to prevent the illness by tackling the identified parameters. Schizophrenia is a psychiatric condition that occurs more commonly in males than females, starting in late teen and early adulthood. It's a debilitating mental illness characterised by disorders in one's thought form and speech, auditory hallucinations, delusions, impairment in cognition and judgement, social withdrawal, and many other unpleasant symptoms, all of which worsen with time. No set of well-defined causative factors for pure schizophrenia has been worked out as it seems to stem from several roots--the individual's genetic makeup, family history of the illness, life events that come with psychological stressors and so on-- which culminate to cause it. However, since the human brain and mind are mirrors of each other (hundreds of millions connections occur simultaneously and accurately between neurons in the brain for proper functioning of the body and mind), disorders of the mind must have some definitive basis in the brain's structural and functional architecture, which if delineated could open the window into efforts at pinpointing mental illness long before they begin to manifest. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzgsJwA3yHmgf0mSCqF8VshUuLjvBbC8oUv4yOECdkrna6vX-93o6u4LkZ_CbP4lPbRMvN72LuJxym2WoNhgYGDSbD031z-a2Zt5Z_3uXZv1G2KNmJHk_l4KouvNi4MaEYCJT44W0HEE3/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzgsJwA3yHmgf0mSCqF8VshUuLjvBbC8oUv4yOECdkrna6vX-93o6u4LkZ_CbP4lPbRMvN72LuJxym2WoNhgYGDSbD031z-a2Zt5Z_3uXZv1G2KNmJHk_l4KouvNi4MaEYCJT44W0HEE3/s320/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Brain Circuitry in Mental Illness<br />
Image credit to <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/05/114621/new-venture-aims-understand-and-heal-disrupted-brain-circuitry-treat-mental" target="_blank">University of California San Francisco </a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
And it seems some concerned ingenious human beings are already working in this direction. According to a research published last month in the <a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14101358" target="_blank">American Journal of Psychiatry</a>, the immune cells of the brain called microglia have been implicated in patients with schizophrenia and those at high risk of developing it. In the study, a chemical agent with high affinity for microglial cells was injected into a number of individuals with schizophrenia and those at high risk, after which they underwent what is called a translocator-protein positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of their brains. The neuroimaging revealed that these microglial cells react excessively in the brains of the two groups when compared to healthy participants in the study, implying that these cells which defend the brain against infection and regulate proper connections between neurons could, in this over reactive state, lead to wrong connections and interactions between neurons which would be the beginning of the different symptoms of schizophrenia and some other psychiatric conditions. Corroborating this research are previous studies in which genomic analysis of patients with schizophrenia have shown abnormalities in the genes controlling their immune system. Scientists are now working towards carrying out trials that will use anti-inflammatory drugs to modulate the immune system in order to treat patients with schizophrenia and probably prevent it in those at high risk. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In addition, other efforts are looking at diagnosing these psychiatric conditions at a very early stage so as to maximise the treatment options for the patients and reduce the effects of the illness on their functioning. One such endeavour is the <a href="http://www.cambridgecognition.com/" target="_blank">CANTAB series of tests</a> developed from the research works of Professors Barbara Sahakian and Trevor Robbins at the Cambridge University Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute and adapted for the Ipad as a touchscreen based neuropsychologic test. The CANTAB mobile software tests for episodic spatial memory (where we placed our stuff), the decline of which is one of the earliest pointers to dementia, a mental illness seen mostly in the elderly; the test takes about 10 minutes to complete, and it has been shown to reduce the time for diagnosis of dementia from 18 months to 3 months. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And more recently, a<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34607267" target="_blank"> virtual reality based test</a> is gathering authenticity at providing clues to subtle characteristics in people at risk of developing Alzheimer disease decades before they develop it. The study carried out by German neuroscientists and published in the journal Science, involved individuals aged between 18 and 30 navigating through a virtual reality world with both their navigating accuracy and brain activities being monitored. Those with a genetic predisposition to having Alzheimer disease performed relatively differently compared with those who had no genetic predisposition, and there was also a reduction in function in their brain cells involved in spatial orientation. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While these efforts are ongoing, I believe more are in the pipeline. And with rapid advances in technology, I envisage a time when there would be a computer model of the standard mind and its response to psychological stressors which will serve as a routine mind health checkup for everyone. This model will work by taking inputs such as every area of a person's genetic architecture involved in mental health, their family history and socioeconomic status; such a person will also be given a kind of a <i>headband</i> with sensors to wear and go about their daily activities. This <i>headband</i> will record how the person responds to different stressors that life events bring over a month, after which the data gathered will be used together with already input information to construct what I call a mind health profile/map of the person. With this mind health map, everyone will be empowered to proactively ensure healthy mind.</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-34739885311077325652015-07-15T04:05:00.000+01:002016-11-07T20:52:17.071+01:00This Technology Could Solve the Climate Change Problem by Generating Low-Carbon Fuels from Sunlight. <div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRSfSTDcK7JMKwv4mqJf4CBb7RcPC4Hh4agAe8v-6h7ILrc0S4MtRISUP6YWoVlzscZItX07qFPFEcWVUAnJR3XSswOXECthHv7DpNFgmN7Detr0y1dit_G2rnf5sz9x0eHJbzINuRxyy/s1600/climate+change.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Carbon Emission" border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRSfSTDcK7JMKwv4mqJf4CBb7RcPC4Hh4agAe8v-6h7ILrc0S4MtRISUP6YWoVlzscZItX07qFPFEcWVUAnJR3XSswOXECthHv7DpNFgmN7Detr0y1dit_G2rnf5sz9x0eHJbzINuRxyy/s320/climate+change.jpg" title="Obama and the Pentagon warn that climate change poses “immediate risks”" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carbon Emission at the heart of Climate Change.<br />
Image Credit to<a href="http://www.geeksnack.com/2015/01/23/obama-pentagon-warn-climate-change-poses-immediate-rsks/" target="_blank"> GeekSnack</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Like it or not, most of the world people depends on crude oil and its products and other heavy carbon-emitting fossil fuels such as coal for one of the most important needs in life-energy (from petrol and diesel for cars and other vehicles through gas for power plants to generate electricity for cities to other fuel products used in many other dimensions). Every day hundreds of millions of litres of gas and other related fuels are burnt in one way or the other to meet this basic need for energy. While the basic need, energy, is being met, the basic need of our environment -including the atmosphere of which the ozone layer is part; the water bodies; and the green lands--which demands moderate waste output from us, that is within its recycling capacity, were neglected from the very beginning.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
However, the world started to realise the consequences of this neglect and efforts to make amends went into motion. That was when global consolidations to tackle the problem of climate change began to take shape in various parts of the world and from various strata of the society--from the political line, through various social groups to the academia and various research and development industry groups. Significant progress began to materialise in the form of environment-conscious government policies; a change of attitude towards energy use by people in various parts of the world; and technological adventures and innovations and inventions from the academia and research and development industry groups. We began to hear about less carbon-emitting fuel alternatives such as biomass fuel; then came the green energy in the form solar electricity that emitted zero carbon into the atmosphere. These breakthroughs found their way into the various purposes that were being served by the heavy carbon-emitting fossil fuels and the result was solar powered homes and communities; electric cars and trains and power plants that generate electricity with biomass fuel.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Even with all this, the dependence on fossil fuels did not witness a marginal decline. But the need to meet the need of the environment began to experience unprecedented surge. Global conferences by the world's political representatives on addressing climate change issues became almost an annual mandate. However, the truth is that the fossil fuel industry is a multi-billion, if not multi-trillion, dollar one; and a complete shift from it to green energy will be almost impossible (though there are already<a href="https://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/fossil-free-oxford" target="_blank"> campaigns going on in several UK Universities and institutions for divestment from future fossil fuel</a>), the least reason being that most of the green energy alternatives have limitations such as low conversion ratio and low carrying capacity--conversion of solar energy into electrical energy is at a less than 2% rate and I'm yet to learn of a solar powered heavy machinery factory. And secondly, countries like the US and Russia are ever expanding their technologies in exploring shale gas from rocks and natural gas in the Arctic region of the planet respectively, never minding the fact that about <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30709211" target="_blank">80% of the remaining coal reserves, 50% of gas and 30% oil must remain unburnt if the world is to remain below the 2ºC global warming</a> beyond which catastrophes may start manifesting.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Nonetheless, the world already knows this and efforts are now being directed towards creating technologies that will break this low conversion rate barrier. Solar energy powers the activities of satellites in space and even the International Space Station relies on the sun for almost all its energy needs; and just recently a solar powered aircraft completed a record-breaking flight around the world. However, the world is by default aligned with liquid fuel for the most part, according to history itself. So is it possible to find a way to convert the unlimited solar energy into a very light, low-carbon liquid fuel? Well the answer is that a lot of scientists have been experimenting on this hypothesis for some years now. And according to a research published on the 9th of February in the journal <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/8/2337.full" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</a>, scientists have invented a technology analogous to the leaf of any green plant in which the radiation from the sun is trapped and used to produce isopropanol, a 3-carbon biofuel (plants produce glucose, a 6-carbon biofuel).</div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheoQ4CICGet8viE9g_wV0tqu7RcLC2pZZcj34sEmgmd2T9mfcN8902zIRc3LKroDC7twMV0jx3dgzA9kjrtXyr2IgVQa6Jog9aZ08c8fLXGJl00fpSMe87IF1aGHJ7HSko4WkNvFBNa6U2/s1600/Bionic+leaf+solar+tech.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bionic leaf" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheoQ4CICGet8viE9g_wV0tqu7RcLC2pZZcj34sEmgmd2T9mfcN8902zIRc3LKroDC7twMV0jx3dgzA9kjrtXyr2IgVQa6Jog9aZ08c8fLXGJl00fpSMe87IF1aGHJ7HSko4WkNvFBNa6U2/s320/Bionic+leaf+solar+tech.gif" title="Efficient solar-to-fuels production from a hybrid microbial–water-splitting catalyst system" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Schematic diagram of bioelectrochemical cell. (A) Water oxidation takes place at the cobalt phosphate (CoPi) anode with proton reduction taking place at the nickel molybdenum zinc (NiMoZn) or stainless-steel (SS) cathode. CO2 is continuously sparged into the cell. The wild-type (wt) bacterium Ralstonia eutropha (Re) H16 oxidizes H2 using oxygen-tolerant hydrogenases (H2ase) to generate reduced cofactors (e.g., NADPH) and ATP, and uses these to reduce CO2 to 3-phosphoglycerate (3PG) via the Calvin cycle. 3PG is then converted into biomass in wt ReH16 or may be diverted in metabolically engineered Re2133-pEG12 into isopropanol. Image Credit to <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/8/2337.full" target="_blank">PNAS</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
The research--which brought together previous works and scientists from Harvard University and the MIT with specialties in Medicine, Arts, Biochemistry, Systems Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Microbiology,Energy, and Bioengineering--involved creating a system integrating what is called a bionic leaf and a genetically engineered bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha. The bionic leaf uses a catalyst to harness the radiation energy from the sun which then splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; then, the generated hydrogen molecules are fed into the genetically engineered bacterium where an enzyme system catalyzes the transformation of the hydrogen molecules into hydrogen atoms and then into protons and electrons, causing the bacterium to replicate more; afterwards, biochemical pathways in the bacterium which have been re-engineered couple the protons and electrons to carbon dioxide to generate isopropanol. The research team's target is a 5% rate of solar-to-biofuel generation compared to nature's 1% rate, and they are already near the 1% rate mark.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I am fascinated by this research for two reasons. First, it makes use of a free, unlimited and abundant resource, sunlight, to begin its process of power generation. It doesn't entail any exploration of any rock, land or sea as it obtains for fossil fuels, meaning that there's nothing like environmental devastation in the form oil spills and so on. Secondly and most importantly, this new sustainable energy technology makes use of what has been causing the whole problem of global warming, carbon dioxide (a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion), to generate a biofuel. This holds a lot of potential to solving the climate change problem if this technology can be scaled up to a massive level because:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
</div>
<ol>
<li>I see it incorporating a recycling system where the carbon dioxide emitted from burning the biofuel, isopropanol, is recycled to produce another isopropanol in the ever present, abundant and unlimited sunlight; and this may finally create an equilibrium system of constant biofuel--energy production that could last for generations if all other conditions like constant sunlight exposure and optimal conditions for the engineered bacterium are met--we could have cars, trains and power plants with this in-built system. </li>
<li>I also see the technology rekindling and revolutionizing carbon dioxide capture and storage technology: where the carbon dioxide and other pollutants emitted by fossil fuels are completely captured and stored using various technologies, and then channeled to energy production via this bionic leaf technology. This would ensure that no carbon dioxide artificially emitted into the atmosphere stays there--only those from natural processes like organic matter decay and so on--returning our world back to the hands of nature and safety.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
But on the sci-fi end of it, we may come to a time when carbon dioxide would have become so scarce probably after exhausting all the fossil fuels available that it will become a valuable commodity like gold and we may start trading it both for power generation through the bionic leaf technology and for the maintenance of the photosynthetic life on earth-- terms like the <i>Carbon Trading Market</i> may become part of the vocabulary then--and the rich countries may be the ones with the largest carbon dioxide reserves. It's scary right? Don't worry it's never going to happen, just a fantasy in my head, but it could certainly be a great sci-fi motion picture spin-off; and remember to appreciate me if you're the one going to make a cli-fi (climate fiction) movie from this my idea.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And if you think there are other ways this groundbreaking technology or other related sustainable energy technologies can help address the increasing climate change concerns and already emerging problems, you're more than free to share your thoughts in the comment section. Thanks for your precious time and patience.</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-67143514932822042082015-06-09T03:59:00.000+01:002015-06-09T16:14:28.499+01:00Find Out How This Technology Takes People's Facial Pictures Without Seeing Them<br />
Hello my friends the world over; I know I have been unbearably absent (for almost six months now) and I'm truly sorry for that, though the reason was beyond my control (I have been preoccupied with attending to my foremost duties, encompassed in Med School). However, I'm back here for you, though I can't promise to be regular because I don't make promises and fail to keep them. To begin with my resumption, do you think it's possible to create a 3-D image of your face without seeing you (to either draw you or take a shot with my camera)? Well, it could have been described as magic in the 1980s, but the capability of our human mind is limitless and its manifestation in science and technology pushes boundaries further every day, and below is just a demonstration of that boundary pushing. Enjoy<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read the story of a man in the US who was charged with
rape and murder, and jailed for over 35 years back in the early 1980s, but by
2011 he was released from prison after concrete evidence emerged that he didn’t
commit the crime and that the real offender was finally apprehended after
matching the DNA samples collected from the crime scene back in the 80s. I was
furious after reading the story and wondered what limitations in the
investigation could have led to wasting 30 precious years of an innocent man’s
life. But it happened that after running the DNA samples obtained at the crime
scene through the FBI crime databases
containing DNA and fingerprints of convicts and previously arrested suspects,
and after comparing with DNA samples of suspects arrested after the crime, there was no
single match because the culprit was a first time offender who went on the run;
and this man who ranked higher among the arrested suspects ended up in jail:
and I’m sure many people are serving jail term out of similar situations.<v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f">
<v:stroke joinstyle="miter">
<v:formulas>
<v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0">
<v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0">
<v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1">
<v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2">
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth">
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight">
<v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1">
<v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2">
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth">
<v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0">
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight">
<v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0">
</v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:formulas>
<v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f">
<o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit">
</o:lock></v:path></v:stroke></v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 237.75pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 239.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="" src="file:///C:\Users\OKECHU~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.png">
</v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0CnvtZoelYxgQsDUlxAP5L1KNqoULcRkJmfa9q8mYnvxw8cCVzldQDA1EtGxDePvn3QNz8Z7CRYLPgVZaGfy8LheBFNJV3cfoCJvLdkEKWBF_qlt8loeMtphjwg5NScS3OE6avvBI7Ok/s1600/snapshot-report.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0CnvtZoelYxgQsDUlxAP5L1KNqoULcRkJmfa9q8mYnvxw8cCVzldQDA1EtGxDePvn3QNz8Z7CRYLPgVZaGfy8LheBFNJV3cfoCJvLdkEKWBF_qlt8loeMtphjwg5NScS3OE6avvBI7Ok/s320/snapshot-report.png" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snapshot. Image credit to <a href="http://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/" target="_blank">Parabon NanoLabs</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was a very helpless situation for the man; but such state of helplessness could become a thing of the past, like the time period called 1980s, with the work of a company called
<a href="http://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/" target="_blank">Parabon NanoLabs</a> in Columbia, US because it shares my concerns for such
terrible setbacks to forensic crime investigations. By leveraging the unlimited
potentials of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project" target="_blank">Human Genome Project</a> and harnessing the power of modern
genomic sequencing, scientists and tech experts at Parabon NanoLabs have
developed a technology they call Snapshot that can construct a 3-D facial image
of any person with DNA samples from them. Let’s say it’s a tech form of
genotype to phenotype translation we’ve been taught in Biology, Physiology and
so on. But Snapshot creates these facial images by scanning and interpreting
genotype data sets (several groups of unique DNA sequences called short
nucleotide polymorphisms), input into it from any genome, which are very
strongly linked to phenotype data sets such as pigmentation (eye, hair and skin
</div>
colours); the shape of your nose and mouth, and other facial morphological
features; presence of skin spots; ancestry and other features that distinguish
one person from another.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To further strengthen the reliability of this
technology, DNA samples from convicted criminals have been used construct their
facial images from Snapshot and then compared with their photographed images,
with greater than 80% accuracy in features like pigmentation and ancestry;
features like presence of skin spots scored below 50% due to inclusion of DNA
sequences that express more than one feature, and the guys at Parabon are
working to eliminate this ambiguous sequences and scale down to only ones that
are unique to specific features in very closely related people like those from
the same family.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In addition, I did watch a few episodes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Minds" target="_blank">Criminal Minds</a>, a
TV series where <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/" target="_blank">FBI </a>Behaviour Analysts create psychosocial profiles of suspects
from the patterns and nature of crimes at crime scenes; even if a bit of this
is done in real life, it’s still based on the database of arrested suspects and
convicts whose psychosocial statuses have been profiled and whose crimes are
well documented. But what happens when a serial killer, who has never been
suspected and arrested before, doubles as a very smart chess player and commits
his crimes based on moves (I learnt there are millions, if not billions, of possibilities for
the first four moves on chess)? Definitely, Criminal Minds will remain behind TV
screens unless investigation agencies have the time, resources and manpower to
bring over a million Behaviour Analysts to such crime scenes. However, with
this novel technology called Snapshot, such suspects can’t play chess with
their DNA sequences; and if it is combined with Criminal Mind-like
investigations, crime investigators will certainly make definitive criminal
diagnosis for almost every case so that innocent people, like the US man I read
about, wouldn’t have their life years taken from them. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Finally, this Snapshot technology seems to fundamentally focus on the crime investigations sector; but I think so many other sectors can benefit immensely from this technology. Feel free to exercise your imaginative rights and comment on further present and future applications of the technology. Thank you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wrote this piece primarily for the June edition of Klatsch Magazine run by <a href="https://just4meds.com/" target="_blank">Just4meds</a>, a social media site for people in the medical profession--from medical students and students in other allied medical fields to consultants in these medical fields--to interact with each other anywhere in the world. Just4meds was founded and is run by a classmate of mine at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria.</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-20159347168922663532015-01-09T03:20:00.000+01:002015-01-09T03:20:56.682+01:00Can this Treatment Empower the Body's Immune System to Root out Cancer?<div dir="ltr">
I saw a patient in early 2013 when I did my first rotation in Surgery. She had breast cancer and after<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFxuFDkNTGgJw4xNliuwHo6XRjiGX2hleQVgj6yKMhuWXJy6dH9L2qm1mrY2traQIo0KFCSdlh-sr9rQ9fCLjTNn2SUBJa4fPDBcjgQy2R5zyHDiJfqUWtJRkARiWXFLDP2V1Ofe60YA7/s1600/wtdv029954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Breast cancer" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFxuFDkNTGgJw4xNliuwHo6XRjiGX2hleQVgj6yKMhuWXJy6dH9L2qm1mrY2traQIo0KFCSdlh-sr9rQ9fCLjTNn2SUBJa4fPDBcjgQy2R5zyHDiJfqUWtJRkARiWXFLDP2V1Ofe60YA7/s1600/wtdv029954.jpg" height="144" title="Apoptosis" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breast Cancer Undergoing Programmed Cell Death.<br />Image credit to <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Biomedical-science/Funded-projects/Major-initiatives/Cancer-Genome-Project/index.htm" target="_blank">Wellcome Trust UK</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
undergoing what we call a modified radical mastectomy (surgery which involves removing almost all the breast tissue), she died a few days later. Why? The breast cancer had spread a bit to other parts of her body before the surgery; and unfortunately, CT scan of the brain was not done to check whether it was safe before taking her into the operating theatre. And surgery usually suppresses the immune system and in this woman's case it gave room for the already spreading breast cancer to become very aggressive in invading other parts of her body, most painfully including her brain. She started having seizures a day after the surgery and died three days later.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world: it has robbed many families and friends of their loved ones; it has withered the blossoming dreams of many people.<br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuJqt-xxoOIWIIfrNgGkBQxkexZIE7IakKPnUKUQ599I4dSogF_J12QRqJUmXDxitdGhp9il-8M8MHb2LPEWzRxKlxzlMpEbzPdVVjms8JcCzZbgc1wr_z-w9jHktpzpq17Dxpjl9A9puX/s1600/wtdv029952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Melanoma" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuJqt-xxoOIWIIfrNgGkBQxkexZIE7IakKPnUKUQ599I4dSogF_J12QRqJUmXDxitdGhp9il-8M8MHb2LPEWzRxKlxzlMpEbzPdVVjms8JcCzZbgc1wr_z-w9jHktpzpq17Dxpjl9A9puX/s1600/wtdv029952.jpg" height="144" title="Skin Cancer" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Cell from Malignant Skin Cancer (Melanoma).<br />Image credit to <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Biomedical-science/Funded-projects/Major-initiatives/Cancer-Genome-Project/index.htm" target="_blank">Wellcome Trust UK</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Mankind has long been in the battle against cancer with moderate victory-the disease has had much of the victory. And the most common treatment modalities (such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy) available against the disease have untold consequences which sometimes outweigh the benefits; consequences manifesting in the form of adverse effects such as hair loss, skin wrinkling, suppression of the immune system, predisposing the patient to infection, and so on, because these treatment modalities also destroy normal healthy cells and tissues in their course of weeding out the cancerous cells. Removal by surgery is another treatment option whose success largely depends on the time of diagnosis of the cancer: when discovered very early, surgery is likely to open a huge window of extended lifespan (not cure because the cancer may show up again after some years); but if the cancer is diagnosed late, surgery can't do anything because some prodigal cancerous cells would have defied their parent tumour and migrated to very distant and, often dangerous, locations such as the brain, lungs, liver and so on.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Nevertheless, there have been significant efforts and dotted success in the quest to find lasting treatments for cancer in the past 50 years. However, to speak of a cure for a particular type of cancer in its advanced stage, when the possibility of its metastasis (spread to other tissues and organs in the body is very very high), is something that cancer treatment experts at the patient's bedside will meddle in with utmost caution.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But it seems that the phrase "cure for cancer" may just begin to crawl into the vocabulary of cancer treatment in the very near future as insinuated by a research published in the journal<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7528/full/nature13904.html" target="_blank"> Nature</a> on the 27th November, 2014, which details the trial of a new drug class called immune checkpoint inhibitors (belonging to a type of cancer treatment modality called immunotherapy) in patients with late-stage cancer of the bladder and whom doctors have given a maximum of eight months to live. Greater than 50% of the patients enrolled in the trial started recovering after taking the drugs, while two patients out of the total number seemed to have been cured after receiving the treatment as there were no signs of cancer in them. In the patients who responded to the treatment it was found that their own bladder cancer had cells which express a molecule called Programmed Death Ligand (PD-L1) on their surfaces.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglF4oZITTlPAfljnJHzPBHsCm4dQcJO2Jmd-tCrMoKsIRhQuSQUOmd_fVux_YMcYpr04yiWNHg-59dXxXUYLa2H6IuhIyjuWrjM7wp68voy-CbDcJUWh6k8uqHlDAzguJnNAnyPrL2SZdc/s1600/wtdv029953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cell Division" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglF4oZITTlPAfljnJHzPBHsCm4dQcJO2Jmd-tCrMoKsIRhQuSQUOmd_fVux_YMcYpr04yiWNHg-59dXxXUYLa2H6IuhIyjuWrjM7wp68voy-CbDcJUWh6k8uqHlDAzguJnNAnyPrL2SZdc/s1600/wtdv029953.jpg" height="144" title="Human melanoma" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cell Division in a Skin Cancer Cell.<br />Image credit to <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Biomedical-science/Funded-projects/Major-initiatives/Cancer-Genome-Project/index.htm" target="_blank">Wellcome Trust UK</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Immunotherapy is a treatment modality for cancer that aims to help the body's immune system fight these cancers. An aspect entails tweaking the main cells involved in fighting cancer (we call them T cells) genetically to be able to fish out these tumours much more effectively; while another uses a type of chemical interleukin-2 to speed up the immune system's anger towards these cancers, a modality pioneered by scientists at the US National Cancer Institute in 1985 and which was used to cure some patients with melanoma (malignant tumour of the skin). These subforms of immunotherapy have not had the overwhelming success scientists envisaged them to record; but perhaps this new subform called Checkpoint Inhibition therapy may finally fulfil the omnipotence prophecy against cancer being alluded to immunotherapy.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The concept of immune checkpoint inhibition arose when scientists discovered that one of the chemicals, called interferon gamma, released by the T cells fighting cancers made the cancer cells to adapt to the assault of the immune system by developing a molecule called Programmed Death Ligand. Programmed Death Ligand binds to a receptor molecule on the surface of T cells called Programmed Death receptor; this receptor is probably involved in moderating the rage of the immune system cells in their fight against foreign entities that invade our body so that the immune system doesn't go mad and destroy normal healthy cells and tissues in their anger at the foreign agents; and they possibly do this by binding with Programmed Death Ligang-like molecules that are released during inflammatory processes; hence the programmed death ligands and receptors serve as checkpoints of the immune system in the time of war. But cancer, being a smart player in the survival of the fittest, decided to leverage on this cloaking spell. Hence, when T cells infiltrate these cancers and release interferon gamma and other chemicals that signal the rest of the immune system to attack, the cancers release the Programmed Death Ligand to bind the Programmed Death receptors on the surfaces of the T cells, making them think they are about to go crazy in this their fight to liberate our body and leading to the T cells taking their feet off the accelerator: the smart cancer laughs and continues growing.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But cancers aren't smarter than us; in the mid-90s scientists started working on molecules that could block the Programmed Death receptors on the surfaces of T cells and the Programmed Death Ligand produced by the cancer cells in patients so that the immune system will unleash its full wrath on the cancer cells. By 2012 clinical trials have already gone far in the US and some European countries to test a few monoclonal antibodies (drugs that are made by artificially synthesizing antibodies in the lab specific to particular protein fragments in disease antigens, unique protein molecules expressed by different cells-both healthy and diseased ones depending on the choice of a researcher) that have been developed specifically against the PD-1 receptor molecule on the surface of T cells and the PD-L1 molecules produced by cancer cells. The results of the clinical trials have produced spikes of miracles as some of the patients with late-stage cancers (with the cancer having spread to other parts of the body) witnessed their malignant tumours regress very significantly, and some tumours were even totally wiped out, including their colonies in different parts of the body (the lungs and liver where the tumour has spread to were found clean after rounds of cancer-detecting investigations). The development and success of these drugs (monoclonal antibodies) called immune checkpoint inhibitors were heralded as the most significant scientific breakthrough of 2013 by Science Magazine.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While almost half of those that enrolled in the various clinical trials for the immune checkpoint inhibitors seemed to have benefited from the drugs, the remaining half have not responded to the treatment probably because, as some cancer immunologists pointed out, their own cancers might be using a different pathway to leverage on the immune system checkpoint. And I think the way forward in this immune checkpoint inhibition modality is to now look at the genetic basis of the synthesis of programmed death ligand-like molecules in cancers. This may reveal, I believe, rate-limiting steps either at the messenger RNA transcription and translation levels and post-translational modification levels that may be totally different from those of other inflammatory processes in the body in which the immune system checkpoint may be very crucial to preventing autoimmune reactions; it may also throw light to polymorphisms unique to the genes encoding programmed death ligand-like molecules in cancers. Success in this direction will provide a wide range of targets for drug development that will benefit virtually every cancer patient because each group of drugs will target unique points that may be the engine room for a small group of cancer patients (pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine). One feasible way this 'way forward' could be achieved is incorporating this proposal into research initiatives such as the <a href="https://icgc.org/" target="_blank">International Cancer Genome Consortium</a>, the UK <a href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Biomedical-science/Funded-projects/Major-initiatives/Cancer-Genome-Project/index.htm" target="_blank">Cancer Genome Project</a> and the US <a href="http://cancergenome.nih.gov/" target="_blank">Cancer Genome Atlas </a> working to identify the genes involved in cancer development in thousands of patients (and I want to believe that cancer researchers have already thought about this and are moving in that direction); another way is to use animal models to induce cancers and then study the genesis of leverage of the immune checkpoint by the cancer cells right from the genetic level.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I believe we will keep gaining more grounds in the fight against cancer through the development of several weapons to destroy it from virtually every angle; a few weeks ago, <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-of-new-generation-of-cancer-drugs-granted-european-approval" target="_blank">Cambridge University</a> reported the approval by the European Union drug regulatory body of a new generation anti-cancer drug developed by its scientists in collaboration with the biopharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca. The drug called Lynparza exploits a totally different pathway to fight cancer: it inhibits an enzyme called PARP (Poly ADP-Ribose Polymerase) involved in a pathway for the repair of damaged DNA in replicating cells; and its efficacy lies in the fact that some malignant tumours have only this pathway for repairing damages to DNA unlike normal healthy cells that have alternative repair mechanisms such as the homologous recombination pathway. Lynparza has been licensed for use in patients with advanced ovarian cancer (with mutations in two genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2 which are involved in ensuring repair of sustained damages to DNA in healthy cells through the homologous recombination repair mechanism) in Europe; clinical trials have shown Lynparza to have very minimal side effects compared to other chemotherapeutic agents because of its specificity in targeting only cancerous cells; and since some other cancers (breast and pancreatic cancers) have mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, they are potential therapeutic targets for Lynparza.<br />
<br />
This new year and the years to come definitely will see us winning most of the war against cancer. </div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-14798961566126985212014-11-06T11:26:00.000+01:002014-11-06T11:26:13.839+01:00Discover the Digital Age Trinity: 3 Things You must Have in the Digital Era<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I remember a discussion with someone who asked what course I was studying in school and I said medicine; his response was "that your course is real good 'cos you're not going to have problems looking for job". I was irritated by such response, but mildly, because some elderly citizens I have talked with who had their education in the 50s and 60s when much of the emphasis was on finishing school and having jobs waiting for them had given similar response. But the tides have taken a new turn and we're in the 21st century where the world has witnessed a global economic melt down; jobs are no longer waiting for graduates of colleges and universities; many companies are cutting jobs, retaining only the most skilled workers and hiring contractors instead of full-time staff; and technology has given everybody the capacity to reach out to any other person in any part of the world and also made it possible for one service provider to deliver their service to a large user base in the shortest possible time.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I have read so many articles on what skills everyone must have in this 21st century, irrespective of your field of study or profession (and I guess you have too); and out of the numerous recommendations, I have sieved out three which I think (you may not agree with me) are must-have prerequisites for everyone in this Internet Age. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
1. <b><i>ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101</i></b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Lvh6R-GrPe1TyfSVVCefUDJEE_cqZ9lZRW-oP0hrpHRwt5ZsltmqFv1DVHb6aEcBysy6MCKIQcTTLxIDAT53v5fcUAqGHJTE3jaEubw4no-YkHvhOJqvdiWImO88nCDpRBSh_CXvzFah/s1600/unreasonable.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Life of an entrepreneur" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Lvh6R-GrPe1TyfSVVCefUDJEE_cqZ9lZRW-oP0hrpHRwt5ZsltmqFv1DVHb6aEcBysy6MCKIQcTTLxIDAT53v5fcUAqGHJTE3jaEubw4no-YkHvhOJqvdiWImO88nCDpRBSh_CXvzFah/s1600/unreasonable.jpg" height="130" title="Entrepreneur" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrepreneurship. Credit to <a href="http://build-biz.com/?cat=5" target="_blank">BuildBiz</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some experts have argued whether entrepreneurship should be taught as a field of study, or introduced across every stratum of the society for anyone interested to pick up at his or her own pace. The arguments will keep going, but I think every human being needs to master the basic rudiments of "transforming ideas into great businesses". Moreover, it is necessary the acquisition of this basic entrepreneurship knowledge start at the earliest possible stage in life to fuel the exponential increase in the desire to work for oneself as one grows up instead of dreaming to work for someone after graduation from high school or university. The teaching of the basic processes involved in turning any great idea into a great business should begin right from secondary/high school; in fact entrepreneurial education should be incorporated into the high school curriculum and made compulsory for every student, with class projects geared towards sharpening their ability to look for opportunities in their environment and generate business ideas to capitalize on such opportunities, scheduled during the holidays. Many experts are beginning to realize how important a step like this at that fresh level may be for the future of economies around the world. Coupled with skills acquisition training, students who cannot afford university education will have not just the necessary skills, but the right theoretical framework for setting up their own small businesses. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Those who proceed to the university should further be exposed to entrepreneurial education at least in their first year where it will be made a compulsory course. And this is where universities in my country, Nigeria, are still lagging behind: most of them are still teaching students outdated stuffs oblivious of the realities of the 21st century economy. However, a few of them are beginning to realize the danger; for instance, my school, the University of Ibadan has introduced entrepreneurial education as one of the general studies, meaning every first year student must take it to be deemed worthy of graduation; the University has also established a centre for entrepreneurship and innovation to stimulate the zeal of "working for oneself" in students. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0JpJO1WGrXDO3_nWLcHHbZOaycK-6P3B-SevoWrP4bdhgwa_LgvYEfPnu-gKhj5ehOCsLeK9WAPWYLpuAGO3bk0SxBrZlTBYaSnxJq-aGmRXc9OAgy5NmeMZjAdjtniKVKUekX7EFC_Yw/s1600/the_boss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Entrepreneurial education" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0JpJO1WGrXDO3_nWLcHHbZOaycK-6P3B-SevoWrP4bdhgwa_LgvYEfPnu-gKhj5ehOCsLeK9WAPWYLpuAGO3bk0SxBrZlTBYaSnxJq-aGmRXc9OAgy5NmeMZjAdjtniKVKUekX7EFC_Yw/s1600/the_boss.jpg" height="200" title="Entrepreneurship" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrepreneur and Employees</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If we can have what I will call the "Entrepreneurial Revolution" by young people today where we demand the government to give more attention to providing an enabling environment for us to create jobs after graduation, the global economy may be on its path to saying goodbye to recession. And I recommend economists around the world to compare the cost and short and long term benefits of government providing jobs for students after graduation with the cost and short and long term benefits of the same government providing an enabling environment for the same students to create jobs themselves. I believe the balance will tilt to the later; and more effort should be put into realizing the later while not neglecting the former.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While efforts are being made by the Nigerian government to foster entrepreneurship through its YouWin programme, the business incubator initiative from its<a href="http://techcabal.com/2014/09/26/nigerias-ict-ministry-completed-15-million-dollar-venture-fund/" target="_blank"> Ministry of Communication Technology</a> and other initiatives in other sectors like agriculture, more should be done especially by engaging the private sector (though a few startup accelerator programs from private corporations in Lagos are doing a lot in taking up fledgling businesses) to expand the the options for anyone with entrepreneurship drive. One way is to use entertainment. Music talent reality show has become one of the most watched TV programs in Nigeria, bringing unknown music talents to stardom and creating a platform for others to launch their music career. I recently started watching the American reality TV show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Tank" target="_blank">Shark Tank</a> in which owners of young businesses come before top investors to pitch their businesses to secure funding and in exchange give a certain percent stake of their company to the interested investor. While a few secure funding, startups who do not still gain from the wide publicity the show gives to their businesses due to the show's large viewership base. The private sector in Africa can buy the licence from the Shark Tank creators to produce a similar reality show in Africa, just like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_Africa" target="_blank">Big Brother Africa</a>, where startups from across Africa can come to pitch their businesses before top African businessmen and women for funding. A move like this will bring to stardom unknown African startups and also launch others to a very large audience. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
2. <b><i>RELEVANT ONLINE PRESENCE</i></b>. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglSVFDU6Xem2biurcUjg-_NHHqvByNMM8vBJwRpE1brqwN-zP1JhxlI7-S-0Mb5GN5RqEYALTmn2vyiC1GagDjt5mlEOBrUAnq_pMS6FIr4PS8T1NuypQTt-EjkmDX6CHY5hcJHYMDdWH9/s1600/online-presence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Building your online presence" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglSVFDU6Xem2biurcUjg-_NHHqvByNMM8vBJwRpE1brqwN-zP1JhxlI7-S-0Mb5GN5RqEYALTmn2vyiC1GagDjt5mlEOBrUAnq_pMS6FIr4PS8T1NuypQTt-EjkmDX6CHY5hcJHYMDdWH9/s1600/online-presence.jpg" height="207" title="Online Presence" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Relevant Online Presence. Image<br />
credit to <a href="http://veryofficialblog.com/2008/12/28/5-very-official-tips-for-building-an-online-presence/" target="_blank">Very Official Blog</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The advent of Facebook and other social networks has removed every excuse for not knowing anything about the internet. While spending an unnecessarily long period of time uploading photos on Facebook and Instagram, and tweeting about every single celebrity gossip may be productively unhealthy, following pages that deal in your area of study, profession and productive hobbies will give you access to unlimited pieces of premium information on these areas at no cost (information that one would literally pay thousands of dollars, in some cases, to attend as seminars). In addition, there are hundreds of sites and YouTube channels offering, for free, courses on almost any discipline one can think of, meaning distance or money is no longer a barrier to acquiring knowledge in any area of one's interest if there is internet access. Examples of these free online schools include <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/" target="_blank">Khan Academy</a>;<a href="https://www.edx.org/" target="_blank"> Edx</a> run by Harvard University, MIT and other top universities in the US; and many others. And the good thing is, unlike the conventional school, you get to learn at your own pace; I have registered on Khan Academy and Edx for a few courses which I'm taking at my own time and rate. Hence, a lot more can be gotten out of the internet aside checking Facebook updates and visiting celebrity gossip sites. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Being relevant online also includes making critical and insightful comments on any page, blog and websites one is subscribed to; some experts will also include having your own blog or website where you share with the world your areas of interest--people have got jobs from unexpected places because of articles they wrote on their Facebook pages, blogs and guest websites; and those who run blogs have witnessed increased traffic to their sites because of their great contributions to other online forums. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In addition, relevant online presence sets the initial platform for launching any business in the face of little or no cash for online advertisement because of the great online communities which one has impacted with their contributions; example is the<a href="https://zipadeezip.com/" target="_blank"> Sleeping Baby</a> company that secured funding from one of the investors on Shark Tank: the couple started the company with just $700 and spent no dime on advert, but because the wife belongs to an online community of moms where she has been making great and relevant contributions, this community helped to spread her company such that the company's Facebook page gathered 19,000 likes without paying a cent to Facebook (you'll agree with me how hard it is to get even a thousand likes on a page without paying Facebook). </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The issue of affordable internet access is the only barrier in some parts of the developing world to tapping into the abundant free resources that the digital age holds. While governments in these parts of the world make efforts to attract investments in telecommunication infrastructure, the big internet giants of this world--Facebook and Google and so on--should hasten their efforts on bringing internet access to the the world's two-third with little or no access, through their <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebook-to-start-testing-wi-fi-drones-next-year/" target="_blank">Internet-for-all drone WiFi</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/loon/" target="_blank">Google Loon</a> projects. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
3. <b><i>CODINGUISTICS 101 </i></b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl9tv7uj0qhyphenhyphenWwA50iypHGbaQLKuhL8qyec9eDJ3ALssbMf5aM__ypr4rqtLQkKYdylx0H3LAt7yQpJ5jpv5lsxQvgxMsFGcAKVlTmkr-U-YNdvBTsKcgw1-fwukkVKqQriH75X3Kmj53/s1600/programs-computer-programming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="programming language" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl9tv7uj0qhyphenhyphenWwA50iypHGbaQLKuhL8qyec9eDJ3ALssbMf5aM__ypr4rqtLQkKYdylx0H3LAt7yQpJ5jpv5lsxQvgxMsFGcAKVlTmkr-U-YNdvBTsKcgw1-fwukkVKqQriH75X3Kmj53/s1600/programs-computer-programming.jpg" height="154" title="computer programming" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Programming Language. Image credit<br />
to <a href="http://www.mdc.edu/virtual/degree-programs/computer-programming-and-analysis.aspx" target="_blank">Miami Dade College</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Most people today speak at least two languages, with English, French and Chinese (Mandarin) being the most spoken; and most of these speakers learned them not for academic purposes but for every other purpose-to expand their network in foreign territories. But it's mildly unfortunate that most people (including me; but I have just enrolled for a tutorial on it online at Khan Academy, where I'll be learning at my own pace) don't know the most popular language: when I say the most popular I mean a single language that is spoken in every corner of the globe by humans through computers. The most popular language on earth is the computer language; it is the oxygen that sustains every cell and tissue of the Internet anatomy: without it there will only be dead computers. And irrespective of the geographical region or cultural differences, the computer language is the same.<br />
<br />
While most people will not become professional programmers and developers, I believe everyone should master the basic elements of this language, hence the subheading Codinguistics 101. This is because as patents on inventions and related designs expire after a period of time, some aspects of digital knowledge and information marketing (where people make money by teaching others basic things about information technology) have started expiring, meaning that anyone should be able to perform certain IT tasks without spending a dime (it still amazes me that some people pay others to do basic things like creating email accounts, blogger accounts and installing purchased applications on PCs for them at this stage of the Internet Age). Everyone should know how to do these basic stuffs; and this can only be possible if coding is introduced to everyone at a very young age; code writing (relevant in today's world) can be included in the primary and secondary school curricula and made enticing, not compulsory, to every pupil and student. The private sector can come in here (internet giants like Google, Facebook and so on are already doing so much in this area) by creating summer coding camps for kids, teenagers and young adults; and also create TV shows on code writing starring kids and teenagers to further flame the desire to learn coding in everyone.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioJ4SQzf_LdOupHR-G6ONtng8afvn3LdWybkWBIRZyf0VTTi2VqQfTUdvHAPi-WNpK45LKFcnzIW8SOGoZm7Gl9cCTfkTsGAXUZXEHiwbAoRyT7pLvcX40RcYI9phXwP1xCr0ZQJbkEIDf/s1600/khan-academy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Virtual classroom" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioJ4SQzf_LdOupHR-G6ONtng8afvn3LdWybkWBIRZyf0VTTi2VqQfTUdvHAPi-WNpK45LKFcnzIW8SOGoZm7Gl9cCTfkTsGAXUZXEHiwbAoRyT7pLvcX40RcYI9phXwP1xCr0ZQJbkEIDf/s1600/khan-academy.jpg" height="180" title="Khan Academy" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Khan Academy. Credit to <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/" target="_blank">Khan Academy</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On a personal quest to learn how to code (and any other subject matter of your interest, from science to philosophy), there are countless hubs online to do just that at your own time, pace and at no cost except making a connection between a browser on your gadget and the server where they are residing; examples include <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/" target="_blank">Khan Academy</a>, <a href="http://edx.org/">edx.org</a>, code academy, and many others. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<h3>
We're stepping into the age of "internet of things" when virtually everything we use, from home appliances to medical devices, will be connected to the internet; and knowing how to loosen and tighten the elementary nuts and bolts of information technology, of which basic computer programming is part, will eventually become optionally compulsory.</h3>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
White collar jobs are fast disappearing; companies are hiring contractors and employing only very skilled workers; and technology has become integral to our everyday life. The Ned Luds may not like it now; but if we didn't give the Industrial Revolution a chance, the world would not have developed so much as we've seen over the last century. We equally need to give the Digital Age Trinity a chance. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<i>And one more thing; Digital Age Trinity sounds like a very good title for a highly immersing 3-D game. Game developers can build a game in which players have to master three characters (entrepreneurship, digital connectivity and a digital language) in order to survive in a digital economy.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-67586085410405542352014-10-09T15:39:00.000+01:002014-10-10T15:44:51.967+01:00How We Can Avoid Social Media Distraction When In A Serious Business<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7aqxjlESZqk0Z3dEt828IPCsE255fcuSMfkmw1UA7WzIqaljq5iwSqsfDkAR5at2uXc9YeCR2LZz7LNvW0m0MQE_44qI7bfrSC0RfCy-uqjHytqoJevlbYtM0yiixuFz8MdqvDlEhhqyB/s1600/Minimizing-Digital-Distractions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7aqxjlESZqk0Z3dEt828IPCsE255fcuSMfkmw1UA7WzIqaljq5iwSqsfDkAR5at2uXc9YeCR2LZz7LNvW0m0MQE_44qI7bfrSC0RfCy-uqjHytqoJevlbYtM0yiixuFz8MdqvDlEhhqyB/s1600/Minimizing-Digital-Distractions.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Online distraction while studying.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.connectionsacademy.com/blog/posts/2013-03-15/How-to-Minimize-Digital-Distractions-During-the-Virtual-School-Day.aspx" target="_blank">Connections Academy</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Often times while in a lecture (particularly if the lecture is boring) or when I'm about to work on something important (and which may require I stay online to get some resources) or I'm about to read, I have found myself drifting away from these serious businesses towards the coral reefs of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to check my notifications, who re-tweeted or favorited my tweets, or who liked my pictures. Before I realize what is happening, I'm spending hours on these social reefs, drowning into the colorful distractions and forgetting what I had planned to work on. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I know a lot of people experience this too; and I have read so many pieces of advice and strategies by different people on how to stay focused and keep away from online distraction when working: strategies such as switch off your phone or its internet access; turn off your email notifications; go to the library without your phone; and so on. But the world has changed in such a way that we now have a digital duplicate of our daily life: the Internet is an inevitable part of our lives. However, we should not allow this technology ruin us in the form of preventing us from concentrating on daily activities that are key to our growth and development and that of the society in which we live. This resolve requires we look for smart ways to stay focused on our work while online. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzZN60PbQ-cUpiQToG5PrWgZpgfOvk_jVwKyF4Tb5Yvci8EXxPi1vGOWuVhYDjj9To_LHYyLKn189p1eZ2_m7P8-kFD1k7SurnlONZmmFDSik_C49VcebYHt7HIw29YDyOTy_x5_89Qry/s1600/kudoso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kudoso hardware router preinstalled with the software" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzZN60PbQ-cUpiQToG5PrWgZpgfOvk_jVwKyF4Tb5Yvci8EXxPi1vGOWuVhYDjj9To_LHYyLKn189p1eZ2_m7P8-kFD1k7SurnlONZmmFDSik_C49VcebYHt7HIw29YDyOTy_x5_89Qry/s1600/kudoso.jpg" height="175" title="Kudoso hardware " width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kudoso router. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.kudoso.com/" target="_blank">Kudoso</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And one of the smart ways I came across is the strategy designed by Rob Irizarry, a technology expert. Seeing how technology--too much time on TV and on the internet--has taken over his children's lives, with a potential of health problems in the future from sedentary life before screens to the internet, he decided to design a system, he called <a href="http://www.kudoso.com/" target="_blank">Kudoso</a>, (software and hardware) that limits their access to internet TV and other sites, including Facebook and Twitter, and awards them time to these sites based on points they accumulate by completing other engaging activities such as home chores, school work, lessons on educational sites like <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/about" target="_blank">Khan Academy</a> and physical exercise such as running. Hence, kids will not be able to access online TV sites such as Netflix; social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on; and other entertainment based sites-without having worked for the access points. And these access points have time limits on each of these sites, so that these kids don't spend forever on them. The Kudoso system works as an app that can be installed on home internet routers and also comes as a router preinstalled with the software.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-9SFIrVgq5vl1cGibig7aTi4GFfaFTOTWAcb56cjkrLOIjEv9MlkKqj9-4njyK7HX4wEobPFv7IbAYoDas5_2bRKhfHytYG8zMozt4XqUNcwfh-ax0ZTWzRkBnUowh4jJxjb1sz9w196/s1600/nj5VxRlc.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-9SFIrVgq5vl1cGibig7aTi4GFfaFTOTWAcb56cjkrLOIjEv9MlkKqj9-4njyK7HX4wEobPFv7IbAYoDas5_2bRKhfHytYG8zMozt4XqUNcwfh-ax0ZTWzRkBnUowh4jJxjb1sz9w196/s1600/nj5VxRlc.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/robzarry" target="_blank">Rob Irizarry</a>, inventor of Kudoso</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While this is ingenious, it is aimed at kids mainly. What about the teenagers and adults who spent most of their time outside the house-in school, at the office and alone in their own apartment-with their smartphones always around them. This age bracket is the most productive in the population, faced with so many tasks to accomplish; but could be under-performing because of distraction from social media when at work: in fact, a survey carried out by <a href="http://salary.com/">Salary.com</a> last year showed that 69% of employees in the US spent time on non-work related websites each day in office, with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram taking the largest chunks of the total time wasted, and costing these employees' companies hundreds of millions of dollars. Little wonder some business organisations in Nigeria block access to these social media sites because of their impact on workers' productivity at work. But we need other options too--to augment the effort inside and outside the office. And one thing we must note is that whatever options that will emerge must involve our own conscious voluntary effort to help them help us stay focused and undistracted from online distractions while working. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
One more option is to develop a mobile application. But hey wait; this is an idea (others might have thought about it too) I'm throwing to app developers and the likes out there (I'm yet to learn how to code; but learning how to code I have promised myself: it may not be now, but I must surely learn how to code). So let's go back to the application. What if there is a mobile application that can block access to all social media sites and apps and uses an algorithm to block access to other entertainment based sites (unless you are working on something entertainment-related). The app will have a Work Mode and a Leisure Mode. For instance, if you are about to work on a project, you open the app on your smartphone, or computer (a desktop version could be made too) and put it in the Work Mode. Once in this Mode, you can choose the minimum period you intend to work, or you can leave it on unlimited period (it will give you the option of easily switching to the Leisure Mode after a minimum period of time). If you're going for a lecture or to work, the app will use your phone's GPS navigation to pop up reminder that you're heading for the location of your work (it will have a feature that enables input of workplace, lecture venues and so on via map and GPS) and should switch to the Work Mode to avoid distraction, such that once the lecturer comes into the lecture theatre or you hit the office and start work, you can choose to switch to the Work Mode. You can also choose to synchronize the app with your phone's reminder or to-do-list of activities so that it gives you the option of staying undistracted from online nuisances while accomplishing your tasks. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Someone out there is already asking whether I can't switch back to Leisure Mode and float on the stream of social media networks and the likes midway into my work. Like I said earlier, its functionality depends, to a large extent, on our conscious effort to stay away from online nuisances during our work periods. However, the app, which I call UnDistract if I were to develop it, would be designed such that reverting to the Leisure Mode before the minimum period of time set by default, depending on the activity, is spent , will be very tedious, involving answering series of questions, covering science, technology, music, arts and so on, drawn from the internet such that the user may stop midway: and the time spent trying to revert will count as that spent on the actual work because the user has got involved in some form of mental work. The activity-based minimum time frame feature will start working after the user has accomplished so many tasks spending the minimum time which can be manually set on the app, and the application's algorithm has gathered enough data to allocate a minimum time frame for any input activity. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I will keep on saying it--such an application will only be effective if we consciously want to stay undistracted while working: I can as well uninstall it after a few days if it seems to impose restrictions to my undisciplined freedom of deviation when I'm working. But would doing so be for my own good? </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<h2>
Warning: if anyone out there finally develops this app, <strike>be sure to give me 5 % of the revenue when it explodes with success, else I will sue you the same way the Winklevoss brothers sued Mark Zuckerberg when Facebook became a household name. </strike></h2>
</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-83277445434073712014-09-27T22:04:00.000+01:002014-09-28T00:08:50.562+01:00Would You Accept Stem Cell Therapy when other Treatments Fail? <div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5vEL00OaNSeG_HYta_5-Pe3pxt3sJwARfBDKTIpWq6J7PBkbEburKaKKDgJx1QfiSIa4hUN6fTh-L12-ap33ExKT210lVErNmS0vKSeqi6XdbYNceWAjNOybqhXXcVMxbxNom-7ZPicm/s1600/nrm2466-f2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5vEL00OaNSeG_HYta_5-Pe3pxt3sJwARfBDKTIpWq6J7PBkbEburKaKKDgJx1QfiSIa4hUN6fTh-L12-ap33ExKT210lVErNmS0vKSeqi6XdbYNceWAjNOybqhXXcVMxbxNom-7ZPicm/s1600/nrm2466-f2.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell therapy.<br />
Image credit to<a href="http://www.nature.com/nrm/journal/v9/n9/fig_tab/nrm2466_F2.html"> Nature</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I remember asking a resident doctor in the haematology department, during a tutorial in my 3rd year in med school (currently in my 5th year), whether it was possible to revert a fully differentiated cell (like a white blood cell, or a muscle cell) back to a stem cell, a type of cell that makes up the embryo (the earliest form of a baby in the mother's womb). The question was inspired by two things: back in my first year, I came across what is called induced pluripotent stem cells in a biology text because of my interest in genetics and stem cell science, because these stem cell could be generated from any type of cell in the body averting the need to depend on a human embryo ( a lot of ethical opinions against it) for stem cells; and secondly the tutorial was on haematopoiesis (the formation of the different types of blood cells from a type of stem cell in the bone marrow (the equivalent of the sweet stuff you suck when you crack the bone after eating the flesh off a chicken leg).</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIog4r8erpoEebL2pi0ZKFpmo69v__WwmAFPWuMADPWFQvsuMYUgMkB0u4zD1Su2clgoIwljCctnvigRI-OCVPlmq3N9-eemQKyqEbvecuUfShWO6pWnL0E7ZaA_6Dk-smOS44oJMcaib/s1600/nrm3448-f1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIog4r8erpoEebL2pi0ZKFpmo69v__WwmAFPWuMADPWFQvsuMYUgMkB0u4zD1Su2clgoIwljCctnvigRI-OCVPlmq3N9-eemQKyqEbvecuUfShWO6pWnL0E7ZaA_6Dk-smOS44oJMcaib/s1600/nrm3448-f1.jpg" height="158" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Potentials. Image credit to<a href="http://www.nature.com/nrm/journal/v9/n9/fig_tab/nrm2466_F2.html"> Nature</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The response of the doctor I reserve the right not to say; but the first reason--inducing an already differentiated cell back to an embryo-like stem cell-- why that question was asked had already been on the minds of scientists years before I came across it in the text because of the immense present and possible future benefits certified success in exploring such possibility holds. And many scientists across the world did begin exploration on this uncharted sea. Progress started emerging in bits from animal studies. But the big bang came from the success recorded using human tissue and cells by <a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/01/scitech-gist-celebrity-of-week.html" target="_blank">Dr. Shinya Yamanaka</a> (he shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for Medicine and won the 2012 Millennium Technology Foundation Prize for this work) at the Kyoto University, Japan. His team was able to induce fibroblast cells (found in connective tissue) and skin cells back to a fully undifferentiated state; they did not stop there: they were also able to stimulate the same induced pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into specialised cells such as muscle cells and nerve cells. This success spread like wild fire across the scientific world; it led to the emergence of, among other things, new ways of working on degenerative disorders, such as Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases, involving the nervous system whose cells do not undergo division, unlike most other cell types in the body, to replace severely damaged or dead parent cells. Scientists were now able to take normal skin or hair cells from patients with these degenerative disorders, revert them back to the stem cell state and then stimulate them to differentiate into healthy nerve cells, enabling them to compare at the molecular level the changes that occurred during the course of the patient's life, up to his or her present age, in the diseased nerve cells with the newly differentiated healthy nerve cells.<br />
<br />
The concept of induced pluripotent stem cells removed the need to experiment with human embryos as one can readily induce and form them in the lab from virtually any other cell type in the body. This ease further extended the application of this technique to areas like restoring sight to blindness caused by damage or death of the retinal cells behind the eyes (they are nerve cells in your eyes responsible for sending what you see to the brain for proper interpretation; and blindness can result from their damage or death). While the field of stem cell therapy is still mostly experimental, would anyone advise their grandmother or elderly dad to go for such treatment if they became blind and the eye doctor confirmed the blindness to be due to the degeneration of their retinal cells, and that there were no other treatment options?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLzviR_yFsXSrZjmtzr4Q4gMn28ceeWAARzyoG7KS3ci1SAfPd24D5wom_Y6Icpmr53Vqr60-Q9f1jPicFwM5gVxuPbHEd7USVi0wc8nj5F-GjvIUreQmA6SrTseCBefcgCWhonFs5PSau/s1600/hi_7577.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLzviR_yFsXSrZjmtzr4Q4gMn28ceeWAARzyoG7KS3ci1SAfPd24D5wom_Y6Icpmr53Vqr60-Q9f1jPicFwM5gVxuPbHEd7USVi0wc8nj5F-GjvIUreQmA6SrTseCBefcgCWhonFs5PSau/s1600/hi_7577.jpg" height="206" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology, Japan. Image<br />
to <a href="http://www.riken.jp/~/media/riken/research/rikenresearch/Places/hi_7577.jpg" target="_blank">RIKEN</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The choice could depend on how much information the eye doctor gives you (and you're legally entitled to every bit of information regarding any treatment modality from your doctor before making your choice of treatment) concerning the benefits and the risks, mostly unknown, of induced pluripotent stem cell therapy. But it seems that a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/japanese-woman-is-first-recipient-of-next-generation-stem-cells-1.15915" target="_blank">70-year old woman in Japan</a> is keen to regain her sight after becoming blind from a condition known as macular degeneration (occlusion of the retinal cells by blood vessels, leading to damage to the retinal cells) without minding the possibility of the unknown outcomes that may be more on the negative side. <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/next-generation-stem-cells-cleared-for-human-trial-1.15897" target="_blank">Scientists at the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan</a>, after a consult with Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, used skin cells from the woman to generate embryo-like stem cells after treating them with four genetic factors (details of which I will not bore you with); then, they immersed the induced pluripotent stem cells in the appropriate growth factors to generate retinal cells which they surgically transplanted into the woman's retina at the back of her eyes, following approval from the Japanese ministry of health.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
One assurance in this experimental treatment is that the woman's immune system will not reject the transplanted retinal cells as they were made from her skin cells: and this, I believe, will be the mainstay of organ transplant in the future when the field of regenerative medicine will have gone closer to perfection in growing people's tissues and organs from pluripotent stem cells generated from their own body cells (the term 'host versus graft rejection' may find no place in the medical texts of the future). But there are possibilities for unknown negative outcomes in this treatment as well, the most unpalatable for me being the decision of these transplanted retinal cells to turn into a cancerous growth. A less heart-breaking outcome could be the death of the retinal cells and hence their failure to restore the woman's sight: however, science is gaining momentum of control over this possibility, the latest coming from the work of 18-year old <a href="http://www.joshuameier.me/" target="_blank">Joshua Meier</a> whose award winning research--begun as a class project when he was 14--<span id="goog_1638689955"></span><span id="goog_1638689956"></span>has identified the DNA deletions in the mitochondria linked to aging and short life span in induced pluripotent stem cells; my guess will be to fully understand the mechanisms of these DNA deletions, and devise ways to avert them, in the process of stimulating induced pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into specialized cells for therapeutic purposes.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNs-0stIr8ufwskafAZi5DSnIcoyzgtNjc313y0-c-pOq4hDIU131_iYENni0eFoHhfCA04onxz-vqPa65ZQtn9o54_h_YXNbwGSDLRZ95CB4u3RkQPaQvUwgwDKP8rlNvROCNLWETLbW/s1600/josmei_1346342006_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNs-0stIr8ufwskafAZi5DSnIcoyzgtNjc313y0-c-pOq4hDIU131_iYENni0eFoHhfCA04onxz-vqPa65ZQtn9o54_h_YXNbwGSDLRZ95CB4u3RkQPaQvUwgwDKP8rlNvROCNLWETLbW/s1600/josmei_1346342006_1.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prodigy, John Meier in his lab. Image credit to <a href="http://www.joshuameier.me/" target="_blank">John Meier</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While stem cell therapy with human embryonic stem cells is the approved option in different parts of the world currently, it is facing an ever increasing pressure from ethics experts in various dimensions, some of which are being successful in dissuading potential candidates for stem cell therapy from going for the treatment. But success in this first trial of induced pluripotent stem cell therapy in a human will open a new window of opportunities to the treatment of degenerative disorders, especially when we have learnt virtually all the possible outcomes on the negative side and devised strategies to eliminate them, leaving our patients with degenerative diseases and disorders on the doorstep to regaining a renewed form of their lost life.</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-66940575482774528372014-08-08T00:09:00.000+01:002014-08-09T05:28:56.986+01:00Ebola virus and the Future of Containing very Highly Infectious Diseases.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFwzSxCHUlbZNbW2_YRHZxEPROZdvvE61GglRsOHOv78ewgjXajyq19E80j6gIxbrQYk5H2Wo25LzQpcGyuoOqbqYBh841h7S9EkYIXjf-RM7jvZAiPyBFnmFlLy9-gMf1XasVzzzaAai/s1600/_76476153_76475767.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFwzSxCHUlbZNbW2_YRHZxEPROZdvvE61GglRsOHOv78ewgjXajyq19E80j6gIxbrQYk5H2Wo25LzQpcGyuoOqbqYBh841h7S9EkYIXjf-RM7jvZAiPyBFnmFlLy9-gMf1XasVzzzaAai/s1600/_76476153_76475767.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Ebola virus. Image credit to<br />
the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28673380" target="_blank">BBC</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
Now Africa is faced with a new threat in the form of the Ebola virus; the death toll is rising in the three African countries-Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone-where the outbreaks occcurred this year. The Ebola virus, part of the haemorrhagic fever viruses, is extremely contagious and has a fatality rate of about 90%, meaning that 9 out every 10 people with the infection will likely not survive; though the rate so far has been about 50% and 60%. First reported in 1976 along the Ebola River in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), there was no outbreak between 1980 and 1993; some outbreaks occurred in some years between 1994 and 2012; this year's outbreak is the worst since it was discovered in 1976.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And the dawning of this reality has evoked in me questions about how the world, especially Africa, will position itself to tackle future occurrences (probably not the Ebola virus, as it may be eradicated if we get all the necessary public health measures in place) of new viral diseases that may be far more infectious than Ebola and Lassa viral infections. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
A few months back, a case of Lassa fever was reported in the Paediatrics department of our teaching hospital, the <a href="http://uch-ibadan.org.ng/x/" target="_blank">University College Hospital, Ibadan</a>; we had what we call Grand Round, a weekly seminar on pressing health issues, where this Lassa fever case was discussed in full details: it was at this seminar that I learnt that the one-use, disposable protective suit won by the health personnel managing a patient with the disease costs about 20,000 naira (about $150) which majority of Nigerian patients, who by the way do not have health insurance, can't afford (as about 3 or 4 of this suit will be required daily by the health workers, who would take shifts, to manage the infected quarantined patient-that's between $450 and $600).</div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
While the best option now in the current case of Ebola virus is to provide excellent public health measures (there is hope as the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/08/world-bank-pledges-200m-contain-ebola-2014854181960617.html" target="_blank">World Bank has pledged $200 million</a>, in addition to the $100 million dollars the World Health Organization and the three affected African countries jointly committed, to fight the outbreak in the affected African countries, including Nigeria) such as various forms of isolation units in hospitals to manage cases of admitted patients who present with the flu-like symptoms that have been associated with the Ebola virus infection, and isolating and monitoring those who brought the patient to the hospital (the treatment centre should also have the constitutional licence to isolate and monitor the patient's family members who came into contact with him or her after the onset of the symptoms); this outbreak has bared the need to establish and fund a multidisciplinary medical research facility in Africa to, among many other research duties, have a department of Unknown Highly Infectious Diseases. This department will be staffed by African medical research experts in Africa and in the diaspora who will collaborate with renowned medical experts in top research institutions around the world to quickly get samples from patients with suspected infectious, but unknown, disease for analysis of the possible cause and the firm establishment of various transmission modes of such a disease; and also to begin search for potential therapeutic (including a cure) modalities based on the accumulated knowledge from the various experimental studies that would have been carried out on the viruses.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In addition, the question of the ancestry and evolution of that new infectious disease-causing agent must be answered. Though this is a more demanding task, success at it will give the medical world insight into how for instance the Ebola virus and Lassa fever virus evolved (underwent mutations) to acquire their infectivity and virulence (the capacity of the viruses to cause the disease in people after infecting them) if there was a time in the ancestry of the viruses when they were not infectious; or even if they were infectious right from their first generation-how have they adapted and improved on their infectivity and virulence? It will also help in making quicker decisions in terms of the best path to follow in designing a treatment protocol if a virus in the same family, or a new strain of the same virus emerges in the future to cause disease in humans. This is getting more demanding and would mean spending more time with the virus in the lab, right? There's a possibility of a test tube containing blood samples of the virus slipping and spilling on to the researcher handling it; there could be an accidental needle pricking while trying to inject experimental mice or rats with the virus (to study immune system response to the virus for possible vaccine development); and a researcher dare not casually leave the lab to take some snacks, without following long protocols involved in removing his or her protective suit, no matter how hungry he or she may be. Is there a way to totally avoid the possible unforeseen hazard of infection that these researchers face in the lab while maintaining the same quality and quantity of research they will be doing on these very highly Infectious disease-causing viruses? A way that will enable a researcher to easily have lunch during work? I guess the solutions are in the future; but the future, I believe, is already here with us. And this future is where the extra collaborators from the US, Japan and other countries with very advanced robotics technologies will come in.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOsZ_kZYuoijwwnWLiytZ5uy_xj83TEGrSgUsNOkSBNk0B79Qp9F8OUGpBQ8zNPSSiTcQQQszONflng_BNgP9xxnrG5lFYraHlCWJIiMBs9XJcmxsOzzkvc8OKkrhsSRnwUagsQuSzVj1N/s1600/da_Vinci_S_HD_System.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOsZ_kZYuoijwwnWLiytZ5uy_xj83TEGrSgUsNOkSBNk0B79Qp9F8OUGpBQ8zNPSSiTcQQQszONflng_BNgP9xxnrG5lFYraHlCWJIiMBs9XJcmxsOzzkvc8OKkrhsSRnwUagsQuSzVj1N/s1600/da_Vinci_S_HD_System.jpg" height="202" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The da Vinci Surgical System. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.robotsurgery.ie/" target="_blank">Robot Surgery.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
For over a decade now, robots have been designed and modified to carry out surgery both in the battlefield and in the operating theatre under full control of human surgeons who operate them remotely, giving rise to the concept of the term Robo-Surgeon. The most popular and widely used of these robo-surgery technologies is the <a href="http://www.davincisurgery.com/da-vinci-surgery/" target="_blank">da Vinci Surgical System</a> developed by Intuitive Surgical in Sunnyvale, California. This Surgical System comprises of a surgeon's console (a room-like compartment where the human surgeon sits very comfortably, equipped with a high-performance 3-D vision camera and master control like video game pads), a patient operating table with four interactive robotic arms and a collection of surgical instruments called EndoWrist instruments. To carry out a major surgery, the surgeon sits in the console that is separated from the operating theatre in which the patient is lying on the operating table of the Surgical System, and through the high-performance 3-D vision camera system uses the master controls of the console to direct the robotic arms to carry out intricate surgical tasks with very high level of precision, leaving behind very minimal scar. This application of robotics in surgery can be replicated in the experimental studies of very highly infectious agents like the Ebola virus and other future viruses and bacteria.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sssy017cX-HF5tMFc5040K1kGGgKNuug10xe_cpt2rPf-ZCAgEu3l4YzbcPD96TyEMFOyBZwhJQB6dCJXLDDHm0gO5yA5OP3nsRhqeTxTd1pl-frqj4fSjNjqRN5UMvaffhj4HrPtdHf/s1600/M_Id_394141_e_Intelligent_Robotics_Laboratory_at_Osaka_University.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sssy017cX-HF5tMFc5040K1kGGgKNuug10xe_cpt2rPf-ZCAgEu3l4YzbcPD96TyEMFOyBZwhJQB6dCJXLDDHm0gO5yA5OP3nsRhqeTxTd1pl-frqj4fSjNjqRN5UMvaffhj4HrPtdHf/s1600/M_Id_394141_e_Intelligent_Robotics_Laboratory_at_Osaka_University.jpg" height="193" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A prototype of a robot that can be telecontrolled<br />
remotely by a human operator. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/scientist-develops-bodydouble-robot/1130090/" target="_blank">The Indian Express</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
The future I imagine here will have the robotic arms replaced by more human-looking robots (something more like a Humanic from the TV science fiction series, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extant_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Extant</a>), but whose entire functions (movements, vision and decisions in the lab) will be under the total control of the researchers in the consoles outside the high bio-security labs in which these infectious samples are kept. Hence, the researchers will not need to be in these high bio-security labs in person, only their virtual presence, but they will be able to carry out their research works as though they were still in the labs; and moreover these Robo-Scientists, as I would prefer to call them, will be equipped with digital note-recording system to enable the human scientists controlling them to document the protocols involved in the research, any findings and results in the course of the research, and easily share them immediately with other labs around the world doing the same emergency research. This will speed up the development of therapeutic agents as results emerge from the work and are re-confirmed by other labs doing the same work in the shortest possible time. One more advantage: no human will be exposed to the infectious agents, only the Robo-Scientists and who can easily be sterilized. Sounds like science fiction, right? But the future is already here. And as the hundreds of millions of dollars committed to fight the Ebola virus outbreak begin to do its job; as the resolutions of the emergency meeting, in Geneva Switzerland, by the global health experts of the <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2014/ebola-20140808/en/?bric_app_uri=http://webit.who.int" target="_blank">World Health Organization</a> (click on the link for the resolutions of the meeting) on drafting new measures to tackle the Ebola outbreak, held between Wednesday and Thursday, are made known to the public--I strongly hope the medical and corporate worlds will share in this future I envision and begin to set in motions the wheels that will contain the emergence of very highly infectious diseases, such as Ebola, in the future.</div>
<br />Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-78264603642433163202014-07-23T16:13:00.000+01:002014-07-23T22:32:35.079+01:00Scientists Begin to Unlock Some of the Keys to Drug Resistance<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLApd_K2ltI_4hcDlIcS1eSTfiF_ovHxCPt7pHATN-y6BGT_U8ReGJTJ0FneI5TrXL404brpbbsreIMOD7eogw6K_erEzoVVYtuj5vPqCMA5iGJGBvdU50OBrELNKod8OXR5VIYQFCw-P8/s1600/DSC_0833.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLApd_K2ltI_4hcDlIcS1eSTfiF_ovHxCPt7pHATN-y6BGT_U8ReGJTJ0FneI5TrXL404brpbbsreIMOD7eogw6K_erEzoVVYtuj5vPqCMA5iGJGBvdU50OBrELNKod8OXR5VIYQFCw-P8/s1600/DSC_0833.JPG" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">World Health Organization meeting on Drug Resistance in Leprosy.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://nlep.nic.in/photomain.html" target="_blank">National Leprosy Eradication Programme</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some time ago I talked about the<a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/04/drug-resistance-mans-greatest-threat-in.html" target="_blank"> threat that drug resistance by disease-causing microorganisms</a> poses to mankind if nothing is done now to tackle it. A few days later, the World Health Organisation echoed the same warning and emphasized the need for urgent action in finding new and potent ways to thwart this potential (and what I call) global terrorist attack by these disease-causing microorganisms as they continue to challenge our God-given right to replenish, conquer and dominate the world (for the animal activists out there, don't misunderstand me: I'm not talking about total annihilation of all microorganisms because there are the good guys among them who are minding their own business--the normal flora of our environment--and who are not challenging our God-given rights).<br />
<br />
One of the disease-microorganisms that has developed what I call smart resistance to drugs which previously dealt with it is the tuberculosis-causing organism called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This microorganism has evolved into to variants now known as Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) and Extensive Drug Resistant TB that is unaffected by most of the first-line and second-line anti-TB drugs, requiring combination of anti-TB drugs from more than one class before the patient's condition can see any improvement. This type of treatment, to be effective, may take up to one year or more, meaning more cost and more side effects of these drugs to the patient (and the patient will have to pay for other drugs needed to counter some of the side effects): this places a big burden on patients in parts of the world where TB is more likely to flourish: the poor populace of the world where access to health care is very limited. In addition to this problem, a case of a variant of a particular disease-causing bacterium resistant to all known potent antibiotics has been documented.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mpoB6tkRA2XWRBhwAkaB_2vqse9B9zHkS0Ipt9v-CPUFNSzuvZ8NihelkK1G6dGHWJUnUDF6z7Ob8u_k3AGCpaM5jpW_GF52UEnn2F34jnSDymqgawl23nyo39QSQwmxZ_1pmFolE_o_/s1600/nature13464-f1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mpoB6tkRA2XWRBhwAkaB_2vqse9B9zHkS0Ipt9v-CPUFNSzuvZ8NihelkK1G6dGHWJUnUDF6z7Ob8u_k3AGCpaM5jpW_GF52UEnn2F34jnSDymqgawl23nyo39QSQwmxZ_1pmFolE_o_/s1600/nature13464-f1.jpg" height="320" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crystal structure of the LptDE complex.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7507/full/nature13464.html" target="_blank">Nature</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But rights (our God-given rights), I believe, come with the necessary provisions and weapons to defend and protect them. According to a research published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7507/full/nature13464.html" target="_blank">Nature</a>, scientists have unraveled the structure and mechanism with which a group of drug-resistant bacteria, termed gram-negative, build their exterior coating wall that, over generations of mutations, has become impermeable to most antibiotics and also able to conceal the bacteria from the attack of its host (human) immune system. Scientists used the Diamond Synchroton facility in Oxfordshire, Oxford, which produces intense X-rays about 10 billion times brighter than that the light from the sun, to study crystalline forms of the isolated protein samples from the exterior of these bacteria at the atomic level. The result was an atomic-scale revelation of the structure of a protein complex called LptDE, in the cell wall of the bacteria. The detailed information gathered was then used to create models to simulate how this protein complex assembles molecules called lipopolysaccharide in the bacteria cell wall from the inside of the organisms; it was also found that the final stages of this assembly could be attacked from the outside using new antibiotics to shatter the whole assembly process and leave the bacteria exposed without a covering and vulnerable to the environment--the host immune system attack. One more good news is that the protein complex LptDE has been found to be almost the same across a broad range of gram-negative bacteria that cause a large number of diseases such as meningitis, meaning that designing a class potent antibiotics against this key structure could be the master key to treating these diseases. The way forward now, according to experts, is to start exploring this great opportunity to design novel drugs that can inhibit the mechanism of the protein complex, LptDE.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif32VfCN475oKIpslDI2bKOWgojLCeUmxGXPUkCqXfyy_yOKWwKHimR_K3KaDp-yjH9to6eryNSmaXwPY4OpSFm9B0lyBK3mTOk-woclF6wdG7PxyzA6hdSPQSF6Vel3wcpJzWjpnlATaU/s1600/EH1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif32VfCN475oKIpslDI2bKOWgojLCeUmxGXPUkCqXfyy_yOKWwKHimR_K3KaDp-yjH9to6eryNSmaXwPY4OpSFm9B0lyBK3mTOk-woclF6wdG7PxyzA6hdSPQSF6Vel3wcpJzWjpnlATaU/s1600/EH1.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diamond Light Source of the Synchroton Facility in Oxfordshire, Oxford.<br />Image credit to <a href="http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Beamlines/Engineering-and-Environment/I11/status.html" target="_blank">Diamond UK</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While this is a great basic and fundamental discovery and has brought much to hope for, isn't there a possibility that sustained offense against the LptDE mechanism (when we develop antibiotics against it) can trigger the need for these bacteria to undergo mutations that will alter some parts of the structure of the component proteins involved in the assembly work to render the designed antibiotics useless? There was a time when our current antibiotics were working wonders because they targeted what were found then as structures and mechanisms crucial to these microorganisms' survival; but the same crucial targets have become smart at adapting to our offenses.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_KJ1dnAYlG9WviViErauLdN8dEzswG4oINuN_oUfudoa9kALQ6Bv_uxMHtAxSUN1vbhgre7S2zyg-qmFU-mgG5pjaqdZOlNu23leY89TyN3ZGOGeiqUIFQsclk0SF54SBWbBwKUDuRfX/s1600/nature13464-f4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_KJ1dnAYlG9WviViErauLdN8dEzswG4oINuN_oUfudoa9kALQ6Bv_uxMHtAxSUN1vbhgre7S2zyg-qmFU-mgG5pjaqdZOlNu23leY89TyN3ZGOGeiqUIFQsclk0SF54SBWbBwKUDuRfX/s1600/nature13464-f4.jpg" height="273" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simulated model of the Lipopolysaccharide Assembly.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7507/full/nature13464.html" target="_blank">Nature</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My point is that we've got to have many potent options (<a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/04/drug-resistance-mans-greatest-threat-in.html" target="_blank">like I said in a similar post</a>) at dealing with these microscopic bad guys. In addition to leveraging on this current discovery, and also embarking on a suggestion I made in a similar post, I believe there may be special areas in these microorganisms that are very vital to their survival and at the same time do not undergo mutations at the genetic level because any alterations in the molecular structure of these vital areas would destabilize the microorganisms. Efforts should be geared towards identifying these areas in the <a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/04/drug-resistance-mans-greatest-threat-in.html" target="_blank">global MutaGenome Project</a>-areas I will want to tag Rigidity Importance Sites in drug-resistant microorganisms because they are very important to their survival but do not undergo mutations no matter the changes in the organisms' environment. This will enable the development of drugs targeted towards the translational outcomes (protein structure) of these Rigidity Importance Sites (RIS) in the DNA of the microorganisms. And one way to do this could be by creating models of the genome of some of these microorganisms and try to simulate their genomic replication, transcription and translation using data gathered from accumulated laboratory investigations and all possible effects of environmental changes on their genome over several generations--this I believe may reveal these areas of the genome that hardly undergo mutations, irrespective of the extent of external threats, but are very very crucial to their survival. Drugs designed against these Rigidity Importance Sites will be extremely potent at eradicating these disease-causing niggers, and any attempt to develop resistance to the drugs by mutations will be fatally detrimental to them; hence, we have a double-edged sword against them.<br />
<br />
And we'll keep on exercising our God-given fundamental rights to dominate over disease-causing microorganisms because there is hope and we are smarter than they are.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-53783905987489331272014-07-07T23:25:00.001+01:002014-07-08T01:00:10.965+01:00Bypassing Needle-Dependent Insulin Therapy in Diabetic Patients.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlJrNlUbQww9rwx3AAJEBKJ6yUHZMmmNjDNHpR67iUxydTWeu7UNR8Pp3neULgbANoTDHdgy4oYVzPYhWm8mwbl1exeBgV7N62x-N-rR-ixr-8o1bhWEnzkSEHD-EFL2PsEh4-hk0-GF4/s1600/Image_Pump_in_Pocket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlJrNlUbQww9rwx3AAJEBKJ6yUHZMmmNjDNHpR67iUxydTWeu7UNR8Pp3neULgbANoTDHdgy4oYVzPYhWm8mwbl1exeBgV7N62x-N-rR-ixr-8o1bhWEnzkSEHD-EFL2PsEh4-hk0-GF4/s1600/Image_Pump_in_Pocket.jpg" height="276" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modern Digitized Insulin Pump<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.tandemdiabetes.com/Products/t-slim-Insulin-Pump/" target="_blank">Tandem Diabetes Care</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Two weeks ago, we had a counselling session in the clinic for children with Type 1 diabetes mellitus (a type of diabetes that totally depends on taking an artificial form of the normal insulin produced in the body to be able to stay healthy and alive) when I rotated through the Endocrinology Unit of our Paediatrics department; these patients came along with their family members, and a pharmaceutical company that manufactures artificial insulin was also invited. Our consultant endocrinologist headed the counselling session, educating and re-educating these paediatric patients and their families on the management of their medical condition--diabetes--through lifestyle modification (taking the appropriate food, drinks and so on) and appropriate use of the injectable insulin: how many times to inject themselves with insulin in a day; on ensuring they take some insulin shots before meals; and so on.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjar9Q5te77dNv2VCTHRfaFn1DbOAnoNI_X3Tcn85FV7ncU1DGzTPYTrf81pCZ0ZCuPPpjBS33nA4O-MwXT8b_uQEwDxw8djumIk5jC47KiivAlTvHQdwEaM_XxpCOI_LN1K7hecXSUPOYO/s1600/tconnect_laptop_and_pump.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjar9Q5te77dNv2VCTHRfaFn1DbOAnoNI_X3Tcn85FV7ncU1DGzTPYTrf81pCZ0ZCuPPpjBS33nA4O-MwXT8b_uQEwDxw8djumIk5jC47KiivAlTvHQdwEaM_XxpCOI_LN1K7hecXSUPOYO/s1600/tconnect_laptop_and_pump.png" height="184" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digitized Insulin Pump linked to<br />
a Health Management Software on<br />
a PC for patients and Physicians.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.tandemdiabetes.com/Products/t-slim-Insulin-Pump/" target="_blank">Tandem Diabetes Care</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These children, I must say, were learning from these periodic sessions evidenced by how they gave very detailed accounts of what they have learnt and the risks of not adhering to the guidelines given to them. But worried me as I sat among my fellow medical students that day was the constant pricking these children would have to endure every day to take their insulin because the only insulin therapy still available in Nigeria currently is the injectable insulin (variations exist such as the insulin syringes and the insulin pen which the invited pharmaceutical company displayed and educated the patients on how to make use of). Aside this, even the insulin pumps (with all the newest modifications they have undergone) that are common in developed parts of the world still require the patient to insert the infusion set under the skin and carry it around (hence, the patient has to always be cautious about some activities in order not to disrupt the inserted infusion set of the pump which would dislodge the pump from the body and pose health risk to the patient).<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblSvpuc1GKxEjqbWnyhDNqwFka4Deb3TMHe42_KZVapsJi4Oo9czivuXRYJ4wZhrpM-_DY0t_LI6Kxu2C9AQhJHLL7SlceCRLNnCVqbEYLl0QRkxw5SdVTZAkbqwdPN20TeUSm0ZwUsod/s1600/Afrezza-from-MannKind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblSvpuc1GKxEjqbWnyhDNqwFka4Deb3TMHe42_KZVapsJi4Oo9czivuXRYJ4wZhrpM-_DY0t_LI6Kxu2C9AQhJHLL7SlceCRLNnCVqbEYLl0QRkxw5SdVTZAkbqwdPN20TeUSm0ZwUsod/s1600/Afrezza-from-MannKind.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Afrezza Technosphere Inhalable<br />
Insulin. Image credit to <a href="http://www.mannkindcorp.com/product-pipeline-diabetes-afrezza.htm" target="_blank">Mannkind Corp.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The highlighted worry above is not just the problem faced by diabetic patients in Nigeria alone, but the world over. Though, research (such as artificial pancreas, pancreas transplant and so on) is intense to address this major problem of invasive insulin self administration, something immediate need to be done to reduce the need for needle pricking several times a day by people with diabetes, especially Type 1 (people with this type of diabetes may die if the level of sugar in their blood goes far above or below a certain level, and hence a standby insulin at all times is very essential). And it seems that there is hope (though for now not for Nigerians with diabetes) as the <a href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/827539" target="_blank">US Food and Drug Administration</a>, FDA (the US version of Nigeria's NAFDAC), on the 27th of June this year approved an inhalable form of insulin called <a href="http://www.mannkindcorp.com/product-pipeline-diabetes-afrezza.htm" target="_blank">Afrezza</a> designed by the US pharmaceutical company Mannkind Corporation, after the FDA advisory panel met in April this year and over 90% of the members voted in favour of the inhalable insulin, following data gathered from the clinical trials confirming its efficacy was carried out in over 3000 patients with both Type 1 and 2 diabetes (Afrezza is not the first attempt at making inhalable insulin: the pharmaceutical company <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-10-18/pfizers-exubera-flopbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice" target="_blank">Pfizer did come up with its own inhalable insulin called Exubera developed by a company Nektar Therapeutics far back in 2005 but the product was pulled out of the market in 2007</a> because of the lung problems that ensued in some users, the high cost and lack of benefit over the injected insulin). The FDA has mandated that Afrezza be subjected to post-market study to monitor possible long-term outcomes, one of which is the possibility of some patients having lung cancer from the use of the product.<br />
<br />
The Afrezza inhalable insulin uses what its manufacturer calls the Technosphere technology (particles in <br />
powder form made up of biologically non reactive chemicals that carry the artificial insulin to the lungs once inhaled, and they completely separate from the insulin in the lungs to allow rapid absorption into the blood) to deliver inhaled insulin to the lungs where the insulin is absorbed rapidly into the blood, reaching maximum level between 15 and 20 minutes, hence preventing any imminent sugar overload of the blood, especially after meals. Afrezza inhalable insulin is contraindicated in patients who smoke or have asthma, or chronic obstructive lung diseases such as bronchiectasis.<br />
<br />
The major setback though is that the inhalable insulin cannot replace the long-acting insulin needed by Type 1 diabetic patients, meaning that these patients still need to inject insulin, but probably once a day, while using the inhalable insulin before or a few minutes into their meals. Now, this is where something can also be done, maybe not immediate.<br />
<br />
Women have the option of using the implantable contraceptives (which are inserted surgically, under local anaesthesia so that no pain is felt, deep into the skin of the inner part of the upper arm or thigh) which deliver artificial oestrogen and progesterone at rates required to prevent pregnancy for at least 3 years. Something similar, I think, can be done in the case of insulin: we can have insulin implants designed to release insulin at rates required for the basal level in these diabetic patients. This will replace the long-acting insulin injection and last for probably up to 3 years before it could be replaced; there is still pricking, but this time it is probably once in 3 years and then it is done under local anaesthesia, so the patient would not feel any pain. I believe work is ongoing on something like this.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-42721600865588608062014-06-21T01:20:00.000+01:002014-07-31T17:04:30.508+01:00Smart Home--Get Anything You Need with a Wave of the Hand.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5DgVwti1PFp2vgAiAbOyIUcNujPzencPPUSQBLFO8p9dtDI0gMOTmY31HPYl720ZochCgHaGOc2qlFC33iANLiGSmayLtySVqNgSkf3f5pteMbhazJ5wdwGXttfLTfBvF1PydBoLC7XF/s1600/image.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5DgVwti1PFp2vgAiAbOyIUcNujPzencPPUSQBLFO8p9dtDI0gMOTmY31HPYl720ZochCgHaGOc2qlFC33iANLiGSmayLtySVqNgSkf3f5pteMbhazJ5wdwGXttfLTfBvF1PydBoLC7XF/s1600/image.gif" height="173" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hand gesture control of your Smart Home. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Media Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/06/smart-cars-and-preventing-accidents.html" target="_blank">In my last update</a> I talked about how everything from goods to services is racking up innovative functionalities to earn the credibility of attaching the buzzword 'smart' to its name.<br />
<br />
The concept of smart home has been around for some time now; but it has mainly focused on small-scale stuffs in the home like heaters with sensors; doors with smart security system; electronic monitoring of your house energy consumption; the use of green energy alternatives in cooking; and so on. But now the concept has been taken very farther up the ladder to involve the house itself that houses the home, being inspired by problems like scarcity of land in the urban areas, portability, mobility and environmental pollution. At the <a href="http://sap.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT School of Architecture and Planning</a>, architects, civil engineers, city planners and other scientists are living their imagination of the future of housing.The <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Media Lab</a> arm of the School of Architecture and Planning has designed prototypes of what I will call super smart homes. One of the most interesting of these projects is the CityHome project.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36NuqmnzEKIvPFp6nswWKPPvSJlMxr-PiC2o9UZR9n2nviqs8ULQMOQuy1MtrdsnMRhH0nBBpu5q9qNqUrmHQbFZmwjt3l5XIgp7EZ-RtyGm2i5xK1PwO3mpBLmcfdpi1U8Fc98muAA2j/s1600/MITs-CityHome_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36NuqmnzEKIvPFp6nswWKPPvSJlMxr-PiC2o9UZR9n2nviqs8ULQMOQuy1MtrdsnMRhH0nBBpu5q9qNqUrmHQbFZmwjt3l5XIgp7EZ-RtyGm2i5xK1PwO3mpBLmcfdpi1U8Fc98muAA2j/s1600/MITs-CityHome_1.jpg" height="184" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The CityHome RoboWall Module. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Media Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HcWVeCh6HLny2v4S0BfyOLmpmu3ZCjV366YrmGOgtvjXPi-y8pRwcWGkw3scxQzQIt0HE0O59_RG_CKd382siTcIrKfXbTzeXsgKfyDYv3Sw0wexX3gMDVGknBtE2PbonsKFuJn_Irag/s1600/mit-city-home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HcWVeCh6HLny2v4S0BfyOLmpmu3ZCjV366YrmGOgtvjXPi-y8pRwcWGkw3scxQzQIt0HE0O59_RG_CKd382siTcIrKfXbTzeXsgKfyDYv3Sw0wexX3gMDVGknBtE2PbonsKFuJn_Irag/s1600/mit-city-home.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hand-gestured bedroom for some rest. <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Media Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The CityHome project depends on a smart modular technology known as the RoboWall to provide the smart home experience. In simple terms, you rent a small room about 18 square metres and fit it with your customized RoboWall module--which is a transformable wall system that incorporates furniture, entertainment systems, kitchen setup, office equipment, library, storage, a home gym, home lighting, toilet and bathroom, and any other stuff that is found in a home--and then get whatever you want with a gesture of your hand: if you want to entertain guests you make the gesture and RoboWall transforms into the perfect sitting room for your guests; this sitting room can later be instructed by voice to reconfigure to a kitchen for cooking which can then be motioned to transform to a gym for a workout session, a bedroom for rest, an office suite or library for some serious business, and when you want to send some brown dudes down the pipe you gesture out the rest room . The RoboWall also enables two purpose-serving sections like the kitchen opening into the living space if you want to shuttle between the two when you are busy with some chores and cooking at the same time (an analogue of multitasking which I call MULTICHORING); or the kitchen can be gestured to close off if you just needed to grab a pack of cookies and a bowl of ice cream from the fridge once and focus on an interesting TV program. This smart functionality of gesture-controlled home reconfiguration and movement makes it possible to live a 74-square metre apartment experience in an 18-square metre space with the RoboWall.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmk3-0-gE0uOq1xTQURaIBgdpoZQrY8N7XurKBj0AaZZ9cvpQnAO9-k3BobMy1_siFO0gZGMylKclO3UmSGAJ8NBk1smax4PxceNl18FLKSxgQAE-TxdCuYxglDKVvp1vwd4cYOPiDqQw1/s1600/chome-pcworld_20140528_130958_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmk3-0-gE0uOq1xTQURaIBgdpoZQrY8N7XurKBj0AaZZ9cvpQnAO9-k3BobMy1_siFO0gZGMylKclO3UmSGAJ8NBk1smax4PxceNl18FLKSxgQAE-TxdCuYxglDKVvp1vwd4cYOPiDqQw1/s1600/chome-pcworld_20140528_130958_l.jpg" height="141" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CityHome enables you to do MULTICHORING,<br />
including sending brown dudes down the pipe.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvSov41uAdgzq66vJrjiohGxcO5Of9kp8-7VsBk6ZNiblkmVfRHk4FNz9xYuNyznkz5r1mH246A2YI2WC0FuxYINbMO7wbkm8jRKgSnZzLZP69Kb48BFw0wIZNu-OIQy4qE78dyHG0H19/s1600/CityHome-office.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvSov41uAdgzq66vJrjiohGxcO5Of9kp8-7VsBk6ZNiblkmVfRHk4FNz9xYuNyznkz5r1mH246A2YI2WC0FuxYINbMO7wbkm8jRKgSnZzLZP69Kb48BFw0wIZNu-OIQy4qE78dyHG0H19/s1600/CityHome-office.jpg" height="183" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some serious business.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The CityHome project is still in the stage of prototype, making it a futuristic solution for the already emerging problems in mega cities around the world such as scarcity of building space; overcrowding; climate change from carbon emission due, in part, to high energy consumption in our homes whose waste is not recycled; and so on. But even when its need becomes utmost in the future, it will likely, initially, be very expensive for the average income earner hoping to get an apartment of his or hers. However, with time, I think it will come to stay like smartphones just that there may be something like HIGH-END SMART HOME AND LOW-END SMART HOME MODULES; hence, the majority gets to own a smart home modular apartment, but with some having less functionality than the others.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuv0xPmXIdPedmtnAkwDMcDVPwMJP6hPbP8yUZzNQyJqSxfwrwxSUcSw-DHULYWQiFBluSWK76tgk0-xvOu8ljrYzB01ho6NhAV56hTyw4i9Jo_2sajy5jy37Nq_9_UgwQrDRYUT1U1n8B/s1600/JAU_MIT-Media-Lab-by-Maki-and-Associates-stage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuv0xPmXIdPedmtnAkwDMcDVPwMJP6hPbP8yUZzNQyJqSxfwrwxSUcSw-DHULYWQiFBluSWK76tgk0-xvOu8ljrYzB01ho6NhAV56hTyw4i9Jo_2sajy5jy37Nq_9_UgwQrDRYUT1U1n8B/s1600/JAU_MIT-Media-Lab-by-Maki-and-Associates-stage.jpg" height="144" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The MIT media Lab. Image credit to <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT media Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-6695409727594578172014-06-05T00:00:00.001+01:002014-06-06T23:47:39.555+01:00Smart Cars and Preventing Accidents.Since the first use of the buzzword 'smart' for electronic devices such as phones and tablets (based on the enhanced function of these devices as technology waxes stronger), many other entities including services (transport, services in healthcare, insurance,shopping and so on), relying on the power of super-computing technology, are making efforts to get it attached them also. We have smart TVs, smart watches, smart shopping, smart almost everything, etc.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_SMTEPwfDMRKqdfVIW5s4WXkluwEirtIHQUkXMzBG3y4u2m6WTAt2uEQf2Px5fNlvVQV0NOJ6Da1cIJ5mA2pEq0KtgNLD1sH9LSDEDXff94Dld-B8lgPDJSE-A49eFTeoCO_LieUsnxq/s1600/sv_pp_TrafficSignRecognition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_SMTEPwfDMRKqdfVIW5s4WXkluwEirtIHQUkXMzBG3y4u2m6WTAt2uEQf2Px5fNlvVQV0NOJ6Da1cIJ5mA2pEq0KtgNLD1sH9LSDEDXff94Dld-B8lgPDJSE-A49eFTeoCO_LieUsnxq/s1600/sv_pp_TrafficSignRecognition.jpg" height="320" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Radar Traffic detector. Image<br />
credit to <a href="http://www.radardetector.net/forums/car-talk/13442-siemens-vdo-traffic-sign-recognition-warns-if-driving-fast.html" target="_blank">Radar Detector</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But the word 'smart' means being able to make informed decision on solutions (choosing the best set of solutions from a myriad of solutions-this requires tremendous permutations and combinations from an already acquired database of experience, facts and statistics) when presented with complex problems; and a handful in various categories of electronic devices has been able to live up to this high expectation, with smartphones being the first on the list. Google, Samsung and other tech giants have come up with things like the <a href="http://scitechgist.blogspot.com/2014/01/google-launches-smart-contact-lens.html" target="_blank">Google Glass</a>, smart watches, with Google planning to bring self-driving cars to the market in some years' time.<br />
<br />
But even before we have self-driving cars--a smart ability in cars-there is already a handful of capabilities being built into the new generation cars to justify the use of the word 'smart car'. We have cars with TVs; internet facility and many of the things that come with having internet access--<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System" target="_blank">GPS</a> ( global positioning system), to navigate one's way through an unknown territory using one's car; Bluetooth synchronicity to connect your smartphone to your car and hence enable you to answer calls or take text messages from the smartphone hands-free; electronic database of your car's full functionality; and so many others.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6_qGoqZdpZSK-V09bXo4sU8s3VAnYyAgLnda0h9Z8AVGSoFPI7dz7aLn6-57nZKfvO2s0AhdDxWGxgRy4uRGR3-l9Xr0szvyZpq9YkKTWsvtIPFL8naWU10qzUrULwdCd4P8uDwC2amj/s1600/honda-cmbs-awarded-euro-ncap-advanced-honor-25006_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6_qGoqZdpZSK-V09bXo4sU8s3VAnYyAgLnda0h9Z8AVGSoFPI7dz7aLn6-57nZKfvO2s0AhdDxWGxgRy4uRGR3-l9Xr0szvyZpq9YkKTWsvtIPFL8naWU10qzUrULwdCd4P8uDwC2amj/s1600/honda-cmbs-awarded-euro-ncap-advanced-honor-25006_1.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cognitive Safety System in a car.<br />
Image credit to <a href="http://www.autoevolution.com/news-image/honda-cmbs-awarded-euro-ncap-advanced-honor-25006-1.html" target="_blank">Autoevolution</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These are great stuffs; but what caught my attention recently in the 'new generation' enhancements being added, and hence would qualify, for me, cars to have the 'smart' buzzword added to them, is the so-called <a href="http://www.trw.com/" target="_blank">cognitive safety system</a>. The cognitive safety system is a technology that uses radars, video cameras and other sensor systems built into cars to obtain real-time data on the traffic of any place, analyse road traffic accident data archive of such a place, reconstruct and simulate these accidents and analyse the various safety measures taken to avert the accidents; it then optimizes the gathered information to construct the best set of accident-averting solutions at all times and in situations of unavoidable collisions.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqZUthyphenhyphengZGUsUyNDOP3Fx3JZ0oRtWu5-F16oW1LhnS0sokHZ4WdrJwIzR0iXRecQatT-G4lCazHuE2Ev9IYywVehnJtYG8ZyXZCMuGugpWNavEDnrNnd1xgnmwi5FvsTIn4ExlfVzLuOk/s1600/1-cc-18790.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqZUthyphenhyphengZGUsUyNDOP3Fx3JZ0oRtWu5-F16oW1LhnS0sokHZ4WdrJwIzR0iXRecQatT-G4lCazHuE2Ev9IYywVehnJtYG8ZyXZCMuGugpWNavEDnrNnd1xgnmwi5FvsTIn4ExlfVzLuOk/s1600/1-cc-18790.jpg" height="231" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Driver Assist Radar technology.<br />
Image credit to<a href="http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/bosch-highlights-radar-technology-for-safety-relevant-driver-assistant-systems.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222916768" target="_blank"> EE Times</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These measures include the <a href="http://www.trw.com/integrated_systems/active_passive_systems/automatic_emergency_braking" target="_blank">Autonomous Emergency Braking system</a> which uses the synthesized data and brake pressure in the car to give it maximum braking to avoid a collision or reduce the severity of impact in unavoidable collision, with or without the driver's effort; Driver Assist system which uses the same data to guide the driver on accurate steering, braking and so on.<br />
<br />
Some of these stuffs are still in the final stages of development; hence, the future of our driving is definitely accident-free bright as requirements for the general acceptability of the terms 'smart cars' and 'smart driving' are being met one after the other each day we wake up.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-17629764700080838552014-05-19T01:28:00.000+01:002014-05-22T04:19:23.182+01:00How much Data can be Stored in so Small a Drive?Last month, the <a href="http://taf.fi/en/millennium-technology-prize/" target="_blank">Millennium Technology Prize for 2014</a> was awarded to Prof. Stuart Parkin of <a href="http://www.ibm.com/us/en/" target="_blank">International Business Machines Corporation</a> (IBM) for his work on <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/spintronics/" target="_blank">disk drive storage technology</a>. The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years to scientists who have made technological inventions that on a global scale have improved people's lives or have the prospects of doing so. And the award of this year's Prize to disk storage technology evoked in me the question of how much data can be stored in the smallest of a single drive and the expectation of more groundbreaking storage technologies in the future.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffmoqXiJe0xgzqByVdwkK7Wh1yovsN6jGb_WV_o1BQqZchyphenhyphen8BLMpG5qgeQA6UBpBoKhfiQw7i7OE1UBup47QDEChtzFio1wCK1DvKowvkOB16_fFBDmyXwttXax-aADIdmJ9mFTcrUvGv/s1600/133317078_13994711863431n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffmoqXiJe0xgzqByVdwkK7Wh1yovsN6jGb_WV_o1BQqZchyphenhyphen8BLMpG5qgeQA6UBpBoKhfiQw7i7OE1UBup47QDEChtzFio1wCK1DvKowvkOB16_fFBDmyXwttXax-aADIdmJ9mFTcrUvGv/s1600/133317078_13994711863431n.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prof. Parkin giving a speech at<br />
the Award Ceremony. Image credit to <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2014-05/07/c_133317078.htm" target="_blank">Xinhuanet</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Computer processors are getting smaller and faster each year-something that aligns with the so-called Moore's Law which predict that processors in computers will become smaller as they get faster; and this has applied for over four decades: we have supercomputer nanoprocessors doing hundreds of millions and billions of computations that totally dwarf their size today, unlike what was obtained back in the 1950s when computers and hard drives with memory capacity of 1 megabyte could take the space of a whole bedroom.<br />
<br />
While the Moore's Law has held over the years for computers, I think an analogy of it has also been in motion over the years in the area of data acquisition and storage technology.
Storage technology has got smarter over the years, with disk drives reducing drastically in size while their capacity to store data increases exponentially. This was made possible because of the fundamental works that have been done and leveraged on in the field of electromagnetic and quantum physics.<br />
<br />
In the early years of the 20th century, scientists discovered that they can harness the charges of electrons in a magnetic field to store bits of information (bit is the smallest unit of information that can be stored; and 8 bits are equal to 1 byte). This means that information is stored in a disk drive as tiny magnetic regions in a magnetic film and read by converting the magnetic change (information signals-audio and video) in the film into electrical current (depends on electron charge).
While a lot of information could potentially be stored in these tiny magnetic regions in the magnetic film of disk drives, that did not happen because writing and reading vast amount of data on small disk drives posed a challenge: these tiny magnetic regions got weaker as the size of the hard disk drives reduced requiring very sensitive reading device to read them, especially at room temperature.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZ1z33mXtmkN1Hxs5PIAGTohhxa-qU2qxnYTnpxatQWK3MQDblZtOrmtSfJV0Zrobs6xPih6rdug59lFBO8Q2bFop9now_yMO0qliD6R1QUVhd5769jQgZdvI7ZqJlsRrfE6GrGo2SheU/s1600/phy_07_interview_photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZ1z33mXtmkN1Hxs5PIAGTohhxa-qU2qxnYTnpxatQWK3MQDblZtOrmtSfJV0Zrobs6xPih6rdug59lFBO8Q2bFop9now_yMO0qliD6R1QUVhd5769jQgZdvI7ZqJlsRrfE6GrGo2SheU/s1600/phy_07_interview_photo.jpg" height="274" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L-R: Profs. Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg<br />
at Nobel Prize Interview. Image credit <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/fert-photo.html" target="_blank">Nobel Prize</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjET8JZZqasPcx-NgIz_cEPA-ThpCMqp2W_9EfNNKQhwd4h9LsyMEnds5BHQn4PVQ0_mZudb5ouHU9sMqRH_l0spbcltOW99FBi3d3wtLcHzrByHdJAgS-9p10zLt6EdyNE7gXgTe2F8yFk/s1600/gmr-reader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjET8JZZqasPcx-NgIz_cEPA-ThpCMqp2W_9EfNNKQhwd4h9LsyMEnds5BHQn4PVQ0_mZudb5ouHU9sMqRH_l0spbcltOW99FBi3d3wtLcHzrByHdJAgS-9p10zLt6EdyNE7gXgTe2F8yFk/s1600/gmr-reader.jpg" height="161" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GMR structure. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/magnetacademy/gmr/" target="_blank">Magnet Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But as much insight was being gained in the area of quantum mechanics, scientists began to explore additional, miniature, properties of the electron such as its spin property when there is a change in direction of a magnetic field. In 1988, Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg independently and simultaneously discovered what is known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_magnetoresistance" target="_blank">Giant MagnetoResistance (GMR)</a>, in which there is a profound change in electrical resistance in a thin film structure made of several layers of ferromagnetic and non-magnetic conductive materials (Professors Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg who won the <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/press.html" target="_blank">2007 Nobel Prize in Physics</a> for the discovery of Giant<br />
MagnetoResistance); this phenomenon was immediately found to be very useful in the area of hard disk drives and biosensors, as the very tiny magnetic changes in tiny magnetic regions where information is stored can cause significant change in electrical resistance in any GMR structure it comes into contact with.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkOqKWUdb0-HwWipCpOzn-k37JHA0iMImaw6St4mnlXKb57ZdF9OVkzJkuWPVgIH46USNJdhs9DkThHlFj1weYS1fvafzXu4Z8kENig4pq5e14sD9IHgSTY_eE1Ld6zn9vHXFIyBLCcAU/s1600/GMR_Sensor_Nachbau_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkOqKWUdb0-HwWipCpOzn-k37JHA0iMImaw6St4mnlXKb57ZdF9OVkzJkuWPVgIH46USNJdhs9DkThHlFj1weYS1fvafzXu4Z8kENig4pq5e14sD9IHgSTY_eE1Ld6zn9vHXFIyBLCcAU/s1600/GMR_Sensor_Nachbau_01.jpg" height="142" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spin-valve sensor. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_magnetoresistance" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This was where Professor Stuart Parkin came in. <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/research/gmr.html" target="_blank">By the early 1990s, while working at IBM</a>, he found a way to manipulate the spin-up and spin-down property of the electrons in the Giant MagnetoResistance sensor depending on the magnetic field direction of its multilayered materials to generate a spin-polarized current that could be turned on or off. This allowed him to design a type of valve that served as a read-out head ( a device that detects audio or video signals or any other data (by converting the weak magnetic regions into electrical current via large changes in electrical resistance in the GMR part of the valve) when flown over the magnetic films of hard disk drives), thus allowing for far greater amount of data to be written to and stored in hard disk drives than was possible before the invention. The spin-valve sensor was used to build the first 16 GB hard drive by IBM in 1997; and today the technology has allowed the design of hard disk drives with up to 6 Terabytes storage capacity.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ49zkwSxaTs9TUTN-Ii17P1dJ8Ra3JorhN70GX2BCz8qHQT671JnbJefVjOMTq_0891fCc_XZpftcQ2_Dkk8dY61VX_1S0mt_5TR5kB4Illm8Gi3bkGOhLYZe8N01GVN1MA5SsmIZyEpB/s1600/google-data-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ49zkwSxaTs9TUTN-Ii17P1dJ8Ra3JorhN70GX2BCz8qHQT671JnbJefVjOMTq_0891fCc_XZpftcQ2_Dkk8dY61VX_1S0mt_5TR5kB4Illm8Gi3bkGOhLYZe8N01GVN1MA5SsmIZyEpB/s1600/google-data-2.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Google's Data Center in Hamina, Finland.<br />
Image credit to<a href="http://business.financialpost.com/?attachment_id=251286" target="_blank"> Financial Post.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Professor Parkin's research opened up a new branch in quantum physics called <a href="http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/spin/intro.html" target="_blank">Spintronics</a> which explores how the spin of electrons could be harnessed and applied in different areas in the field of computing which will in turn have virtually limitless applications in any area of human endeavour that requires technology--and in this age we are in every human endeavour has something to do with technology to witness rapid transformation. His spin-valve sensor has undergone several modifications to make it much better and adaptive to the computing demands of today's processes. Companies like Google, Facebook, iTunes and Amazon whose services (searches, streaming music and videos online, looking for friends, shopping online) respond with several possible options even before we completed the clicks would not have been what they are today<br />
without Professor Parkin's spin-valve technology because these highly personalized services depend on mined data on consumers' (you and I) behaviour when online, and which need to be stored for processing and profiling--and these companies have huge data storage centres with thousands of hard disk drives with the spin-valve technology.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnin1qnM72OJ6Ktrd1iApQApH6Fk3w2e509rUx5VtIDppQR-RIv0qClrL2qkaaGfqzktOwwIr6G8fRZgt5TcdOyGPeN5URSIzlTJi7cwTJhxZcFaACEsyma0FYODmDEUS-Og9BVdO2f-K-/s1600/us__en_us__ibm100__spintronics__microdrive__620x350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnin1qnM72OJ6Ktrd1iApQApH6Fk3w2e509rUx5VtIDppQR-RIv0qClrL2qkaaGfqzktOwwIr6G8fRZgt5TcdOyGPeN5URSIzlTJi7cwTJhxZcFaACEsyma0FYODmDEUS-Og9BVdO2f-K-/s1600/us__en_us__ibm100__spintronics__microdrive__620x350.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A micro hard drive.<br />
Image credit to<a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/spintronics/" target="_blank"> IBM</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Many other entities such as telecommunication companies, which store consumers' call data for a period of time; website hosting companies and so on also depend on the spin-valve technology for huge data storage capacity. As well, national security organisations such as the US National Security Agency (NSA) which mine and store data on people's and organisations' calls, text messages, emails, Skype calls, internet searches, credit card information, financial records and so on for security profiling AND SO ON depend on Parkin's innovation. In fact, the NSA recently commissioned a one million square-foot data centre in Utah called <a href="http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/" target="_blank">Bumblehive</a> which has a data storage capacity of one yottabyte which is equal to one thousand trillion gigabyte.<br />
<br />
But one million square feet is a huge land space just for data storage considering the ever growing housing demand, achieving environmental efficiency and much more. Can this one yottabyte storage capacity be squeezed into a smaller space? There is hope I suppose as IBM and other groups are working to pack more data in a smaller drive. Scientists at the<a href="https://www.research.a-star.edu.sg/research/6573" target="_blank"> Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore</a> are simulating models of what they call single grain-based magnetic recording and storage. Current hard drives store information (one bit) in magnetic regions which are like aggregates of grains in a magnetic film; but their model aims to store each bit of information in one grain instead of multiple grains. This would increase the storage capacity, according to their estimates, to 10 terabytes per square inch. If achieved, there would be hard disk drives of up to 15 Terabytes in storage capacity. This means an increase in the size of current cloud-based services offered by companies like Dropbox, Microsoft (SkyDrive) and Google (Drive) at the same or even lower price; the price of other services like web hosting will also significantly reduce, meaning businesses, especially those in the developing parts of the world will flourish as the cost of maintaining an online presence falls. And as Professor Parkin's continues to make further improvement to this groundbreaking innovation of his-- the latest being what he calls Racetrack memory in which he is working to exploit spintronics to create a new type of storage that will consume less energy and still be able to store as much data as magnetic disk drives--many more attendant waves of benefits are expected to cause ripples across the large waters of human growth and development in the nearest future of storage technologyDr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-43496977653942249572014-04-26T12:51:00.000+01:002014-05-09T21:44:24.271+01:00Evidence-Based Medical Practice-How Accurate is the Doctor's Interpretation of Radiographical Images?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDrqbSyFIkCcIbS5UZ_M00X5VgCINspyZsnwYXNAOYMKx5EbyZHbI9CtqTdEQYKa6lSRFvL4KUkwKq8_14Om5fBVbvKaCk8V1_csuneIgBh2A550s1mNxbNOHPVBd4bni6YEV-2CIc2Mg/s1600/PE-AneurCoiling_Figure3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDrqbSyFIkCcIbS5UZ_M00X5VgCINspyZsnwYXNAOYMKx5EbyZHbI9CtqTdEQYKa6lSRFvL4KUkwKq8_14Om5fBVbvKaCk8V1_csuneIgBh2A550s1mNxbNOHPVBd4bni6YEV-2CIc2Mg/s1600/PE-AneurCoiling_Figure3.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">X-ray image of an internal carotid artery aneurysm.<br />
Image credit<br />
<a href="http://www.mayfieldclinic.com/PE-Coiling.htm#.U1uVrvldVmw" target="_blank">Mayfield Clinic</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I heard a story of a doctor, a neurosurgeon, who operated on a patient to remove a brain tumour. The preoperative management of the patient was carried very well under this doctor's supervision; but the patient died a few days after the surgery. A post-mortem examination (autopsy) was carried out on the dead patient and it was found that he died from the rupture (very highly possible the neurosurgeon ruptured it during the surgery) of an aneurysm (a condition in which a part of the wall of an artery become inflated like a balloon because of the presence of fatty deposits in between the layers of the wall of the artery) of one of the internal carotid arteries and which has been there before the surgery was done. But this patient was said to have received a good preoperative management, meaning that he underwent X-rays, computed tomography scan and even MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the head and neck. Why did the preoperative management team fail to detect the internal carotid artery aneurysm? And why did the neurosurgeon also fail to detect and avoid rupturing it during the surgery?<br />
<br />
In Nigeria and some other countries of the world, I think there are two reasons for this costly mistake. One is the poor relationship between the various members of the health management team: this is the major problem facing the healthcare delivery of many developing countries. And the other (which is not really an issue of whether the healthcare system of that country is advanced or not and hence is global) is the human error, an occasional drop of imperfection in that ocean of precision of our care of the patient.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztOX-deZkWg942hiQOkGGGKEk1UHF6NSTNAMVu8PdpYuEYWo7BPUuLdsqYDo0IllgOQqBu58HTbzP8CZXOzgsYiqwgD1ewCvEGDcmUqAtiCq3Y6mxM4dz5r6NuiKgnEPv9idP3d9dSgfm/s1600/Good-Sam-Clinical-Team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztOX-deZkWg942hiQOkGGGKEk1UHF6NSTNAMVu8PdpYuEYWo7BPUuLdsqYDo0IllgOQqBu58HTbzP8CZXOzgsYiqwgD1ewCvEGDcmUqAtiCq3Y6mxM4dz5r6NuiKgnEPv9idP3d9dSgfm/s1600/Good-Sam-Clinical-Team.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A GOOD Healthcare Team. Image credit to<br />
<a href="http://www.stmarysgoodsam.org/professionals/career-opportunities/" target="_blank">St. Mary's Good Samaritan Hospital</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A harmonious relationship in the multidisciplinary management of the patient is a precious jewel that has been very difficult to mine in the healthcare system of some developing countries. The major root of this problem is the clash of egos among the various professional disciplines that make up the medical management team. With each profession clamouring to be the leader of the team; with some experts in one profession looking down on and treating with contempt the experts in some other profession---one sees a situation where a neurosurgeon verbally insults an anaesthetist during surgery in the theatre, telling him or her that they don't know anything and that he could teach them everything about anaesthesia; a situation in which a surgeon who is not sure of what the details are on an X-ray does not seek the expert advice of the radiologist for proper interpretation before going in to open up the patient, because he feels he knows everything about radiology in addition to his own area of expertise. Fortunately, everyone in the medical management team in this part of the world is beginning to identify this problem and realizing that it is not in the interest of the patient for whom they swore an oath to take care of. Efforts are being made by every one of them to preach the message that each member of this multidisciplinary team is indispensable and that everyone is equally important in our duty of giving the patient the highest of quality medical care.<br />
<br />
Perfection in the various protocols guiding each modality of management and care of the patient comes after a long period of repeated trials during which mistakes are made (and whose end-product sometimes is the death of some patients) and lessons are learnt. But the fundamental basic goal of medicine is to give the best care to the patient, which can only be achieved by averting all possible errors that abound in the protocols of each form of patient management and care.<br />
<br />
Technology has long been employed to help out in this area, leading to rapid advances in various areas in medicine and which in turn has greatly improved the quality of patient care.
And as technology advances in itself; it magnanimously extends what it has gained to medicine. This gesture of generosity was recently witnessed in the area of interpreting X-rays of patients. A group of medical doctors and IT experts in the Nuclear Medicine department of the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre in Belfast have teamed up to develop an iPad application called<a href="http://www.experiormedical.com/index.html" target="_blank"> Experior</a>, which detects where a doctor is making a wrong interpretation of a patient's X-rays. Experior, which has been reviewed by the Royal College of Radiologists, works by assessing the doctor's ability to interprete X-rays of patients taken in their hospitals through online and real-time comparison with a huge database of similar X-rays validated over time by experts who are authorities in the fields of Radiology and Anatomy; it then sends an instant feedback of that doctor's interpretation to him, highlighting the professional rating of his interpretation, giving him corrective analysis of the interpretation and clues on how to make a better interpretation of subsequent similar X-rays. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmbAiMqyOfeANAhRF2lveEZbklXvgLU3eHITDHs2qdywP_Q7zwh5oTtW_fmghaV35W3Sxxvyrx8ZB2BxBw-6QyC7JCWJoRcZUOl9elQEMrvCmdslC3CIx8hVb2EjGdW7X18Kf5CiWH0Ui6/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmbAiMqyOfeANAhRF2lveEZbklXvgLU3eHITDHs2qdywP_Q7zwh5oTtW_fmghaV35W3Sxxvyrx8ZB2BxBw-6QyC7JCWJoRcZUOl9elQEMrvCmdslC3CIx8hVb2EjGdW7X18Kf5CiWH0Ui6/s1600/11.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Experior Medical App on the iPad. Image credit to <a href="http://www.experiormedical.com/index.html" target="_blank">Experior Medical</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In addition, Experior provides a vast online database of X-rays of the abnormal human anatomy as tests which the medical student, junior doctor and consultant can take, in a time-constrained setting similar to what obtains in the accident and emergency department, to improve their skills at making accurate interpretation of these images and saving patients' lives through properly guided medical care.<br />
<br />
The Experior medical app can be used by anyone in the medical field in any part of the world; the only constraint for now is that it is only available for the iPad. If the Experior <br />
Medical group can extend this application to the Android OS, then more doctors, especially in developing countries will have access to it. This will help to avert wrong interpretations of X-ray images, saving patients' lives.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-75643963238592674892014-04-12T01:30:00.000+01:002014-04-12T01:30:17.371+01:00Smart advertisement; Nigerian Telecom operators are dumb advertisers<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlYZHmr6mDC_mGCx3AHLYq_NpinTsRPpS6WxnaIzBFOb3Mxtf1aSx1TTeoz-MqX_MrdnWD07RnGJiDbhcldTN6f0QaoNJFGU31O3UdhlBMWl5QGg0PXnFDrBl8GV0i92F4PzVU2ROmSaP/s1600/nigeria_easyadz_trek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlYZHmr6mDC_mGCx3AHLYq_NpinTsRPpS6WxnaIzBFOb3Mxtf1aSx1TTeoz-MqX_MrdnWD07RnGJiDbhcldTN6f0QaoNJFGU31O3UdhlBMWl5QGg0PXnFDrBl8GV0i92F4PzVU2ROmSaP/s1600/nigeria_easyadz_trek.jpg" height="320" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SMS/MMS ad in Nigeria<br />Image credit to <a href="http://mobithinking.com/country-guides-home/guide-mobile-web-nigeria">MobiThinking</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"To enjoy pastor.........text 5045 to 4100. Cost #50 per month". This is one of the regular promotional ads most Nigerian phone subscribers get on their mobile phones daily.<br />
<br />
Over the years the techniques of advertisement have evolved to ways that bring ads to people without appearing intrusive, unnecessary and like a spam.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
Being the custodian of huge data on customer information is both a big responsibility and also a fertile land, under legal terms and conditions, to generate income in the area of advertisement. Companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and so on have put up several technological strategies for gathering data on hundreds of millions of customers that use their services. These involve collating the customer's name, phone numbers, location, occupation, level of education and information regarding their behaviour towards goods and services both offline and online, and so many other information. However, these companies don't stop in the data gathering process; they go further to process this huge amount of data to generate what I call "goods and services consumption" profile of each customer. With such profile database, these companies target their customers with adverts that cover their areas of consumption interests; this makes the adverts serve the purpose of solutions to the problem of making the best decision in the 'goods and services' market, instead of being an intrusion to these customers' normal activities. In addition, they use special software programs to track the behaviour and response of the customers to the promotional contents targeted at them and subsequently modify their advert strategy at them based on the profiled response. Ever wondered why someone going through Amazon's website from Nigeria would see majorly adverts from Nigerian businesses and not those in the US? This is because these companies have optimized their ad targeting strategy to suit the taste of whoever was visiting their sites or using any of their services.<br />
<br />
And this is where our Nigerian mobile telecom companies are far behind. Back in 2009, the <a href="http://www.ncc.gov.ng/">Nigerian Communication Commission </a>mandated every mobile network operator in the country to register its subscribers on their data: I registered my phone number with the network I'm subscribed to during which my name, age, address (state of origin and residential address), biometric finger print, webcam photo, occupational status (employed, student, unemployed) and other pieces of information were requested and which I provided. But it still baffles me when our Nigerian mobile telecom companies still send<a href="http://www.punchng.com/business/business-economy/ncc-to-retrieve-short-codes-from-mobile-operators/"> funny, annoying, unsolicited and intrusive promotional contents</a> like the ones I receive daily which do not target my goods and services taste, despite having such a rich customer database.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7To7JmwhvbHnJbe3AP-9RU4saytnMrh1sUoxDCDgbQJ8zKAEtdvFbyIWk5_CYmKAlwFLz1Mo43jSzHj9H7fvBXZtUWnf10g0xiC3I5Nm543cvhGu0Nc_ehPMYzU1rht5v_8KnJXDq3LNo/s1600/sms-31.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7To7JmwhvbHnJbe3AP-9RU4saytnMrh1sUoxDCDgbQJ8zKAEtdvFbyIWk5_CYmKAlwFLz1Mo43jSzHj9H7fvBXZtUWnf10g0xiC3I5Nm543cvhGu0Nc_ehPMYzU1rht5v_8KnJXDq3LNo/s1600/sms-31.png" height="320" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SMS/MMS ad. Image credit to <a href="http://www.onbile.com/info/how-to-advertise-on-mobile-phones/">Onbile</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Though online advertisement is slightly different from the SMS and MMS (short message service and multimedia messaging service) advertisement which is one of the advert service platforms run by Nigerian mobile telecom companies, it should adopt the same strategy of sending ads optimized for the taste of different segments of a customer base, employed in online advertising. These companies can profile their subscribers using the information obtained during the registration of their phone numbers into different groups of "goods and services tastes" such that when targeted with certain ads there would be a robust response to them; they can also develop a program that would monitor the response of these different groups of phone subscribers to ads and then use the information gathered to target ads highly relevant to their tastes; hence, these mobile telecom companies can then sell phone numbers of subscribers with a predicted high taste for particular goods and services to the providers of such goods and services, instead of the current selling of random, unprofiled phone numbers to random advertisers (I don't really like it when I, a student, receive messages on my phone telling me to call a particular code to know more about breastfeeding--I'm not a woman for God's sake, let alone a breastfeeding mother!). However, there are adverts that are general and therefore targeted at every customer.<br />
<br />
In addition, any SMS/MMS advert sent to my mobile phone should not be what I would have found out about without it being sent; it should not be what I have already seen frequently advertised on TV or online, because I will not respond to it, if I have already done so through another means. Instead, SMS/MMS adverts should, apart from being highly relevant to me based on my age bracket, occupation, gender, location (where I'm currently residing), be the premium link to the goods and services being advertised: by this, I mean the goods and services should be new in the market, and there should not be many other easy ways of getting to them (for paid services in Nigeria because most people would opt to get such services --music, book, and so on--free if there are means to do so; however, goods and services available for purchase through several outlets can also be advertised via SMS/MMS as it is just another medium of advertisement). Also, such SMS/MMS adverts should not be patterned to exploit customers as is the case with most of the promotional contents from our Nigerian mobile telecom companies currently. Why would I pay fifty naira for a song to be used as caller tune for just one month---it should be for life. If I choose to buy another song for caller tune I do so, and then put the old ones into a form of my 'caller tune library' which I can reuse again as my caller tune; the mobile telecom companies in Nigeria have to make something like this possible. Replicating this suggestion in other SMS/MMS promotional contents by the Nigerian mobile telecom companies will begin to give their customers true value for their money if they choose to respond to such adverts.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-14729466775517123242014-04-01T01:50:00.000+01:002014-06-14T21:18:11.279+01:00Drug Resistance: Man's greatest threat in the survival of the fittest.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONb41IUw4FOZ3HnPWZzcfij2BKK8jGcS_XRZHEgBjwvimXPMGo2tAmmhoptqH6_wCHcxTS5xJrCKD1Mp_dcW0jjPqCZXeDCbN7MgueXVt6RMmJl1PzfF7f2kueH9zXGykMHUPbtckNlvn/s1600/superbug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONb41IUw4FOZ3HnPWZzcfij2BKK8jGcS_XRZHEgBjwvimXPMGo2tAmmhoptqH6_wCHcxTS5xJrCKD1Mp_dcW0jjPqCZXeDCbN7MgueXVt6RMmJl1PzfF7f2kueH9zXGykMHUPbtckNlvn/s1600/superbug.jpg" height="203" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drug Resistance. Image credit to <a href="http://www.zmescience.com/research/studies/low-level-of-antibiotics-cause-drug-resistance-in-superbugs-11022010/">ZME Science</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The rate at which microorganisms harmful to our health are adapting to the various treatment modalities (drugs) currently available is very alarming and dreading. It is unfortunate to say that it seems that we're not one step ahead of these tiny, invisible-to-the-naked-eye organisms that are behind the various diseases that have affected humans since the beginning of history.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01t2IBioPuuIeotJd1QOVhSi-eG6IlFjZMmNH6VixV-5Yakb2lUT-oJ8YPZvF2jhDAIEGGjBpNWWAWw-K84u8tNkCX6U7qmXEbnzG_b9e1OqipDP0A-I1MfKYDAcMjkpnHk7oKisYA_q2/s1600/am-schekman-thanks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01t2IBioPuuIeotJd1QOVhSi-eG6IlFjZMmNH6VixV-5Yakb2lUT-oJ8YPZvF2jhDAIEGGjBpNWWAWw-K84u8tNkCX6U7qmXEbnzG_b9e1OqipDP0A-I1MfKYDAcMjkpnHk7oKisYA_q2/s1600/am-schekman-thanks.jpg" height="320" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prof. Randy Schekman, Nobel Medicine Laureate. Image credit to <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2013/schekman-photo.html">Nobel.org</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Why it seems that we in the medical field are not one step ahead of these tiny organisms there can be many reasons. Topmost among them is the lag in basic fundamental research. Late last year, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/usa-nobel-science-idUSL1N0HX1TR20131008" target="_blank">Professors Randy Schekman, James Rothman and Thomas Suedhof</a> who jointly shared the <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2013/" target="_blank">2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine</a> lamented over what they termed a neglect on basic research when the the US National Institute of Health created a Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences. In the words of Prof. Suedhof "......we don't have anything to 'translate' because we just don't understand the fundamental diseases of the brain....". His opinion is buttressed by the fact that there have emerged strains of the tuberculosis-causing organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that are resistant to all known anti-TB drugs; the same could be said of some strains of the Staphylococcus species which cause myriads of diseases in humans. The problem here is that even the most recent drugs used in eradicating these organisms have the chemical structural framework and pharmacodynamics (a drug's way of carrying out its work in the body) that was developed in the 1960s and 70s; and there is no enemy being fought by its adversary with the same tactics over 4 to 5 decades, who will not evolve defence mechanisms that will one day confer on it total immunity from such tactics and also allow it to mount fatal attack on the adversary.<br />
<br />
Another reason for this lag in our effort to be ahead of these disease-causing organisms is the lack of a large scale, collective and multidisciplinary undertaking to study in minute details the various ways in which these organisms evolve drug-resisting defence mechanisms. And what I mean here is an undertaking similar to the global Human Genome Project that saw to the successful sequencing of the whole human genome.<br />
<br />
Having outlined these two reasons, I would now set out suggestions as regards how we can totally be in control of this fight against these human disease-causing organisms.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi43epiuqHbhJTFjIkZnjN13vwvtU80HXBsf4w3DChDVYiKCQX4p9uEcYtMU79ZZZW1clhcGuVyxdB7bj7fn8imV41iDiEfruTM8vjwvPzhjEV3iBXg-h_r5A652lPi5_-PAjRqowFp7K7B/s1600/mulliscolor_en.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi43epiuqHbhJTFjIkZnjN13vwvtU80HXBsf4w3DChDVYiKCQX4p9uEcYtMU79ZZZW1clhcGuVyxdB7bj7fn8imV41iDiEfruTM8vjwvPzhjEV3iBXg-h_r5A652lPi5_-PAjRqowFp7K7B/s1600/mulliscolor_en.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prof. Kary Mullis. Image credit to <a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/872/000031779/">NNDB</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While it may seem that basic research in the area of drug development is not blossoming as we expect it, some tiny silver linnings I can fathom from some corners around the world. The one that comes to my mind is the work being done by the Nobel Chemistry laureate,<a href="http://www.karymullis.com/altermune.shtml" target="_blank"> Prof. Kary Mullis</a> (he won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, a technique used to create billions of a single DNA segment in a few hours).His concept of <a href="http://www.altermune.com/" target="_blank">Altermune</a> which he explained on the TED talk show conference is something that will give our tiny, microscopic adversaries a surprisingly lethal blow. Prof. Kary Mullis is taking a new, novel and radical approach towards fighting drug resistance in bacteria and other disease-causing microorganisms. The Altermune concept is a technique that uses an artificially synthesized molecule called Alphamer or Altermune linker to re-direct our own immune system to destroy these invading bacteria and other disease-causing microorganisms. An Alphamer or Altermune linker consists of a short sugar chain (an alpha galactose oligosaccharide)---which normally is not attacked by the body's immune system despite the immune system producing antibodies in response to its exposure---linked to a synthetic DNA segment called an aptamer with a specificity for only a particular strain of a virus or bacterium such that once this particular microorganism (which may be resistant to all available antibiotics, antiviral agents and other drugs in this case) invades the body, the aptamer segment of the Altermune linker binds to it and the antibodies produced in response to the galactose oligosaccharide exposure (but which does not harm it) will in the process be exposed to fresh food (the invading disease-causing organism), destroying it, both personally and by inviting other hungry guys of the immune system---the macrophages, the cytotoxic T cells and the complement system. Prof. Mullis has tested his new work on mice infected with a strain of Staphylococcus aureus resistant to even the most potent antibiotic---this became his enemy because it killed his professor friend---and recorded almost 100% wipe out of this bacterium from the blood of the mice after a set period unlike in the controls which used various antibiotics such as doxycycline; further studies are going on in other animals such as chicken infected with the flu virus, using Altermune linkers designed for such microorganisms. Human trials will likely start soon, especially if there are emergency cases where the patient could be at the point of death because every other available option has been explored with no results. And this will unleash a whole new field of fighting against microorganisms causing disease in humans (if this works out well in human, Professor Mullis may win another Nobel Prize but this time in Medicine in about ten to fifteen years' time).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIR9U_w_qfn0ZkHpxqhBOOGcub1fDdFJlIsYksCtLr3ndg2x1szT0Av9QCz7Jxm1atEDS4cSQUCIPr59bLKbR1IszL-MddbuOLZKpwFHgNqIB-kG3FCmPQPvYKzmyNxjHCWG-eNEwO_PuL/s1600/altermune1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIR9U_w_qfn0ZkHpxqhBOOGcub1fDdFJlIsYksCtLr3ndg2x1szT0Av9QCz7Jxm1atEDS4cSQUCIPr59bLKbR1IszL-MddbuOLZKpwFHgNqIB-kG3FCmPQPvYKzmyNxjHCWG-eNEwO_PuL/s1600/altermune1.jpg" height="194" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alphamer or Altermune Linker. Image credit to <a href="http://www.karymullis.com/altermune.shtml" target="_blank">Prof. Kary Banks Mullis</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
While this is ingenious, there is also great wisdom in exploring other ways so as to have several novel strategies for attacking these current-drug-resistant microorganisms. And I think one possible way to do this is to extend the kind of global interdisciplinary collaboration enjoyed by the <a href="http://www.genome.gov/12011238" target="_blank">Human Genome Project</a> to the study of drug resistance in every known disease-causing microorganisms, not just some small scale collaborative studies that are obtainable currently (however, this is not condemning small scale collaborative researches as they form the foundation for large scale collaborations). Drug resistance by microorganisms comes into play when these organisms undergo mutations. Mutation is a change in the framework of some portions of an organism's genetic architecture responsible for encoding proteins that make up the structure and function vital to its existence and continual survival in the face of factors (drugs and other therapeutic strategies) that threaten them. What if we have what I call the global MutaGenome Project in which researchers from all fields will collaborate at a global scale to map all the genetic mutations in all known disease-causing organisms over generations? These mutations will then be graded on a conventional scale, depending on the extent to which their phenotypic manifestations cause diseases in humans and mount resistance to our therapeutic strategies. By engaging in such large scale endeavour, we create what I call a mutagenomic database from which patterns in which these genetic mutations occur both among similar organisms and across different organism can be outlined, hence enabling us to use mathematical tools---such as the Nash Game Theory, Permutation and Combinations and so on already employed in evolutionary biology---to predict possible future genetic mutational patterns, outcomes, and understand clearly the working dynamics between each particular threat at the molecular level (in the form of therapeutic modalities) and mutational response (resistance development) in these organisms. This could then lead to different predictive therapeutic designs for a particular bacterium over time in response to its possible resistance development options. With this approach we can have centres for MutaGenomics and MutaGenomic Therapy (Mutational Genomics) in universities and research institutes around the world designing novel therapies for various diseases.<br />
<br />
This is a very daunting and big ambition. But we did it in the Human Genome Project, and we can also do it in the global MutaGenome Project.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-38334457782592608682014-03-15T01:37:00.000+01:002014-05-25T02:32:53.541+01:00Male Oral Contraceptive Pill is on the Way.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykj_NY7WEseZ9RMvzFETc5gZzx4bx6ytjvOwOuJMmWFEmO840C-FXIERGTR-S9GZyvnN8siujncQRUUhUzo-H3iolla_KuIr6bVm7_NFvs6Y6M7jsbB80kOsK7ATFzvXWeh9zHyh4DpYG/s1600/news-graphics-2007-_648211a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykj_NY7WEseZ9RMvzFETc5gZzx4bx6ytjvOwOuJMmWFEmO840C-FXIERGTR-S9GZyvnN8siujncQRUUhUzo-H3iolla_KuIr6bVm7_NFvs6Y6M7jsbB80kOsK7ATFzvXWeh9zHyh4DpYG/s1600/news-graphics-2007-_648211a.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Process of fertilization. Image credit to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5093955/Male-contraceptive-pill-is-step-closer-as-faulty-gene-found-that-causes-infertility.html" target="_blank">The Telegraph</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are approximately 7 billion people on the planet currently and close to half of this number live in abject poverty. Coupled with this is the fact that these people living in poverty are most likely to give birth to more children, far more than they can train with the little resources at their disposal.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, even some fractions of the enlightened segment of the world population in especially developing parts of the world still have mixed reaction towards the need for family planning. There are so many reasons behind this. Among them is the view held by some religious sects concerning the use of contraceptives; there is also the issue of the unwanted side effects of the various oral, injectable and implantable contraceptives used by married women, one of which is excessive weight gain (women are very concerned when it comes to their weight and I fully support them in that); some married men are not willing to use the Durex as they believe it reduces the pleasure that is derived from sex; and when it comes to the permanent contraceptive option, bilateral tubal ligation (the two Fallopian tubes of the uterus are surgically sectioned in the woman) and vasectomy (the man's vas deferens which transport sperm from the testes to the prostate gland is sectioned surgically), it has been shown that the married woman is more likely to go for it, the bilateral tubal ligation.<br />
<br />
This is very unlike the man, especially here in Africa, who believes that one of the major attributes of a man is his ability to impregnate a woman-and hence that special characteristic must not be taken away (this is somehow selfish but I'm indifferent on it anyway).<br />
<br />
Since there are very few contraceptive options outside this for men--condoms, withdrawal and the rhythm method-- all of which are most likely to be unpalatable to a greater percentage of married men, people in the medical field have been musing over the possibility of a method that will not take away permanently the man's ability to impregnate a woman; that will still allow him to get the full pleasure of sex; but which will prevent him for that moment from getting his wife pregnant.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2uZQw6pw-4f8v1KPxMppfBQCJmkEE9xi_lhxsvgU_fpz2J5nWUu3968qQ7CMsriY0YiC6diWjwwcNLQdZgmik4SGh7QqEs9RFKrQ60egoaRT1A-YVd_IAIMUbkDhhEJQn85qjfnlBFY4T/s1600/NEWS-p14a-275_tcm18-94940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2uZQw6pw-4f8v1KPxMppfBQCJmkEE9xi_lhxsvgU_fpz2J5nWUu3968qQ7CMsriY0YiC6diWjwwcNLQdZgmik4SGh7QqEs9RFKrQ60egoaRT1A-YVd_IAIMUbkDhhEJQn85qjfnlBFY4T/s1600/NEWS-p14a-275_tcm18-94940.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Feasibility of a male contraceptive pill. Image credit to <a href="http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2007/August/Bigpharmanotinterestedinmalepill.asp" target="_blank">The Royal Society of Chemistry</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And it looks like this particular idea may be brought to reality in the foreseeable future. A new study by researchers in Australia and published on the 4th of November, 2013 in the Proceedings of the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20825.full?sid=bb1bbbf9-de9e-4565-b4ce-30999c3937d7" target="_blank">National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America </a>shows that it is possible to reversibly prevent sperm from getting into the ejaculate during sex. Though the research was carried out using animals, mice, the prospect of reproducing such in humans is very high. In the study, the scientist used a technique called gene knockout to delete the two genes in mice that encode two proteins responsible for the transport of sperm from the vas deferens to the prostate gland during the emission phase of ejaculation so that the ejaculate produced by these mice contained no spermatozoa, and hence could not fertilize the females. Also, the researchers checked for side effects of this method and found there was mild reduction in blood pressure and heart rate because the two proteins have roles in blood pressure control through the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system.<br />
<br />
The researchers are now shifting their attention towards achieving that in humans, not by gene knockout anyway, but through the development of drugs that can reversibly bind on the active sites of the human version of these two sperm-transporting proteins; however, this is going take some time according to the researchers. Nevertheless, what matters most is that a safe, viable target for contraceptive pill development has been found; safe and viable in the sense that, unlike other previous attempts at developing drugs to prevent a man from temporarily producing sperm and in the pills for women, this particular modality does not target spermatogenesis (sperm development) and the hormonal regulations guiding it which could lead to untold mutations that can have future impact if the man decides to have more children. And one more good thing about this research is that when the drugs are finally developed they will likely be in form of tablets that can be taken with a glass of water. It would work as long as it is being taken; once the man stops taking it, he can reverse to being able to get his wife pregnant.<br />
<br />
Family planning and birth control, to me and how it should be viewed, is giving birth to the number of children a couple can comfortably raise with the resources available to them; spacing the birth of these children to allow for the full recuperation of the mother after each child--and this is extremely important for the health of both the nursing mother and the child being nursed.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-30209148174139355282014-03-10T00:14:00.000+01:002014-05-25T02:34:25.148+01:00A Software Program to Bill our Calls based on the Quality of Connected Call.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTU4cli4hX9g_mVR0h5D4YV1E9nwzWo_vzEsRWPJDpz_DRvYe6IbBzZA2LYR96e9ul_d8UpiC4fEtFeG1kHVC0rgcAdd9I_lms29vv2AtvnEHYo_FdsJ_EHqcA_K-YqvOiT9OUOISS91zX/s1600/mobilephone_africa2-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTU4cli4hX9g_mVR0h5D4YV1E9nwzWo_vzEsRWPJDpz_DRvYe6IbBzZA2LYR96e9ul_d8UpiC4fEtFeG1kHVC0rgcAdd9I_lms29vv2AtvnEHYo_FdsJ_EHqcA_K-YqvOiT9OUOISS91zX/s1600/mobilephone_africa2-300x225.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poor network reception and poor call quality. Image credit to <a href="http://telegraphng.com/2014/02/ncc-fines-telcos-poor-service-bars-selling-sims" target="_blank">Today's Telegraph</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There is no doubt that mobile telecommunication has in numerous ways expanded the growth and development of our society and made our world a global village. In fact, the great impact is very well felt in the developing parts of the world like Africa and Nigeria where I live.<br />
<br />
But in the developing world, here in Nigeria, while mobile telecom has expanded our economy, some elements are emerging that are insidiously denigrating the good impact of mobile telecom emergence: an occasional decline in the quality of call and mobile internet service offered by the mobile telecom companies operational in the country. Peripheral to the core of this occasional poor service delivery is the interruption in call by the "one minute remaining" voice that for some seconds (and which is money you've already paid and can't be refunded) actually prevent you from hearing the person you're conversing with-you have to ask him or her to repeat what was said during the lost seconds (money).<br />
<br />
The people of Nigeria have been complaining, but on a very weak scale, concerning the 'peripheral problem' I talked about. But the bigger problem we have with these mobile telecom companies is the frequent abysmal quality of voice calls which I can estimate virtually every Nigerian on prepaid plan has and will keep on experiencing if nothing is done about it (this issue does not look like a litigable one in Nigeria for now). It is so annoying to call a number, get connected but for almost a minute of this call you and your caller can't hear each other-- instead you hear this sea roaring noise, all because of bad network reception. Technically speaking, it may not be the fault of these mobile telecom companies all the time and hence they may not be blamed at all times. However, the rule is that one must get the high quality value for money one paid for any service, and hence the customers subscribed to these telecom companies should not be the one suffering from this occasional decline in quality of calls by spending money and not getting the quality service. That is an economic waste both to the customer and the country as a whole: there about 120 million mobile phone subscribers in Nigeria as at June last year according to the <a href="http://www.ncc.gov.ng/" target="_blank">Nigerian Communications Commission</a>; estimating that 1% of this number experiences this problem for one second everyday, thats 1.2 million subscribers multiplied by the call rate for one second (which 0.15 naira for intra-network calls) and we have N180,000; and for 30 days it is N5.4 million; this is the lowest threshold I set but I know it could be higher than this. This estimated threshold statistics shows that annually, Nigerian mobile phone subscribers practically throw about N64.8 million into the fire.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Ga2k9DJk86icUnIaN_TPB86QoWLuYAbCi8YT9nWuG0YPWlDB0xdZppaeDZ0mhLwtKqRU0gQ3YrnTOzeX2Yqel9eo1fn0ycytPa1iO-0Fmn5dK6QOkSNZGlSVcPvwrkTsHi-fshgGYEVH/s1600/Untitled3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Ga2k9DJk86icUnIaN_TPB86QoWLuYAbCi8YT9nWuG0YPWlDB0xdZppaeDZ0mhLwtKqRU0gQ3YrnTOzeX2Yqel9eo1fn0ycytPa1iO-0Fmn5dK6QOkSNZGlSVcPvwrkTsHi-fshgGYEVH/s1600/Untitled3.png" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Normally, calls are billed at a per unit time rate in most places. This billing method is okay by me if the quality of the call is at its best and which should be because customers paid for it. But because of the occasional problems in quality that callers may experience, and which is never their fault at all times, and the fact that they must get quality for the money they paid, I'm proposing that a new factor be brought into the phone call billing equation. A new software can be developed that will use a special algorithm to calibrate levels of quality in voice call which will be integrated into the per unit time billing algorithm. Technically, the two factors-time and quality of the call (based on network reception at both users' ends)-will be mathematically represented by two waves on a graph. When network reception is good, the call-quality wave fizzles out and the caller is normally billed per unit time; if the network reception and consequently call quality is bad, two things can happen---either there is a freeze in the timing of the call (in the case where the two connected callers are not hearing each other) and no money will be charged the caller during this period until the reception returns to normal when the timing will be unfrozen; or in the case where the call quality is mildly to moderately poor, the time wave aligns with the call-quality wave and the caller is billed based on the call quality alone. The Nigerian Communications Commission can supervise the development of this program and constitutionally mandate telecom operators to adopt it into their call billing operations.<br />
<br />
This new, innovative proposal, if taken up and developed, will further guarantee that customers get the full and high quality value for the services they pay for. Last year, the <a href="http://telegraphng.com/2014/02/ncc-fines-telcos-poor-service-bars-selling-sims/" target="_blank">Nigerian Communications Commission</a> fined the three major mobile telecom companies in Nigeria for abysmal service delivery, one of which is what I have just talked about. But the money fined these companies will not come back to the subscribers who did not get the value for it in the first place, and hence did not record a corresponding socioeconomic growth and development. Technology is here to enable us devise innovative ways of solving any problems that arise in our everyday lives. In Nigeria, mobile phone subscribers often do not get the full value for the services they paid for; this is a socioeconomic problem--and my proposal is one of the novel ways in which it can be solved.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-61100935989540315072014-03-04T20:25:00.000+01:002014-03-06T20:58:00.973+01:00Flexible Screens and Bendable Smartphones: the Science behind this Emerging Technology<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FBg0rgNBKDKaVNTEPXoFTTn45X641QvmdtcLR_Tseq6UWSTk46eISE1wL3zYHykzqacFotE2yG4mIOIqntHUooitb792SLHveBZ_W9l1yV41bwYRGpAdzqH9saonZ76qoFJUyGzUz52Y/s1600/image05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FBg0rgNBKDKaVNTEPXoFTTn45X641QvmdtcLR_Tseq6UWSTk46eISE1wL3zYHykzqacFotE2yG4mIOIqntHUooitb792SLHveBZ_W9l1yV41bwYRGpAdzqH9saonZ76qoFJUyGzUz52Y/s1600/image05.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bendable Smartphone of the future. Image credit to <a href="http://smartechnology1.blogspot.com/2012/12/bendable-oled-screens-will-change-your.html" target="_blank">Smarttechnology</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu4DoofwhIcG6-uwPwarIORzjNOwuEifz-Jq80PguHOL2TMUXTdEomT3r7vjF3IVp_ZQN2MQuEjubQ7o2YXBNgRNbm2go25K4nYydvUjuzNMmLC5hwsDH8ehrhVd-IsWNdeAdJoH0920xe/s1600/Flexible_iPhone.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu4DoofwhIcG6-uwPwarIORzjNOwuEifz-Jq80PguHOL2TMUXTdEomT3r7vjF3IVp_ZQN2MQuEjubQ7o2YXBNgRNbm2go25K4nYydvUjuzNMmLC5hwsDH8ehrhVd-IsWNdeAdJoH0920xe/s1600/Flexible_iPhone.png" height="225" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bendable Iphone of the future. Image credit to <a href="http://shsprowlnewspaper.blogspot.com/2014/02/2014s-new-technology.html" target="_blank">Prowl Newspaper</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I had my first mobile phone in 2007-one Nokia 2310. Then it was like one precious jewel-honestly if you give me that phone now, I'll throw it into the closet and flush it away-and I could remember that I played all the ring tunes on it over and over again, and also listened to news and jamz on radio stations with it. It was just so sweet. I used to admire the screen and always changed the theme colour-from blue to other colour mixtures I can't remember. But looking back and making comparison with the type of screens we have on phones now, I made a joke that the display of those old mobile phones and that of the current day call-only dumbphones are just films of groundnut oil on water; but that's a joke anyway.<br />
<br />
There has been rapid transformation in phones display and hardware from what was obtained back then to things like LCD (liquid crystal display), AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode); and now the current buzz: flexible display, bendable screens and bendable phones.
These new trending buzzwords in the smartphone tech world are not really new ( I mean in terms of the basic, fundamental scientific principles behind them).<br />
<br />
Back in secondary school (high school) and in the first year of university when we did the basic sciences, we were taught that metals and semiconductors like silicon are electrical conductors while non metals like plastic and rubber are electrical insulators, meaning that plastics and the likes do not allow current to flow<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQ8fa3GlCIzL8fJqq0HADhiPeFCCGNFTnDY0J7oaDvjOmw5kDnQluzWFRHFsh-43RzcOQqa9zFZBUnrJP3VDDM-7poJlRglwLgweykmjMujhapAhnlbC-0C7IIYvQW1QveHyzNuYrWjDX/s1600/bendable-smart-phone-cover.jpg.492x0_q85_crop-smart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQ8fa3GlCIzL8fJqq0HADhiPeFCCGNFTnDY0J7oaDvjOmw5kDnQluzWFRHFsh-43RzcOQqa9zFZBUnrJP3VDDM-7poJlRglwLgweykmjMujhapAhnlbC-0C7IIYvQW1QveHyzNuYrWjDX/s1600/bendable-smart-phone-cover.jpg.492x0_q85_crop-smart.jpg" height="221" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flexible Display. Image credit to <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/bendable-super-strong-plastic-could-replace-touchscreen-glass.html" target="_blank">Treehugger</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
through them. However, I would say that information was limited in scope maybe to accommodate the curriculum meant for such level. But as far back as the 1970s, three scientists, devised ways through which non metals like rubber and plastics when subjected to certain conditions conducted electricity like metals; this work led to the concept of polymeric conductivity (polymers-composed of thousands of monomers, if you remember your secondary school Chemistry-conducting electricity). The research was so phenomenal and filled with endless prospects for the field of material science and engineering that the three scientists, Professors Alan J Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa behind it were awarded the <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2000/press.html" target="_blank">2000 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for it. </a><br />
<br />
The area of polymeric conductivity in material science has so much expanded since 1970s<span id="goog_1175692017"></span><span id="goog_1175692018"></span>, giving rise to possible applications in the future such as flexible electronics (electronic devises whose electricity conducting parts are made of polymeric conductors and hence allowing you to bend them, unlike metals used in current devices).<br />
<br />
In fact, one of the expectations I had for the Samsung Galaxy S5 before its launch was it was going to come with a flexible screen display, and I was mildly disappointed initially because it fell short of that expectation despite all the rumours. But that expectation was not met because of one of the biggest challenges facing the industrial application of polymeric conductivity; and that was what took away that mild disappointment (though some other expectations I had for the smartphone, and which are extremely feasible, were not met with, but their analysis is not the focus of this blog).<br />
<br />
According to a new research published in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/41/16315.full?sid=241caa3e-2c9f-4794-9356-ea4d36c775ae" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> by scientists from Stanford Univetsity and the University of California Berkeley and led by Professor Andrew Spakowitz, these conductive polymers at the molecular level exhibit what they termed structural inhomogeneity. In other words, plastic conductors conduct electricity at different rates in their various parts at the molecular level such that bending or flexing them significantly alters the rate of current flow, reducing the electrical conductivity (and I now understood why the Galaxy S5 probably fell short of my flexible screen expectation--some work still needs to be done). Professor Andrew Spakowitz and his team I guess are working to find solutions to this current flow-impeding structural inhomogeneity; and their success, which is on the high side of prospects, will definitely make our dreams of having bending smartphones and tablets and other electronic devices in our hands come true because, for one thing among so many things,<br />
I will no longer panic if my bendable smartphone falls from my hand.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-85528156630405591292014-02-21T21:34:00.000+01:002014-06-29T15:06:02.551+01:00Smart Education Curriculum: Bringing the Extra-educational Means through which technology trends into the Classroom.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBknQoRNBJgRMVUgUidjNHPeh5C7e3oX4Z2b3fyd_FjHmqd2fgohWeOJV55YNTzgLU1dP2OL7RRgzg1HtuMdUrdIAJFqnGqzcNWkotPrP-Ywl03RCf3qRSFyRpq8PUOsdm0dexKTGXWejs/s1600/%EC%8A%A4%EB%A7%88%ED%8A%B8-%EB%9F%AC%EB%8B%9D_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBknQoRNBJgRMVUgUidjNHPeh5C7e3oX4Z2b3fyd_FjHmqd2fgohWeOJV55YNTzgLU1dP2OL7RRgzg1HtuMdUrdIAJFqnGqzcNWkotPrP-Ywl03RCf3qRSFyRpq8PUOsdm0dexKTGXWejs/s1600/%EC%8A%A4%EB%A7%88%ED%8A%B8-%EB%9F%AC%EB%8B%9D_2.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smart Education in South Korea. Image credit to <a href="http://www.advancedtechnologykorea.com/8000/" target="_blank">Advance Technology Korea</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I can't remember who I was discussing with some time ago but one thing I got from the conversation was this in my own paraphrase: people born in this technology age cannot do without or (get to the very highest level in harnessing their full potentials) without technology, be it in their jobs, startup companies and, which is the focus if this piece, education.<br />
<br />
Many developed and developing countries' governments and private corporations are making efforts in bringing technology into the school setting-by providing tablet computers stuffed with books and 3-D interactive materials for the primary and secondary school students; the higher institutions are not left out of this. And this has greatly helped the students to develop their potentials in their school works and projects. <br />
<br />
While these successes are being recorded, I still believe there are much more rooms for great improvements. Yes tablet computers with all the materials have been provided (they are helping because we use our PCs and ipads to play games, watch movies and listen to music; and hence there is a very high tendency we'll always study and work on our school projects using them). However, having incorporated the tools of technology into our education (though here in Nigeria we still have a long way to go), we're neglecting the means through which technology is permeating its way into the favorites and choices of the everyday life of young people (the main segment of the society fully immersed in the educational institution).<br />
<br />
But before I hit my target, I give an illustration. Here in Nigeria last year the universities' lecturers embarked on a 6-month long strike demanding as the major priority improved funding of the nation's universities which are owned by the government. After so many negotiations, the lecturers' body and the federal government of Nigeria signed an agreement in which the government endorsed to pump in #220 billion ($1.3 billion) annually for the next 5 years into the universities for massive infrastructural development and other upgradings. While I hailed this achievement, I discovered another problem (<i>wahala</i> in the Nigerian pidgin English): the hardware (the infrastructure of our universities) of the problem is being addressed, but nobody is talking about the software (the lecturers-I mean the way these lectures deliver their lectures to students).<br />
<br />
In most Nigerian tertiary institutions, some lecturers, I'm sorry to say, are luddites (ludite from Ned Lud one of the workers who led a protest against the industrial revolution in factories in the early 19th century when machines were taking over the works done manually by workers) and old fashioned in even the knowledge base of their specialty: imagine a lecturer detesting the use of electronic boards and projectors in teaching students; students using their phones and tablet computers to read, reminding them that in their own days they carried their big books to the libraries and read them from cover to cover. Another set of lecturers would teach students with notes they made in the 1980s and 90s and expect them to give them back in exam exactly what they taught them: if any student dared including new stuffs and updates as regards the particular course such a student might fail the course. And so this is the <i>wahala</i> I saw after the strike issue.
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZD4VJb2hG_TStD4TsJwMIaw5GJdKgJfIlRnWArgFU_sH8zyaKtQnWx73kictJV6Z4WWhYpiyZ73F9gBJZGpkIeEuUHvOl1UNDB0FkbSAt_6mB64C2HUiOv0iS8pI_tJzy0SSGe8ZjMv9J/s1600/ppl_wht_wprd_sb800_specialEdWheelchair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZD4VJb2hG_TStD4TsJwMIaw5GJdKgJfIlRnWArgFU_sH8zyaKtQnWx73kictJV6Z4WWhYpiyZ73F9gBJZGpkIeEuUHvOl1UNDB0FkbSAt_6mB64C2HUiOv0iS8pI_tJzy0SSGe8ZjMv9J/s1600/ppl_wht_wprd_sb800_specialEdWheelchair.jpg" height="280" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smart Education: personalizing teaching to student needs. Image credit to <a href="http://smarttech.com/us/STEM_ELA_SpEd_ErlEd/SMART+solutions+in+special+education" target="_blank">Smarttech</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The world is changing and the knowledge database of each discipline is expanding at an incredibly exponential rate because of the rapid advances in science and technology. And for the disciples of each of these areas of knowledge to keep up, the tools of technology and the various means through which these tools are used (especially in the extra-school setting) are indispensable and must be incorporated into the academic learning setting.<br />
<br />
Efforts are already being made in this direction (educational games and so on). Another strong extra-school means through which tech tools are voraciously being used is the social media-Facebook, Twitter and so on. This can be incorporated into the educational curriculum (but how many teachers and lecturers will agree to this at least in my country, Nigeria?.....That's the problem).
However, some teachers, not in Nigeria unfortunately, are already experimenting this idea. According to a report on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/education/13social.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times</a>, some high school teachers in Iowa, US are already experimenting with incorporating social media into classroom teaching and discussion in which students use Twitter to contribute to discussions on various topics in class, and some of them have recorded increased participation of their students in such discussions because social media (in this case Twitter) which appeals to them has been infused into what otherwise was a boring topic to them. The report also highlights some universities which have developed their own on-campus social media forums for academic discussions.<br />
<br />
Though there are many critics of this approach, and it is understandable as there are tendencies of distraction, but it is still being experimented on and can be improved on. One such way is to configure such forums to monitor and indicate when a student has strayed off the subject of discussion ONLY DURING THE CLASSROOM DISCUSSION; it will possibly get better with time. And other social media like Facebook can be incorporated by schools and universities; and universities can develop their own online discussion forums linked to Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networks to be used as part of some classroom teaching and discussion.<br />
<br />
I hope universities here in Nigeria can embrace this modality as one of its teaching methods. There are signs they will with time; one sign, though it is still at the student level, is the social education network<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_625458540"></span> Acada360<span id="goog_625458541"></span></a> co-founded by Mr. Godswill Oyor, a Law graduate of my school, the <a href="http://ui.edu.ng/" target="_blank">University of Ibadan</a>. Acada360, I will say is still evolving, is where students in Nigerian universities can upload their notes taken by them in class and get rewards when other students download them. I got to know about this site today on Instagram. Social media technology has come to stay and rapidly advance and our school curriculum must capitalize on its positive prospects.Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7348743731842969113.post-59395759164088960912014-02-18T00:37:00.000+01:002014-02-18T00:37:09.313+01:00The Greatest Labs of our Time<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBs9HLdGoeGogkhDt4XGM56LLMo2eWDon3_E7QSbxNOSgRyzdJ0VFnOKOgRq-6TotOL3q5DCY_X8V4TaI-aOeFsyq19sB-1TwHcedKpP523zoILRFyue99D7qXmBcFgRlYJ2mrEkGx02_/s1600/l24_07020161.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBs9HLdGoeGogkhDt4XGM56LLMo2eWDon3_E7QSbxNOSgRyzdJ0VFnOKOgRq-6TotOL3q5DCY_X8V4TaI-aOeFsyq19sB-1TwHcedKpP523zoILRFyue99D7qXmBcFgRlYJ2mrEkGx02_/s1600/l24_07020161.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Large Hadron Collider at CERN Lab. Image credit to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/spending-review/8076342/Spending-Review-Science-budget-escapes-swingeing-cuts.html" target="_blank">The Telegraph</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
When we hear of great scientific and technological inventions and discoveries, do we actually take a moment to imagine the centres that served as the factory, the machine house for these ingenious, world-changing productions: works that weave their webs of applications into so many areas that have been vital to our continued smart adaptation to this our world (I mean the ability to bend the course of the process of natural selection to our desired trajectory)? These are great halls that house great men and women during their days of tireless labour and sleepless nights of waiting for Eureka moments.<br />
<br />
It just occurred to me that these bedrocks of history making deserve some recognition (because most people are fairly or not even aware of them); and though there are so many, I have selected one for now because of the magnitude of its structure, the large number of science and tech experts working in it and the unprecedented level of collaboration it has (in terms of funding, rapport with universities and other research centres, and political commitment), and of course the quality of basic and applied research works it has churned out and it's still producing.<br />
<br />
And I'm talking about the largest particle Physics lab on the planet-the <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about" target="_blank">CERN Laboratory</a>. Founded officially in 1954 (with origin dating back to 1949) after what was known as the CERN convention by 12 European countries under the auspices of the European Organisation Nuclear Research, the Lab is located at the border between France and Switzerland near Geneva. Its name CERN is derived from the acronym<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="line-height: 25px;">Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire or European Council for Nuclear Research, and it is sometimes referred to as the European Laboratory of Particle Physics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;">In terms of collaboration, CERN Lab is run by 21 member European countries and observed by some non member countries from around the world, who all contribute to the funding of the lab's programmes; over 600 universities and institutes around the world use the lab's facilities; and about 10,000 scientists from over 113 countries come to CERN Lab for reseach.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;">CERN Lab currently employs about 2400 people. The lab majorly specializes in particle physics and has built some of the world's largest particle accelerators and detectors (gigantic machines used to accelerate subatomic particles like protons to near the speed of light and detect resultant particles from such collision).</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB70r4mI0wQcuCasrXJkFC2OhL9MYeBb4Fv1HQCNVWUFKHbP8GAGGqNnCxkXSLo_fITCkoVEBr2aXyg9FNpiXop1nJejxv_3r6hsKwdRv_lOlyL8w11K4rtvApPNTPOYJ-_4E8R1MNYKCX/s1600/lhc-460_1606906c.jpg" height="200" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ATLAS Particle Detector of the LHC. Image credit to <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/11/atlas-sees-higgs-boson-decay-fermions" target="_blank">CERN Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB70r4mI0wQcuCasrXJkFC2OhL9MYeBb4Fv1HQCNVWUFKHbP8GAGGqNnCxkXSLo_fITCkoVEBr2aXyg9FNpiXop1nJejxv_3r6hsKwdRv_lOlyL8w11K4rtvApPNTPOYJ-_4E8R1MNYKCX/s1600/lhc-460_1606906c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;">This great research lab has given birth to so many exceptional pieces of research. In 1989, the British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (www.) which on 30th April, 1993 was released to the public for free; and we all can agree how the web, free, has revolutionized every area of our human endeavour.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;">Though still in the experimental stages, physicists, biologists, doctors and other multidisciplinary experts are working at the CERN Lab to detail the biological effects of <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/experiments/ace" target="_blank">antiproton</a> (a subatomic particle with all the properties of a proton but with opposite charge <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNFwTv9SmXfTpn29UfmjDLBz-9YxorBVA2AS2qttNif4lWU0-zVqTNfSk-A6ayv5GoyhCVd3za6ZmB06AJ82HGPVEWV0y6xtHVNf0ADTChKo5DyKegH3iB7rvobtpcQleWDWfMMNeSrvV-/s1600/ace.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNFwTv9SmXfTpn29UfmjDLBz-9YxorBVA2AS2qttNif4lWU0-zVqTNfSk-A6ayv5GoyhCVd3za6ZmB06AJ82HGPVEWV0y6xtHVNf0ADTChKo5DyKegH3iB7rvobtpcQleWDWfMMNeSrvV-/s1600/ace.png" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Antiproton Cell Experiment. Image credit to <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/experiments/ace" target="_blank">CERN Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
and magnetic field direction, and so when it collides with a proton, they both destroy each other, releasing only a burst of energy) in the hope of using it in cancer therapy. What I see here is the prospect of reducing damage to healthy cells due to the scattering of protons when it collides with the nuclei of atoms of cells in the current cancer radiotherapy; the potential of antiprotons colliding with cancer cells and being destroyed together with the nuclei of atoms of these cells, releasing only bursts of energy and no other particle which can damage nearby healthy cells is a great insight being brewed inside the CERN Lab.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;">And last year, Professor Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics with Professor Francois Englert for their over 50-year-old theoretical physics research on the Higgs Boson particle (the particle that gives all matter their mass). This Nobel Prize was awarded to them because of the confirmation of this particle's existence after 50 years it was proposed; and this confirmation was done at the CERN Laboratory. The Lab's particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, spanning 27 km in length), worth $10 billion through its two detectors named ATLAS and CMS detected the particle; over 4000 scientists worked tirelessly to make this possible. I'm not a physicist but the existence of this particle and its confirmation holds untold potential for mankind which may not be in sight now: when protons were first discovered, nobody thought they would find applications in medicine, agriculture and so on. So, time will tell how great the real-world impact of this great fundamental scientific discovery will be.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: PT Serif, Georgia, Times New Roman, DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="line-height: 25px;"><br /></span></span>Dr. Okechukwuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03788336525790871420noreply@blogger.com2