How Can Nigerian Health Tech Startups Build Sustainable Businesses?

Health Meets Tech

Between the 30th of June and 2nd of July, medical doctors, software developers, graphic designers, business development guys and many others gathered at the Co-creation Hub in Yaba, Lagos for a hackathon called "Health Meets Tech" which was organized by a partnership of Digital Health Nigeria, EpiAfric and Facebook, and covered by the Nigeria Health Watch. 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 leverage technology to improve an aspect of healthcare in Nigeria. 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.

The Need for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Nigeria's Tertiary Institutions

According to the late Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world. 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.

What and which places spark and drive innovation?

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 MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, 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.

How Self-Driving Tractors, Drones and Virtual Reality will Transform Agriculture in Nigeria

Technology 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. 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—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 Zuckerberg during his visit at the Co-Creation Hub in Yaba, Lagos.

While these tech solutions to local problems were commended by Zuckerberg, he also stressed, during a Question & Answer session for entrepreneurs and developers, 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 more than half of the earth’s arable lands, that can be exploited for agriculture without harming the green ecosystem, is in Africa. 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 the 3rd most populous in the world, and a strong food security will certainly prevent a lot of problems.

Understanding the link between Zika Virus and Microcephaly (babies with small heads)

Baby with small head (microcephaly) born to a woman
infected with
Zika virus. Image credit to  CTV News

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.

Finding A Curative And Preventive Basis For Mental Illness.

Mentally ill people need help not stigma
Image credit to Imagebuddy

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. 

This Technology Could Solve the Climate Change Problem by Generating Low-Carbon Fuels from Sunlight.

Carbon Emission at the heart of  Climate Change.
Image Credit to GeekSnack

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.

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.

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 campaigns going on in several UK Universities and institutions for divestment from future fossil fuel), 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 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 beyond which catastrophes may start manifesting.

Find Out How This Technology Takes People's Facial Pictures Without Seeing Them

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

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.

Snapshot. Image credit to Parabon NanoLabs

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 Parabon NanoLabs in Columbia, US because it shares my concerns for such terrible setbacks to forensic crime investigations. By leveraging the unlimited potentials of the Human Genome Project 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

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.

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.

In addition, I did watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds, a TV series where FBI 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. 

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.

I wrote this piece primarily for the June edition of Klatsch Magazine run by Just4meds, 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.

Can this Treatment Empower the Body's Immune System to Root out Cancer?

I saw a patient in early 2013 when I did my first rotation in Surgery. She had breast cancer and after

Breast Cancer Undergoing Programmed Cell Death.
Image credit to Wellcome Trust UK

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.

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.

A Cell from Malignant Skin Cancer (Melanoma).
Image credit to Wellcome Trust UK

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.

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.

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 Nature 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.

Cell Division in a Skin Cancer Cell.
Image credit to Wellcome Trust UK

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.

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.

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.

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 International Cancer Genome Consortium, the UK Cancer Genome Project and the US Cancer Genome Atlas  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.

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, Cambridge University 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.

This new year and the years to come definitely will see us winning most of the war against cancer.

Discover the Digital Age Trinity: 3 Things You must Have in the Digital Era

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.

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.

1. ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101

Entrepreneurship. Credit to BuildBiz

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.

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.

Entrepreneur and Employees

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.

While efforts are being made by the Nigerian government to foster entrepreneurship through its YouWin programme, the business incubator initiative from its Ministry of Communication Technology 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 Shark Tank 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 Big Brother Africa, 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.

2. RELEVANT ONLINE PRESENCE.

Relevant Online Presence. Image
credit to Very Official Blog

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 Khan Academy; Edx 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.

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. 

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 Sleeping Baby 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).

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 Internet-for-all drone WiFi and Google Loon projects.

3. CODINGUISTICS 101

Programming Language. Image credit
to Miami Dade College

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.

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.

Khan Academy. Credit to Khan Academy

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 Khan Academy, edx.org, code academy, and many others.

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.

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.

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.

How We Can Avoid Social Media Distraction When In A Serious Business

Online distraction while studying.
Image credit to Connections Academy.

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.

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.

The Kudoso router. Image credit to
Kudoso

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  Kudoso, (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 Khan Academy 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.

Rob Irizarry, inventor of Kudoso

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 Salary.com 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.

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.

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.

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?

Warning: if anyone out there finally develops this app, 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.

Would You Accept Stem Cell Therapy when other Treatments Fail?

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell therapy.
Image credit to Nature

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).

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Potentials. Image credit to Nature

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 Dr. Shinya Yamanaka (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.

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?

RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology, Japan. Image
to RIKEN

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 70-year old woman in Japan 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. Scientists at the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan, 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.

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 Joshua Meier whose award winning research--begun as a class project when he was 14--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.

Prodigy, John Meier in his lab. Image credit to John Meier

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.

Ebola virus and the Future of Containing very Highly Infectious Diseases.

The Ebola virus. Image credit to
the BBC

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.

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.

A few months back, a case of Lassa fever was reported in the Paediatrics department of our teaching hospital, the University College Hospital, Ibadan; 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).

While the best option now in the current case of Ebola virus is to provide excellent public health measures (there is hope as the World Bank has pledged $200 million, 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.

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.

The da Vinci Surgical System. Image credit to
Robot Surgery.

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 da Vinci Surgical System 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.

A prototype of a robot that can be telecontrolled
remotely by a human operator. Image credit to
The Indian Express

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, Extant), 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  World Health Organization (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.