Saudi to participate in Bio Japan

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Saudi Arabia is participating in Bio Japan – the world’s oldest biotechnology exhibition and business event – for the first time and presented a seminar on Wednesday in conjunction with the Japan Cooperation Center for the Middle East. (ANJ)

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Updated 09 October 2024

Arab News Japan

October 09, 2024 21:07

Saudi to participate in Bio Japan

Leading biotech companies, universities and almost every major global pharmaceutical company takes part in Bio Japan
Saudi Arabia has launched a comprehensive National Biotechnology Strategy and is investing in biotechnology as a part of Saudi Vision 2030

Updated 09 October 2024

Arab News Japan

October 09, 2024 21:07

YOKOHAMA: Saudi Arabia is participating in Bio Japan – the world’s oldest biotechnology exhibition and business event – for the first time and presented a seminar on Wednesday in conjunction with the Japan Cooperation Center for the Middle East.
Leading biotech companies, universities and almost every major global pharmaceutical company takes part in Bio Japan, which focuses on biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and the health care industry in general.
Saudi Arabia has launched a comprehensive National Biotechnology Strategy and is investing in biotechnology as a part of Saudi Vision 2030, recognizing its great potential to drive economic diversification and innovation.
The plan is to foster collaboration between government agencies and private enterprises and unlock the full potential of biotechnology research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization. By unifying efforts and establishing a clear road map, Saudi Arabia seeks to position itself as a global leader in biotechnology and capitalize on the sector’s vast benefits for both domestic and international markets.
Representing Saudi Arabia at the event were Bandar bin Abdulmohsen Al-Knawi, Executive Director General for Health Affairs at the Ministry of National Guard; Ammar Al-Taf, the Assistant Deputy of the Ministry of Investment; and Majed Al-Saadi, the General Manager of Investor Outreach in the Ministry of Investments. Saudi Ambassador to Japan, Dr. Ghazi Binzagr also attended the workshop and the meetings.
Mohammed Al-Dahlawi, director Japan Office Ministry of Investment Saudi Arabia is also participating along with Mohammed Alfehaid, Director, Industrial Biotech, Ministry of Investment Saudi Arabia.
Bio Japan 2024, held in Yokohama and running from October 9th to 11th, brings together key players in the industry, experts, and innovators from around the world to showcase pioneering advancements in biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and health care technology.
According to the organizers, the conference brings together over 20,000 attendees from 35 countries, including leading biotech companies, research institutions, and government representatives.
Key topics of discussion will include innovations in biopharmaceuticals, advancements in stem cell research and gene therapies, sustainability in biotech, and how AI is revolutionizing drug discovery processes.

Nobel Prize in chemistry honors 3 scientists who used AI to design proteins — life’s building blocks

Updated 5 sec ago

October 10, 2024 04:29

Nobel Prize in chemistry honors 3 scientists who used AI to design proteins — life’s building blocks

David Baker created a computer program called Rosetta that helped analyze information about existing proteins in comprehensive databases to build new proteins that don’t exist in nature
Demis Hassabis and John Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that has predicted the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have ever identified

Updated 5 sec ago

October 10, 2024 04:29

LONDON: Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins — the building blocks of life — were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday. Their work used advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and holds the potential to transform how new drugs and other materials are made.
The prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London.
Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the award honored research that unraveled “a grand challenge in chemistry, and in particular in biochemistry, for decades.”
“It’s that breakthrough that gets awarded today,” he said.
What is the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for?
Proteins are complex molecules with thousands of atoms that twist, turn, loop and spiral in a countless array of shapes that determine their biological function. For decades, scientists have dreamed of being able to efficiently design and build new proteins.
Baker, 62, whose work has received funding from the National Institutes of Health since the 1990s, created a computer program called Rosetta that helped analyze information about existing proteins in comprehensive databases to build new proteins that don’t exist in nature.
“It seems that you can almost construct any type of protein now with this technology,” said Johan Åqvist of the Nobel committee.
Hassabis, 48, and Jumper, 39, created an artificial intelligence model that has predicted the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have ever identified.
The duo “managed to crack the code. With skillful use of artificial intelligence, they made it possible to predict the complex structure of essentially any known protein in nature,” Linke said.

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 #NobelPrize in Chemistry with one half to David Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction.” pic.twitter.com/gYrdFFcD4T
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2024

Why does this work matter?
The ability to custom design new proteins — and better understand existing proteins — could enable researchers to create new kinds of medicines and vaccines.
It could also allow scientists to design new enzymes to break down plastics or other waste materials that would neutralize pollution, Baker told a news conference, or even come up with entirely new material for semi conductors.
“I think there’s fantastic prospects for making better medicines — medicines that are smarter, that only work in the right time and place in the body,” Baker told The Associated Press.
One example is a potential nasal spray that could slow or stop the rapid spread of specific viruses, such as COVID-19, he said. Another is a medicine to disrupt the cascade of symptoms known as cytokine storm.
“That was always the holy grail. If you could figure out how protein sequences folded into their particular structures, then it might be possible to design protein sequences to fold into previously never seen structures that might be useful for us,” said Jon Lorsch, a director at the NIH.
How did the winners react?
Baker told the AP he found out he won the Nobel during the early hours of the morning alongside his wife, who immediately started screaming.
“So it was a little deafening, too,” he said.

Computational biologist professor David Baker speaks to coworkers at the University of Washington in Seattle after receiving the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry on October 09, 2024. (Getty Images/AFP)

Hassabis said he was just having a “normal morning” at home when he eventually got the call.
The Nobel committee didn’t initially have his number and first managed to get hold of his wife, but she hung up on them a few times, he told an online news briefing.
“They kept persisting and then I think she realized it was a Swedish number and then they asked for my number,” he said.
“It’s so incredible. It’s so unreal at this moment,” said Jumper, a researcher and director at Google DeepMind. “And it’s wonderful.”
What was the role of AI?
One of Britain’s leading tech figures, Hassabis co-founded the AI research lab DeepMind in 2010, which was acquired by Google in 2014. Among its past breakthroughs was developing an AI system that mastered the Chinese game Go and defeated the game’s human world champion.
In the past researchers labored for months or years to decode the structure of a single complex protein.
But the AI model created by the DeepMind researchers, called AlphaFold, “can determine the structure of a protein pretty accurately within a few seconds or minutes,” Hassabis told the AP in an interview, adding that this saves researchers “years of potentially painstaking experimental work.”
The two research groups learned from each other’s work.

Johan Aqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, permanent secretary and Heiner Linke, committee chairman award this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 9, 2024. (TT News Agency via AP)

Baker said Hassabis and Jumper’s artificial intelligence work gave his team a huge boost.
“The breakthroughs made by Demis and John on protein structure prediction really highlighted to us the power that AI could have,” said Baker. “And that led us to apply these AI methods to protein design.”
Science has sped up, said Jumper. “It is a key demonstration that AI will make science faster “
It’s the second Nobel prize this year awarded to someone with links to artificial intelligence research at Google.
Nobel physics prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, 76, often called the “godfather of AI,” also worked at the California-based tech company until quitting so he could speak more openly about the potential downsides of AI.
“I’m hoping AI will lead to tremendous benefits,” Hinton told a news conference Tuesday. “I’m convinced that it will do that in health care.”
“My worry is that it may also lead to bad things. And in particular, when we get things more intelligent than ourselves, no one really knows whether we’re going to be able to control them.”
More about the Nobels
Wednesday’s chemistry prize winners represent a younger generation taking forward the work of the AI pioneers honored for physics, said Michael Kearns, a computer scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
They are making AI models “scalable and practical and applying it to very important scientific problems.”
Baker gets half of the 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1 million) prize money, while Hassabis and Jumper share the other half.
The Nobel announcements opened Monday with medical researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Hinton and fellow AI pioneer John Hopfield, 91, won the physics prize.
The awards continue with the literature prize Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.
The prize money comes from a bequest by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

Topics: Nobel Awards David Baker Demis Hassabis John Jumper University of Washington Google DeepMind

79 million girls, women assaulted in sub-Saharan Africa: UNICEF

Updated 10 October 2024

AFP

October 10, 2024 03:23

79 million girls, women assaulted in sub-Saharan Africa: UNICEF

Newly collated data showed the region was among the worst places in the world to be a girl
One in five in sub-Saharan experiencing sexual assault or rape before they turn 18

Updated 10 October 2024

AFP

October 10, 2024 03:23

NAIROBI, Kenya: More than 79 million women and girls across sub-Saharan Africa have endured rape and sexual assault as children, according to data presented by UNICEF on Thursday.
The UN children’s agency said newly collated data showed the region was among the worst places in the world to be a girl.
Globally, UNICEF estimates that sexual violence has affected some 370 million girls and women, with around one in five in sub-Saharan experiencing sexual assault or rape before they turn 18.
“Sexual violence against children is a stain on our moral conscience,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
The release of such a figure is a first, calculated using national data and international survey programs from 2010 to 2022, said Claudia Cappa, UNICEF chief statistician.

#SouthSudan: New UN report highlights persistently high levels of brutal sexual violence in northern Unity, with at least 134 women & girls raped, while 41 suffered other forms of sexual & physical violence just between September and December 2018.

https://t.co/cR6SLbM5t3 pic.twitter.com/JkJtqrFVSl
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) February 15, 2019

She said there were inevitable holes in the data, as well as under-reporting from some countries.
“We know the limitations, but we also wanted to finally give visibility to the issue through numbers,” she told AFP.
“It’s terrifying,” Nankali Maksud, regional child violence specialist based in Nairobi, told AFP. “It is generations of trauma.”
The resulting trauma has broad consequences for development.
“We’re putting a lot of energy to push girls into school, but a girl who has been raped or gone through sexual assault is not able to learn,” said Maksud.
The numbers are highest in regions hit by conflict and insecurity.
Aid agencies in Sudan have warned about the risks to girls and women from the ongoing conflict there.
“Children in fragile settings are especially vulnerable to sexual violence,” said Russell.
“We are witnessing horrific sexual violence in conflict zones, where rape and gender-based violence are often used as weapons of war.”
First responders told Human Rights Watch earlier this year the number of reported cases is only a fraction of the real figure, with most survivors unable or unwilling to seek emergency care.

Topics: UNICEF Sub-Sahara Nankali Maksud

Trump vows in Biden’s back yard to ‘drill, baby, drill’

Updated 10 October 2024

AFP

October 10, 2024 00:15

Trump vows in Biden’s back yard to ‘drill, baby, drill’

Updated 10 October 2024

AFP

October 10, 2024 00:15

WASHINGTON: White House hopeful Donald Trump vowed Wednesday in a speech in the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania to unleash American energy and “drill, baby, drill” as he misrepresented America’s blockbuster record on fossil fuel production.
Wooing blue-collar voters in Scranton, the former coal mining hub where President Joe Biden grew up, the Republican ex-president assailed his Democratic election rival Kamala Harris on US drilling for oil and accused her of forcing the closure of dozens of power stations.
“On day one I will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill, baby, drill. We’re going to frack, frack, frack,” Trump said.
“We will have energy independence and energy dominance, as we did just four short years ago. We were energy independent four years ago. Can you believe now we get our energy from Venezuela?“
Trump demonized migrants, flung baseless accusations of Democratic election fraud and misled his audience about his criminal prosecutions and polling, his opponent’s policies, US border security, the hurricanes, wind power and much else, too.
But his focus was on the economy — a top issue in the campaign — and he promised to slash household energy bills by 50 percent as he warned: “If Kamala is reelected, your costs will go up and your lights will go out.”
Under Trump the United States exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported, but was never close to genuine independence from foreign energy, with imports from Russia in particular spiking.
The country has been smashing records for production of oil, natural gas and renewable power under Biden, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
Trump is polling neck-and-neck with Harris in the Keystone State, the once-thriving epicenter of the US industrial heartland, which is considered one of the biggest prizes in the Electoral College system that decides US elections.
Although Biden’s family base is in Delaware, he grew up in Scranton and remains enormously popular in the county where it is located, which he won by nine points on the way to claiming the state in 2020.
Harris, Biden’s vice president, has maintained a nationwide polling lead of two to three points since mid-August and has been gaining on Trump on the economy, boosted by easing inflation and a robust jobs report last week.
But the polls in Pennsylvania and the other six swing states likely to decide the election have been much closer.
And with four weeks to go until Election Day on November 5, new Gallup polling shows Trump outperforming Harris 54 percent to 45 percent on the economy as he touts proposals for a tariff-led manufacturing “renaissance.”
Pennsylvania is seen as a bastion of the working class vote, and both candidates have visited regularly.
The former president, 78, has a second event Wednesday in Reading, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia.
Trump was last in the Keystone State just four days ago for a defiant return to the site of a campaign rally where he was grazed on the ear by an assassin’s bullet in July, joined onstage by billionaire backer Elon Musk.
Harris heads there next week but former president Barack Obama arrives first for a rally on Friday, part of a blitz of key swing states, adding his star power to the Democrat’s White House bid in the final month of the campaign.
Harris heads to Nevada later Wednesday for a campaign event in Las Vegas on Thursday. She then hits Arizona, where she will campaign in Phoenix on Friday.

Topics: US Election 2024

Russian strike kills six in south Ukraine: authorities

Updated 09 October 2024

AFP

October 09, 2024 23:27

Russian strike kills six in south Ukraine: authorities

Updated 09 October 2024

AFP

October 09, 2024 23:27

KYIV: A Russian ballistic missile strike killed six people and wounded eight others in Ukraine’s southern coastal region of Odesa on Wednesday, authorities said.
“As a result of the enemy attack, unfortunately, six people were killed and eight were wounded, four of them in serious condition. All the victims are citizens of Ukraine,” Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton

Updated 09 October 2024

AFP

October 09, 2024 23:22

Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton

Updated 09 October 2024

AFP

October 09, 2024 23:22

SARASOTA: Many Florida residents have fled, but some battened down the hatches, in the final hours Wednesday before Hurricane Milton pummels the state, as government relief efforts were dragged into the thick of the White House race.

Ferocious winds and tidal surges are expected to inundate Florida’s heavily populated and low-lying Gulf Coast, with the cities of Tampa and Sarasota in the storm’s path, amid rising fears of widespread chaos and multiple fatalities.

Milton is then expected to barrel across the state as a hurricane, ripping a path over to the Atlantic Ocean, with tourist hub Orlando — home to Walt Disney World — in its sights.

In Sarasota, as the rain intensified, streets were increasingly deserted, with most businesses shuttered and sandbagged for protection. Residents sought refuge at evacuation centers.

“I am nervous. This is something we just went through with the other storm — ground saturated, still recovering from that,” Randy Prior, who owns a pool business, told AFP.

Prior, 36, says he plans to ride out the storm at home, after recently toughing out Helene, which flooded the same western parts of Florida before wreaking havoc across remote areas of North Carolina and further inland.

“I own a business, so once the storm stops, I’ve got to be here, help clean up, get everything back to normal. But this one’s a big one for sure.”

Tampa resident Luis Santiago meanwhile said he would “close up everything” and leave.

With the storm coming immediately after lethal Hurricane Helene hit the US southeast, Donald Trump has sought political advantage by falsely saying aid is channeled away from supporters of his Republican Party toward migrants.

At the White House on Wednesday, President Joe Biden slammed the Republican former president and current candidate’s “onslaught of lies.”

“There’s been a reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies,” Biden said in angry remarks.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is taking on Trump at the polls, echoed Biden’s criticisms in a separate telephone interview with CNN.

“It is dangerous, it is unconscionable, frankly, that anyone who’d consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those desperate people would not receive the aid to which they are entitled,” she said.

In Florida, officials again warned those in danger zones to seek safe shelter.

“You still have time to evacuate if you are in an evacuation zone,” Governor Ron DeSantis told a press briefing. “This hurricane is going to pack a major, major punch and do an awful lot of damage.”

But time was running out.

By Wednesday afternoon, Milton was located 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of Tampa, generating maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Multiple tornado warnings were in effect across Florida.

“Milton is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida tonight, and remain at hurricane strength while it moves across the Florida peninsula through Thursday,” the NHC said.

“Preparations to protect life and property, including being ready for long-duration power outages, should be rushed to completion.”

Airlines added flights out of Tampa, Orlando, Fort Myers and Sarasota, as highways clogged up with escaping traffic and gas station pumps ran dry.

Not all Floridians and tourists were hurrying to leave.

John Gomez, 75, traveled all the way from Chicago to try to save his Florida home.

“I think it’s better to be here in case something happens,” Gomez said.

At Walt Disney World in Orlando, which was expected to receive a big hit once Milton crosses the peninsula, visitors were getting a few rides in before the theme parks close shortly after midday.

“It’s safe and we’re here, so might as well,” said Lindsay Moore, 42, who flew in from Hawaii over the weekend.

“We thought about canceling but airlines wouldn’t let us.”

Trump has repeatedly fueled conspiracy theories and disinformation about supposed failure by Biden and Harris.

“Western North Carolina, and the whole state, for that matter, has been totally and incompetently mismanaged by Harris/Biden,” Trump said Wednesday on his Truth Social network.

“Hold on, and vote these horrible ‘public servants’ out of office.”

Scientists say global warming has a role in intense storms as warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, providing additional energy for storms, which exacerbates their winds.

Across the southeastern United States, emergency workers are still struggling to provide relief after Helene, which killed at least 235 people.

Topics: Florida Hurricane Milton

Saudi to participate in Bio Japan

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Nobel Prize in chemistry honors 3 scientists who used AI to design proteins — life’s building blocks

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79 million girls, women assaulted in sub-Saharan Africa: UNICEF

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Trump vows in Biden’s back yard to ‘drill, baby, drill’

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Russian strike kills six in south Ukraine: authorities

Russia says peace in Ukraine is impossible if Kyiv gets NATO membership

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Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton

Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton

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