Year: 2019

Out for blood: the fight against the planet’s deadliest creature

Posted on by Jack Pearson

The deadliest creature on the planet is not a great white shark, a starved lion, an enraged hippopotamus or a poisonous snake – it’s the minute mosquito. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mosquitoes kill millions of people each year, with malaria – the most deadly mosquito-borne disease – responsible for more than half of these fatalities. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has noted: “Malaria’s economic impact is estimated to cost billions of dollars in lost productivity every year.”

Fortunately, positive developments have been made in recent years to bring the death toll down. Between 2000 and 2015, deaths caused by malaria fell by around 62 percent, meaning that 6.8 million lives were spared. But this number may start to rise once again, especially as funding for malaria control plateaus.

Dr Nathan Rose, Head of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at Oxitec, a UK-based biotechnology company that develops insect population controls, spoke to The New Economy about the issue: “Over recent years, the number of deaths per year has been decreasing, but that number has now stabilised and may even start to increase again soon because a lot of the tools that have been used for malaria are starting to lose their impact and that includes, unfortunately, some of the main classes of drugs that have been incredibly effective. We’re now starting to see resistance against those, particularly in South-East Asia.”

Yellow fever is spreading and resurfacing in areas where it was thought to be eradicated, including most large urban centres in the American tropics

Dropping like flies
There are thousands of mosquito species, only some of which are vectors for disease. Malaria, for example, is caused by Plasmodium parasites, which are transmitted to humans through the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. Aside from malaria, other mosquito-related viruses have a considerable impact on human health. Several viral diseases are transmitted through the bites of the Aedes aegypti species, including yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus.

While the Zika virus is not fatal for those bitten, infection during pregnancy can cause severe birth defects. The condition, called microcephaly, causes brain development issues in mild cases and is life-threatening in more severe cases. In 2015, a Zika outbreak that spread across Asia and South America caused a spike in the number of infants born with microcephaly. In fact, in 2016, women in several Latin American countries were warned by government officials to wait until the epidemic was over to conceive.

Dengue, which causes symptoms such as a high fever, painful headaches and vomiting, can be fatal if it’s caught more than once or develops into severe dengue. The spread of the disease, which is a leading cause of death in children in various Latin American and Asian countries, shows no signs of slowing. According to the WHO: “The global incidence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades.”

Yellow fever, meanwhile, can be fatal in around 30 percent of cases, Rose said. The WHO states that in sub-Saharan Africa, it is a major public health problem, with 610 million people at risk. It’s also spreading and resurfacing in areas where it was thought to be eradicated, including most large urban centres in the American tropics.

Of these mosquito-borne diseases, only a vaccine for yellow fever exists. “These diseases potentially could impact half the people on the planet because the mosquitoes that transmit them are found so ubiquitously and their range will only spread in coming years as climate change progresses,” Rose told The New Economy. “We’ll see these mosquitoes heading north into Europe and North America and probably further south into other parts of South America, Australia and Africa as well. And so, although these diseases are not as frequently fatal as malaria, they
still have massive impacts.”

Bug off
Thanks to cutting-edge technology, there are new ways to suppress wild populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The team at Oxitec, for example, breeds male mosquitoes and releases them into the wild to mate with their female counterparts. “All of the female offspring of those matings will die,” said Rose. The process works by adding two new genes to male insects: the first is a fluorescent protein, which helps the team at Oxitec identify their mosquitoes in the wild. The second, and more important, is the self-limiting gene, which produces a protein in females that stops them from developing normally. “It actually stops the female mosquito from developing past the very early larval stages of development,” Rose explained.

The female mosquito will perish before it reaches the reproductive stage of its life cycle, and even before it can fly. “And that’s really important because female mosquitoes are the ones that bite humans and transmit disease. Males don’t. Males just feed on nectar from plants.” The surviving male offspring will continue mating with wild females. Any further female offspring will inherit this self-limiting gene, meaning they too will die. “By doing this, we can actually pretty quickly reduce the population of these disease-transmitting mosquitoes in the wild,” Rose said.

As funding for research has plateaued, fatalities have started creeping up once more

Crucially, the self-limiting protein can be disabled in laboratory settings using an antidote that, along with feed, is added into the water where the larvae develop. “That allows us to produce these mosquitoes in the production facility,” said Rose. “But in the wild, they won’t have access to this antidote, so they won’t be able to survive.”

Oxitec has just completed the first trial of its second-generation mosquitoes – the first used a protein that caused both the males and females to die. The trial took place in the Brazilian municipality of Indaiatuba, just outside of Sao Paulo, in May this year. “We saw up to 96 percent suppression of the wild mosquito population when we released our mosquitoes,
so it was very effective.”

Out of control
Given the success that the project has had so far, it is now expanding. At present, Oxitec is working with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct its first field demonstrations in the US, which it hopes will take place in 2020. “[The EPA will first] evaluate the safety and the efficacy of the mosquito before we take it into the field, hopefully in Florida,” Rose told The New Economy. “That’s quite important because in the US in recent years they’ve actually had outbreaks of dengue [and] they’ve had locally transmitted Zika, even in Miami. And so there’s a desperate need there for new tools to control these mosquitoes as well.”

Such research is so desperately needed because the Aedes aegypti mosquito is rapidly becoming resistant to the insecticides that are typically used to control mosquito populations. “The mosquitoes have now developed the ability to survive even when those insecticides are sprayed, and so that means the number of tools available to control these mosquitoes is becoming ever more limited,” Rose added.

In fact, according to the WHO’s Global Report on Insecticide Resistance in Malaria Vectors: 2010–2016, there is now widespread resistance to the four most common insecticide classes – pyrethroids, organochlorines, carbamates and organophosphates – throughout the Americas, Africa, South-East Asia, the Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean regions. “Since 2010, a total of 68 countries have reported resistance to at least one class of insecticide, with 57 of those countries reporting resistance to two or more classes,” reads the WHO’s website.

Oxitec’s technology could well act as a formidable tool in the fight against mosquito-borne viruses. To this end, the organisation recently received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private foundation in the world. “We’re developing the same self-limiting technology in Anopheles that can be used in Central America and also in South Asia, [specifically] in India,” said Rose. It will take two to three years of intense research to produce Anopheles mosquitoes with the right set of characteristics to kill female offspring while ensuring males stay healthy enough to be able to mate and to attract mates. “So those are quite significant challenges,” Rose added.

Self-destructive behaviour
Another approach to mosquito control is to use gene-drive technology, which propagates a certain gene in a population to encourage its transmission to offspring. Dr Tony Nolan, a molecular biologist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, is working on a gene drive using the CRISPR technique. He previously worked on the same research at Imperial College London. He explained: “[It] aims to rapidly transform mosquito populations with genetic elements that either lead to suppression of the mosquito population or to its modification in ways that make the mosquitoes incapable of transmitting the parasite. Gene drives are a type of ‘selfish’ genetic element that bias their own inheritance every generation – every time a mosquito with a copy of the gene drive mates with one that doesn’t, nearly all the offspring inherit the gene drive, meaning that their numbers rapidly increase in the population over a very short time, even if they cause a cost to the population.”

Describing his work thus far, Nolan told The New Economy that his team has recently designed gene drives that can disrupt the fertility of female mosquitoes. This means the gene drives will increase in frequency within a population at the same time that the population’s ability to reproduce is suppressed. “We have shown in the lab that this can lead to invasion of the population and its complete crash very rapidly, even starting from a very low number of released gene-drive mosquitoes,” Nolan added.

The next stage of the project is to test the technology on a much larger scale. Nolan explained that this will take place in bigger enclosures with more realistic settings, which will allow more complex mosquito behaviour to take place. This stage is crucial because understanding behaviours such as mating and egg-laying in the wild is key to successful gene drives. “In the meantime, there are many studies… [into] basic mosquito behaviour and distribution in the wild [being carried out] in order to better understand how this type of technology might work and how best to employ it,” Nolan said.

Such technology does pose risks that must be considered. First, it’s worth noting that there are two main types of gene drives: the first affects the local area only, while the second impacts an entire species. Kevin Esvelt, Director of MIT Media Lab’s Sculpting Evolution group, recommends starting locally to demonstrate how the technology works in various countries and ensure that negative ecological side effects do not transpire. Following these trials, targeting the entire species could theoretically take place.

“Because they spread indefinitely, self-propagating gene-drive systems are much more efficient, but our models predict they will spread on their own if just a handful of carrier organisms escape or are deliberately introduced,” Esvelt told The New Economy. “That’s why self-propagating gene-drive systems should only be constructed or introduced into affected countries once all affected nations have agreed. Crucially, several such systems are likely to be required to overcome pockets of resistance that are likely to evolve… One gene-drive system is extremely unlikely to be enough for eradication, even with the best coordinated effort.”

Esvelt explained that it’s important to gain permission from the authorities before carrying out releases to reduce the risk of a country refusing to cooperate with eradication efforts. Any such blockage would disrupt a project, which could lead to a resurgence in malaria and countless unnecessary deaths. Esvelt added: “Perhaps most importantly, it would set a dangerous precedent for the unilateral use of biotechnologies anticipated to spread across borders without securing permission. As a general rule, scientists should never build constructs that could plausibly spread uncontrollably without the explicit support of all nations
that would be affected.”

No silver bullet
It’s tempting to think that these kinds of solutions could be a panacea for malaria and other mosquito-transmitted diseases, but it’s not so simple. “I think it’s one part of a toolkit that needs to have several different tools in it,” said Rose. “It’s very important to try and get rid of the mosquitoes, but it’s also really important to try and have drugs that you can actually use to deal with the diseases directly where you do have transmission… No single tool is going to be a silver bullet that deals with everything.”

Esvelt added: “Eradicating malaria will require a coordinated effort involving all affected countries, all current prevention and treatment methods and at least one powerful new technology. That technology could be a highly protective and long-lasting vaccine, a long-lasting antimalarial drug or a series of gene-drive systems to alter or suppress the primary mosquito vectors. Vaccine and drug development have proven difficult, whereas functional gene-drive systems have been constructed in malarial mosquitoes.”

The problems caused by the Anopheles and Aedes aegypti loom large. These insects kill millions, cause irreparable health problems and have an enormous economic impact. The war against mosquito-borne diseases cannot be neglected. This is evidenced by the fact that as funding has plateaued, fatalities have started creeping up once more. As such, funding into various avenues must continue, if not increase. Fortunately, gene-editing technology may prove to be so effective it could push the issue over the crucial edge, offering hope to populations around the world.

Some argue that killing off entire species is immoral as we cannot possibly know the harm this could cause to ecosystems. While that may be the case, the extermination of wild mosquito populations would be limited to species that carry diseases that are harmful to humans; there are thousands of others that are not. Neither the Anopheles nor Aedes aegypti species are of any further importance to their environments. In fact, very few mosquitoes are: those found in the Arctic, which do not carry human diseases, are a food source for birds and other insects, but these are not the mosquitoes that will be targeted. It is thanks to the work being carried out by Oxitec, Imperial College London and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine that we may soon have a solution that could save countless lives and loosen the grip that mosquitoes have on human health.

Research hotspot: Carinthia is an ideal home for hi-tech companies

Posted on by Jack Pearson

Over the past few years, Villach, the second-largest city in the Austrian state of Carinthia, has developed into a hotspot for micro and nanoelectronics technology. Austria’s leading research company, Infineon Technologies, is based in the state, demonstrating its credentials as a tech hub.

In November 2018, Infineon invested €1.6bn ($1.8bn) into its Villach headquarters. Today, it is the world’s most advanced semiconductor factory, with a perfected, fully automated production process that produces ultra-thin, 300mm semiconductor wafers, alongside a cutting-edge research and development complex. The company is one of the leading global exporters in electrical technology, all of which is manufactured in-house in Carinthia.

There are other market-leading big tech firms located in Villach, including Lam Research and Intel. These companies work alongside research-intensive SMEs to chart the course of future developments in electronics, microelectronics, mechatronics, sensors and robotics.

Powered by research
Carinthia’s commercial viability is enhanced by its mature research landscape. Five independent research centres, together with the work carried out by the Alpen-Adria University and the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, contribute to the province’s high degree of innovation. The largest research and development institution in the state is Silicon Austria Labs, one of Europe’s leading research institutions in electronic-based systems. In fact, Villach is one of the three locations in Austria (along with Graz and Linz) that specialise in intelligent sensors and power electronics.

As well as being a melting pot for research and innovation, Carinthia has a highly skilled and productive workforce on offer

While Villach is the home of microelectronics, Klagenfurt is the provincial capital of Carinthia and the state’s world-class IT centre. At its heart lies the 34,000sq m Lakeside Science and Technology Park, which provides excellent synergy between companies, researchers and educational institutions. The park is currently home to more than 70 companies and around 1,300 employees. In addition, there are three research facilities and the Educational Lab, which offers modules in a variety of topics, such as new areas of research. It also offers inspiration to young people, encouraging them to get involved in the sciences. Furthermore, the park is home to Carinthia’s start-up developer, build! Gründerzentrum Kärnten.

This highly conducive environment provides an optimal framework for organisations making cutting-edge advances in their respective fields. For example, the park is home to a branch of Joanneum Research, a pioneering robotics institute, and Lakeside Labs, which specialises in ‘self-organising networked systems’. At present, the park is investing around €30m ($33m) for an additional 9,000sq m of innovation space and laboratories to attract more forward-thinking researchers from all over Europe.

Why Carinthia?
BABEG Invest in Carinthia is currently designing a 5G Playground and a new digital innovation hub, which will be based inside the Lakeside Science and Technology Park. Once complete, companies and researchers will be able to use the playground to test, develop and research all kinds of applications, software systems and 5G products in this unique indoor and outdoor laboratory.

In addition to such fantastic infrastructure and investment, one of the biggest advantages to Carinthia is its enviable position on both European transport corridors – the Baltic-Adriatic Corridor and the Tauern Line. Everything is quick to get to within the state as well, making it extremely convenient for businesses.

As well as being a melting pot for research and innovation, Carinthia has a highly skilled and productive workforce on offer. Carinthia’s business-friendly policies provide companies with a stable environment, a good funding structure and the security to plan ahead. These factors complement Carinthia’s high quality of life, family-friendly environment and excellent education system for children of all ages. Carinthia is a truly special place in which to live, work and innovate – with its beautiful surrounding landscapes, sublime mountains and crystal-clear lakes, it is easy to balance highly productive industry with natural beauty.

Collection of genetic data leads to privacy concerns

Posted on by Jack Pearson

A DNA test can reveal surprising facts about us – certain genes make us more inclined to have dry earwax, for example, and others make us more likely to sneeze when we see a bright light. Some genes even result in people being more attractive targets for mosquitoes, so if you’ve ever felt personally singled out by the insect during the summer months, it’s not a cruel conspiracy – it’s your DNA.

Innocuous facts like these were what DNA kits were used for finding out when they first became commercially available. However, as the tests have become more sophisticated, the companies behind them have shifted their marketing focus. Users of at-home DNA tests have been known to uncover deep-rooted facts about themselves, from discovering long-lost relatives to learning of their ancestors’ origins and their susceptibility to genetic diseases.

Finding out that you have a pre-existing health condition might not seem like the best idea for a Christmas present, but that hasn’t stopped the test kits from enjoying a surge in popularity. MIT Technology Review estimates that by the start of 2019, more than 26 million people had taken an at-home ancestry test. The market is expected to be worth $45bn by 2024.

Nevertheless, despite the emerging industry’s rampant growth, there have been mounting concerns that its practices could infringe on consumers’ rights. Whenever people fork out $100 to $200 for a DNA test, the hidden cost of that transaction is their personal data – which, from then on, is held in the databases of a private company. Once these companies obtain genetic information, it’s very difficult for users to get it back.

By taking DNA tests at home, many have unwittingly stumbled upon long-kept family secrets. Some have seen their parents go through a bitter divorce after their test revealed they were actually conceived through an affair

Ignorance is bliss
Long before people were able to take DNA tests from the comfort of their own home, psychologists worried about their possible impact on people’s mental health. Ever since the Human Genome Project was started in 1990, many scholars have maintained that DNA tests should be used with caution, on the grounds that understanding one’s own health risks could lead to anxiety or depression.

Conversely, a study by the Hastings Centre found that discovering an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease did not make people more depressed or anxious. And in the event that people discover a particularly urgent health risk – like a mutation of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which puts individuals at a high risk of developing cancer at a young age – any adverse psychological effects are presumably worth it to obtain this life-saving information.

However, at-home DNA tests could still pose a risk to mental health, in part because they remove medical professionals from the equation. Adrian Mark Thorogood, Academic Associate at the Centre of Genomics and Policy, warned that this is far from best practice for receiving a DNA test result. “Results should be communicated through a medical professional who can interpret the result in the individual’s specific context, and offer a clear description of the test’s limits,” he told The New Economy.

Without a professional’s assistance, users could be left alone to battle with a troubling revelation about their health. There is also a danger that without guidance, some people could misinterpret their test result, placing undue stress on their mental health.

There is another unpleasant discovery that people can make through a DNA test – one they may be even less prepared for. By taking DNA tests at home, many have unwittingly stumbled upon long-kept family secrets. Some have seen their parents go through a bitter divorce after their test revealed they were actually conceived through an affair. Others have discovered they were conceived by rape and that their mother decided to never tell them. What began as a seemingly harmless urge to find out more about their heritage ends in psychological trauma and family breakdown.

Brianne Kirkpatrick, a genetics counsellor, is part of a growing sector of therapy specifically tailored towards helping people come to terms with receiving unexpected DNA results. One can’t help but wonder whether her patients end up wishing they’d never taken the test at all.

“I don’t recall anyone saying they wish they could go back and not learn the truth,” Kirkpatrick said. “But I have had a number of people say to me they wish they had found out their shocking information from a person, rather than a computer.”

While we might think we’d prefer to suffer a DNA leak than a leak of our credit card details, genetic data has its own unique set of complications

The fact that virtually anyone can now find out their real parentage through a simple DNA test has wide-reaching repercussions for the accountability of paternity. Historically, men have always had a much greater ability to conceal their status as a parent, as they don’t have to bear the child. The world of direct-to-consumer DNA testing blows this capacity for anonymity out of the water.

This is particularly problematic when it comes to sperm donation. Anonymity is a key selling point for many potential donors, but now all their future biological offspring has to do is swab the inside of their cheek to completely compromise that anonymity. Research suggests that we could see a drop in donor rates as a result. A 2016 study in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences found that 29 percent of potential donors would actually refuse to donate if their name was put on a registry.

The wave of parental discoveries made through direct-to-consumer DNA tests raises questions about where the responsibility of the seller sits in all this. Most health professionals recommend that individuals seek out genetics counselling once they receive DNA results. Some, like Invitae, offer counselling services but aren’t direct-to-consumer companies. Many of those that are – including 23andMe – do not offer such a service. It could be argued that this shows a certain disregard for the consequences of using their product. Unfortunately, irresponsible decisions like this have tended to characterise the industry’s path to success.

Genetic Wild West
In September 2019, 17 former employees from the Boston-based genetic testing company Orig3n accused the firm of giving consumers inaccurate results. Allegedly, if a customer took the same test twice, their results could be extremely different each time. A former lab technician produced a leaked report to Bloomberg Businessweek that revealed 407 errors like this had
occurred over a period of three months.

Part of Orig3n’s USP was that it offered advice supposedly calculated based on a consumer’s genetic profile. Former employees have cast doubt over the company’s modus operandi by claiming that the advice they gave was in fact routinely lifted from the internet. The advice given ranged from the technically correct but uninspired to the broadly unhelpful – such as telling people to eat more kale – and the utterly bogus, like advising clients to eat more sugar to eliminate stretch marks.

Although Orig3n is a relatively small player in the sector, news of this scam nonetheless illustrates how little protection consumers have in this nascent market. Analysts say we are currently witnessing a ‘Wild West’ period in the consumer genetics space thanks to a lack of regulation, raising concerns over whether we can trust these companies with our genetic data. While we might think we’d prefer to suffer a DNA leak than a leak of our credit card details, genetic data has its own unique set of complications.

“In the United States, if my social security number is stolen, that is difficult, but not impossible, to get frozen, changed, etc,” said Natalie Ram, an associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and a specialist in bioethics and criminal justice. “But there’s literally no way to change your genetic code.”

Genetics platforms like 23andMe, AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA are now sitting on a goldmine of very personal data. In 2013, a 23andMe board member told Fast Company that it wanted to become “the Google of personalised healthcare”. If this statement makes anything clear, it’s that the company wasn’t planning on making its millions simply by selling DNA test kits: its mission was always to amass significant amounts of data on its users, which it could then monetise.

There is a wide range of reasons why companies might want to buy genetic data. Perhaps the most benign is medical research, which genetics platforms allow users to opt in or out of. But other companies might use your genetic data to better sell you products or, conversely, deny them to you – for instance, one sector that would see a clear monetary value in obtaining genetic data is insurance. In the US, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prevents employers and health insurers from using a person’s genetic information when making decisions about hiring, firing or raising rates. However, this does not include life insurance or short or long-term disability insurance.

At first glance, it seems as if there’s a simple solution: if users are concerned about these risks, they should just choose for their data to be kept anonymous. However, choosing this option is not as foolproof as it once was. As long ago as 2009, researchers demonstrated that they could correctly identify between 40 and 60 percent of all participants in supposedly anonymous DNA databases by comparing large sets of that data with public datasets from censuses or voter lists. Since that experiment, DNA databases have grown massively.

“With access to four to five million DNA profiles, upwards of 90 percent of Americans of European descent will be identifiable,” said Ram. “It’s verging on a comprehensive DNA database that no US state or jurisdiction has suggested would be appropriate.”

Shaping the law
With comforting statements like “your privacy is very important to us” (ancestry.co.uk) and “we won’t share your DNA” (familytreedna.com) emblazoned on their websites, some genetics platforms seem to be making privacy their number one priority. In the US, 23andMe and Ancestry are part of the Coalition for Genetic Data Protection, which lobbies for privacy protection in the DNA space. However, while the coalition advocates genetic data privacy in a specific context, it argues for a one-size-fits-all policy concerning all data. By comparison, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation regards genetic information as ‘personal data’, which makes DNA unique from other kinds of data.

There is a fundamental legal problem with boxing genetic data in with all other varieties, including the data that social media websites collect about us. In most cases, what a person does on the internet implicates them alone – genetic data is different. We share our DNA with members of our family, which means that sharing it without their consent can be problematic.

“Even if I can consent to using my DNA to identify me, that should not extend to my ability to consent to using my DNA to identify my relatives,” said Ram. “The reason I think… that’s a really critical distinction is because genetic relatedness is almost always involuntarily foisted upon us. So we don’t choose our parents, we don’t choose how many siblings we have. It’s a product of biology, not a product of choice.”

The legal issues surrounding genetic relatedness were put to the test in 2018 when police discovered the true identity of the Golden State Killer, who terrorised California in the 1970s and 1980s in a homicidal spree. Law enforcement officials were able to convict him only because they had succeeded in connecting the DNA of the suspect with that of a family relative on GEDmatch, a genetic database in the public domain. Across the US and around the world, people celebrated the arrest of a notorious criminal. The only problem was that the means of capturing him was not necessarily legal.

Prior to the case, GEDmatch’s site policy made no explicit reference to the potential use of consumer’s data by law enforcement. However, the company defended itself by saying that users should have assumed it could be put to that use.

“While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes,” said GEDmatch operator Curtis Rogers in a statement.

Some genes even result in people being more attractive targets for mosquitoes, so if you’ve ever felt personally singled out by the insect during the summer months, it’s not a cruel conspiracy – it’s your DNA

However, privacy advocates like Ram argue that users’ consent for law enforcement to look at their data should not have been assumed. “At least from a constitutional perspective in the United States, individuals ought to be recognised to have what’s called an expectation of privacy in their genetic data, even if they use one of these services,” she told The New Economy.

After the case, genetics platforms updated their policies to clarify their position on law enforcement’s use of people’s data. Interestingly, they took very different stances. While 23andMe and Ancestry said they would not allow law enforcement to search through their genetic genealogy databases, FamilyTreeDNA updated its policy to say it would give up data to officials, but only in the investigation of violent crimes. Users didn’t know it at the time, but FamilyTreeDNA’s policy update was already too little too late: in January 2019, it was revealed that the company had been secretly working with the FBI for nearly a year to solve serious crimes, without informing its users.

The Golden State Killer case exposed how little protection consumers really had in the direct-to-consumer genetics market. It showed that genetics platforms were capable of suddenly changing or contradicting their own policies and even, in the case of FamilyTreeDNA, betraying the trust of consumers.

Some might argue that this infringement on genetic privacy is simply the price we must pay to catch dangerous criminals. Of course, without the use of a genealogy database, the Golden State Killer may never have been caught. But the fact that genetic data can be harnessed to solve very serious crimes should not justify law enforcement’s unbridled access to such databases. Abuses of power do happen and, in the context of direct-to-consumer DNA tests, they already have: in 2018, for example, Canadian immigration officials compelled a man to take a DNA test and upload his results to FamilyTreeDNA’s website. They then used the website to find and contact some of his relatives in the UK to gather more evidence in order to deport him.

Today’s consumers are continually adjusting to shrinking levels of privacy. From the introduction of video surveillance and the mapping of residential areas on Google Earth to the revelation that Facebook harvests vast amounts of user data, we have seen the public react in the same way again and again: there is an initial public outcry, and then consumers simply adjust to the new level of diminished privacy. Our response to the rise of genetics platforms risks the issue being consigned to the same fate.

It is up to regulators to protect individuals’ right to privacy. While our genetic data may be something of a genie out of the bottle, that should not give the companies that collect it free rein over who sees it and what they choose to do with it.

New rice-milling solutions could give a boost to SME mills

Posted on by Jack Pearson

Globally, there is a relatively small number of large commercial rice mills producing more than 100 tonnes of product per day – fewer than 50,000, in fact. These mills perform well and use less power for each tonne milled (around 40kWh) than small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) mills, which use around 80kWh per tonne milled. However, larger mills require lots of capital to build, operate and maintain, and also require substantial quantities of rice in order to operate at a cost-effective level.

There are some 1.5 million SME mills worldwide that mill under 100 tonnes of rice per day. Many of these smaller mills do not benefit from modern milling solutions due to their existing infrastructure, limited capacity and lack of finance to reinvest. Thus, SME mills are locked in a perpetual cycle of operating destructive, antiquated machinery, or are forced to replace like-for-like, having little choice but to opt for cheap and poor-performing machinery.

Over 90 percent of the $4bn of projected sales of rice-milling equipment between 2018 and 2023 will be from machinery largely superseded in the 1980s. Outdated machinery is both ineffective and wasteful; a modern mill can return 70 percent of milled rice (both broken and unbroken) from paddy. Meanwhile, according to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in its Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not report, using poor storage and old machinery can cause up to 80 percent of the entire rice crop to be lost post-harvest. These losses are unsustainable with a growing
population and demand.

Over 90 percent of the $4bn of projected sales for rice-milling equipment between 2018 and 2023 will be from machinery superseded in the 1980s

Empowerment through technology
Koolmill provides empowering technology that enables efficient distributed milling on demand and at the point of use. We address three key problems in milling: lowering power consumption, quantitative improvement (more milled rice from the same input) and qualitative improvement (the milled rice is of a higher quality). As such, Koolmill produces more food from existing harvests with less power, less loss and less damage. By integrating simpler distributed storage and milling solutions, we are working to minimise these post-harvest losses, thereby maximising the return of food and high-value by-products from bran and husk. This is vital, because modern rice mills can’t be efficiently scaled down to meet the needs of SME mills. Indeed, there is now a push for larger mills to reduce the cost of production, which requires the trucking in and redistribution of massive quantities of rice.

Heavy losses occur throughout the lengthy rice value chain. Our technology helps to prevent this by shortening and rebalancing the existing value chain to minimise the interface losses in transportation. Improving the storage and transportation of rice and maximising the return of undamaged rice from milling will contribute to significantly less food loss.

Essentially, we seek to create shared value, to retain value locally and to distribute it more equitably between stakeholders in a shortened value chain. What’s more, Koolmill is affordable, accessible and available to all millers, regardless of size or location. It provides SME mills with the opportunity to transition from low-value commodity producers to value-added, market-leading food producers.

We also contribute to 16 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN. Koolmill is driven by its vision and values – we believe that sustainable employment produces improved economic opportunities, leading to higher incomes which, in turn, improve education and nutrition, and contribute additional tax revenue for local economies.

Market focus
China is the largest rice market globally, and demand is growing. The support we have seen in China, both through grants from the government and private investment, has enabled us to progress there. We have also just embarked on a two-year Newton Project, supported by Innovate UK and the Chinese Government, further extending our activities in the country.

There are other markets that also show great promise. On August 31, 2019, we completed an Innovate UK Newton Bhabha Fund project in India, working alongside local academic, manufacturing and milling partners. The Indian rice market is the second-largest globally and is currently more advanced than the Chinese market, making it our primary target market.

We have patents covering over 70 percent of global rice production and will launch our services to key markets such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Greece, Turkey, Brazil and the US, as resources allow. Key to this roll-out is our established global network of collaborative partnerships, including academic, manufacturing, technological and milling partners, as well as our proven unique selling points and novel pay-as-you-mill business model.

Food security
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN estimates that rice production will need to increase by 70 percent in order to satisfy demand from the growing global population, which is estimated to reach 10 billion by 2050. This need is set against the backdrop of decreasing harvest yields, as well as extreme weather events, which put stress on farmland. Yet, the annual triple bottom line (people, planet and profit) loss from rice globally is estimated at $127bn. It takes 2,500 litres of water to grow 1kg of rice, but each year some 60 billion kilograms will be lost post-harvest thanks to poor storage and ineffective milling. The input cost of this rice – land, water, seeds, chemicals, power, fuel and labour – lost post-harvest each year amounts to $14bn.

Koolmill, and project partners Siemens, Sheffield Hallam University and Aston Business School, are pioneering the introduction of a fully digital and affordable auto-tuning rice-milling solution, available to millers through a unique business model that effectively allows SME millers to pay as they mill.

After 150 years of mechanised milling, Koolmill’s technology is recognised as the third generation of milling technology. We are at the start of a very long road of innovation and development, driven by a mantra of producing more by milling less. Koolmill’s vision is to transform an antiquated and wasteful global industry, move it to a sustainable future and lift millions from poverty.

Our primary objective is simple: create and build momentum to move towards delivering our vision. Through this, we will create a profitable, global business that has a positive impact economically, socially and environmentally.

Despite global financial uncertainty, Hessen remains an investor hotspot

Posted on by Jack Pearson

With tariffs and trade barriers increasingly becoming the norm, it seems that controversial developments are characterising the current state of world trade.

Although the backlash against globalisation is widespread, parts of the world are striving to let others know that they remain open for business: one such place is Hessen, the German state located at the heart of the country. Home to Frankfurt – Germany’s financial centre – the region is perfectly positioned for organisations wishing to target markets in Europe and beyond.

At Hessen Trade and Invest, the state’s business development agency, we provide services to aid companies that are focused on innovation and technology across Hessen, as well as for foreign investors and international companies already operating in the region. We also offer support to foreign companies by helping them establish a presence in Hessen, as well as providing support to local companies seeking to gain a foothold in foreign markets. It’s for these reasons the state has been able to assert itself as a competitive business location in the face of a changing global landscape.

In addition, a high standard of living and a vibrant cosmopolitan atmosphere make Hessen a great place to live and work.

A sure investment
Punitive tariffs, trade wars and Brexit: these turbulent issues are the hallmarks of today’s global economy. This can be seen in the increased mutual tariffs between the US and China, with the prospect of further increases looming. The primary focal point within the EU, meanwhile, is undoubtedly Brexit, a topic that has been plagued with a series of unresolved regulatory issues. This has, in turn, served to further amplify the already high levels of uncertainty in the political and business arena.

Despite these issues, Hessen has managed to maintain its status as an internationally recognised and highly attractive investment location. There has been an especially large rise in the number of UK-based companies establishing a foothold in the state. Hessen’s Minister of Economics, Tarek Al-Wazir, recently said Hessen enjoys these benefits thanks to its central location at the very heart of Europe, robust infrastructure, unique pool of highly qualified professional specialists and excellent network of respected universities. In addition, a high standard of living and a vibrant cosmopolitan atmosphere make Hessen a great place to live and work.

A global reputation
A growing number of international companies are electing to establish operations in Hessen. Our statistics show that Hessen’s top investor in 2018 was undoubtedly the US (with 54 companies), followed by the UK (29), which managed to surpass China (22). Furthermore, companies based in Japan, India and France certainly value the business location of Hessen and its infrastructure for a number of industries, such as financial services, IT, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, metalworking and automotive manufacturing.

We primarily advise companies seeking to establish, relocate or expand their operations in Hessen, as well as offering custom-made packages for investors. We work closely with regional and local business development agencies, such as the Infrastructure Bank of Hessen and Enterprise Europe Network. We make an effort to bring the right partners together, establishing effective working partnerships to boost Hessen’s economy and make it a great place for companies to do business in.

Global trade may be on shakier ground than it once was, but there are still opportunities to be had. In Hessen, these opportunities are geographical, financial and strategic. At Hessen Trade and Invest, we’re on hand to ensure companies make the most of them.

Synthetic bear bile could improve effectiveness of human heart transplants

Posted on by Jack Pearson

For thousands of years, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used bear bile as a natural treatment for a number of ailments. A digestive fluid that’s produced by the liver and then stored in the gallbladder, it’s used “principally for reducing fever and inflammation, detoxifying the liver [and] resolving gallstones”, explained Dave Garshelis, a wildlife research scientist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and one of the world’s leading bear experts. He also noted that the substance has anti-inflammatory properties.

Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the collection of bear bile, which occurs via two methods. Though it is illegal in many parts of the world, the first method involves hunting wild bears. Once caught, they are drained of their bile and often used for other body parts too. The other method involves bear farming: in this case, bears are kept in cages and hooked up to drainage tubes and catheters for months at a time. Many are kept in captivity for their entire lives.

“The farming of bile was actually designed in North Korea, but it moved into China in the 1980s,” Garshelis told The New Economy. “From the standpoint of a communist government, it was designed as a way to satisfy the medical demand for bear bile. So they felt that they had a country of people of which a large proportion use traditional medicine, and there wasn’t actually enough bear bile to go around… They couldn’t supply it, and so they were trying to find a way to develop a larger supply, and that’s how this farming came to be.”

While synthetic bear bile may well do little to reduce demand for the real thing, it is currently being explored for some potentially phenomenal developments in western medicine

Heart transplants
That bear bile has some incredible properties is hard to deny. In fact, it’s something that Paul Iaizzo, a professor in the departments of surgery, integrative biology and physiology at the University of Minnesota, has been examining for more than 20 years.

“We have been studying hibernating black bears… and what’s amazing about these bears [is that] for four to six months they can elicit extremely low heart rates and they remain mildly hypothermic – their body temperature goes down to only 35 or 36 degrees centigrade [but] they lose very [few] functional abilities,” Iaizzo said. “The heart rates can be as low as five or 10 beats per minute, and yet at any time they can be aroused and elicit a ‘flight or fight’ response… to defend themselves against predators, which is really amazing. Further, they lose very little to no skeletal muscle or cardiac masses or functions; that is again during this period of anywhere from four to six months where they’re in a state of total starvation and taking little or no fluids.”

Taking this understanding and applying it to modern medicine, Iaizzo and his team are currently using synthetic bear bile – a high dose of fatty acids and delta opioid agonists, which are upregulated in hibernating bears – in a bid to improve the success rates of surgical outcomes and organ transplants. Essentially, in the same way that the unique blend of chemicals helps sustain a bear’s organs from going into atrophy during the hibernation period, it can be used to protect human organs during the transplant process.

“Routinely, our laboratory will isolate large mammalian hearts for reanimation,” Iaizzo told The New Economy. “We’ll often precondition the organs, and we have been able to show enhanced viabilities if we do that. If we use a preconditioning of delta opioids, fatty acids, bear bile acids or some combination of these, we have elicited improved functions immediately after reanimation and for extended periods.”

This could be a game-changer for organ transplants. At present, there is only a narrow window of around six hours in which a heart can be removed from a donor and transplanted into a recipient. Synthetic bear bile, however, could theoretically increase this by up to 24 hours, meaning that a heart could be transported to pretty much anywhere on the planet. By increasing the number of organs available, thousands of people waiting for heart transplants could be saved.

It could also help with the procedure itself. Transplanting a heart involves removing it from the donor, packing and icing it, and oftentimes transporting it to another location. During this time,
ischaemia, where the organ is prevented from getting enough oxygen, can occur. But Iaizzo believes that preconditioning the heart with these upregulated hibernation factors from bears could limit ischaemic damage. This is particularly crucial for organ recipients who have other medical issues, aside from cardiac problems.

“If I can minimise the consequences of ischaemic damage and put that heart – or any organ – in that recipient, it should function better immediately, it might decrease complications and the ICU [intensive care unit] stays, and [lead] to long-term better outcomes,” Iaizzo said. “So this is what we’re pretty interested in.”

Muscle atrophy
There’s potential for other areas too, particularly in terms of muscle weakness and patients who have been immobilised during intensive care. As Iaizzo explained, despite various methods to help alleviate this, patients can fall into hypercatabolic states, in which they can lose up to 50 percent of their muscle mass within just a few weeks. “And when that happens, very typically they’ll end up on the ventilator, and if that happens the outcomes are usually not good,” he added.

As such, Iaizzo is examining how bears manage to maintain high levels of muscle function and lose minimal skeletal and cardiac muscle masses while immobilised during hibernation, and how this can be applied to such patients. His research starts with looking at the cascade of hormones that is released during hibernation – also known as ‘hibernation induction triggers’.

“We’ve started out collaborating with Peter Oeltgen at the University of Kentucky… He had been looking at the plasma from hibernators and looking at these molecules, and showed that they had specific properties that could be protective of organs and muscle against ischaemia,” Iaizzo said. “And so we then started looking more into that and [bears] actually have increased levels of these hormones during hibernation, as well as increases in their circulating bile acids and fatty acids. So then we’re trying to tease apart which is most critical – is it the circulating hormones, bile acids or the high levels of fatty acids or a required combination? And so, if we could figure that out, there might [be] greater applications to human medicine relative to patients in the ICU or organ transplantation, or just cardiac surgery in general.”

Natural versus synthetic
Iaizzo and his team are doing some fascinating work with synthetic bear bile – using lessons learned from nature to improve the survival rates of those awaiting heart transplants is nothing short of extraordinary. It also demonstrates that there is viability to using synthetic bear bile as opposed to the real thing, which, considering the methods employed and the sources themselves, is inarguably cruel.

But whether this lesson will translate to those still poaching and farming bears, or those selling and using bile, is unlikely. Traditional Chinese medicine involves a deep-seated belief system for the millions of people who use such treatments. “They really believe in a balance in taking their medicine… and that the bear bile itself, with all of its components… has a more balanced effect on your body than just what is considered to be the ‘active ingredient’ – a compound called ursodeoxycholic acid, which can be created in a lab,” Garshelis explained.

The notion of using natural remedies is fundamental in traditional Chinese medicine, and this is where synthetic alternatives fall short. “There is the belief that the bile that comes from a bear, which is composed of many different compounds that have yet to be synthesised, is just inherently better than artificial bile, where these substances are absent,” Garshelis added.

While synthetic bear bile may well do little to reduce demand for the real thing, it is currently being explored for some potentially phenomenal developments in western medicine. It also highlights the possibilities available to scientists when they study the countless facets of the natural world. “Maybe we should go back to these more natural remedies and look back to the past,” Iaizzo said. “For example, many have been used in eastern medicine for thousands of years.” Indeed, imagine what treasures of information there are out there to be discovered –
or rediscovered, as the case may be.

Germany’s digital hubs are transforming Baden-Württemberg

Posted on by Jack Pearson

Baden-Württemberg is swiftly becoming one of Europe’s leading investment and innovation centres, with more than 5,000 foreign companies having already based themselves in the state to benefit from its unique opportunities. This is especially the case in sectors focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and studies into future mobility. Indeed, Baden-Württemberg excels in research and development – in 2017, research expenditure totalled €27.9bn ($30.6bn), or a sizable 5.6 percent of the state’s GDP.

Prior to 2016, there was a significant lack of digital investment and development in Germany, especially in rural areas. With criticism centred on this fact, Baden-Württemberg decided to launch a multi-disciplinary digitalisation strategy called digital@bw at the end of 2016. Around €1bn ($1.1bn) of investment was secured, with a plan for it to be delivered by 2021. Of this, €122m ($134m) was invested in more than 500 broadband projects in 2018.

Out of the 12 hubs within the nationwide Digital Hub Initiative (a network of innovation centres with specialised focuses), three are located in Baden-Württemberg: a future industries hub in Stuttgart, a digital chemistry and health hub in Mannheim, and an AI hub in Karlsruhe.

The south-western region has the highest industrial density in Germany and is known for its world-leading companies in the automotive sector

Innovative network
Baden-Württemberg’s Cyber Valley lies between the cities of Stuttgart and Tübingen. These cities have a strong heritage in research and education, are home to two renowned universities, and boast several research institutes. The south-western region has the highest industrial density in Germany, and is known for its world-leading companies in the automotive and engineering sectors, including Daimler, Bosch, SAP, Porsche and ZF Friedrichshafen.

Further, 10 independent research groups carry out fundamental research in the field of AI throughout Cyber Valley. Collectively, the groups research machine learning, computer vision and robotics. Researchers are specifically seeking novel numerical algorithms that will enable learning machines to process information faster and more reliably, as well as intelligent software for self-driven vehicles and smarter traffic-guidance systems.

It’s no surprise, then, that Baden-Württemberg has become a popular headquarters for tech start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The federated state offers not only an ideal ecosystem for aspiring firms, but also a strong industry base with an exciting mix of SMEs and multinationals – all of which are potential clients.

The Digital Hub Initiative is both recognition for the achievements of the past and a boost for the future. On the one hand, the label is an award for regions for their competence in their respective technological fields. It also helps to boost their respective strengths by supporting knowledge transfer and connecting established companies to innovation partners from both the scientific and start-up communities.

The future of industry
Baden-Württemberg has established itself as a vital base for the anticipated tech boom in AI technology, as well as a key player in the integration of AI within the transport sector. For example, the Active Research Environment for the Next Generation of Automobile (ARENA2036) programme, which is located in the region, continues to revolutionise the automotive industry.

Set up on the campus of the University of Stuttgart as a factory of the future, ARENA2036 allows onsite testing of research findings from the manufacturing and development sectors. In particular, it focuses on integrated lightweight and innovative manufacturing technology, and benefits from close links to start-up Autobahn, a business accelerator for start-up companies working on hardware or software-based mobility solutions. In 2036, the programme will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the invention of the automobile in Baden-Württemberg by Karl Benz.

Opening Baden-Württemberg up to foreign markets and highlighting the region as a global leader for industry, business and science have always been the core aspects of our mission. The work we do at Baden-Württemberg International aims to secure and strengthen the position of the state over the long term by encouraging foreign capital investment, helping companies to settle and promoting cooperation between businesses and cutting-edge research.

Mobile phones are changing personal finance across Africa

Posted on by Jack Pearson

When it comes to mobile money, sub-Saharan Africa is leaps and bounds ahead of other regions. Transactions using some sort of digital currency have a value of close to 10 percent of GDP, according to the World Economic Forum, compared with seven percent of GDP in Asia and less than two percent in Europe and the US.

But while statistics for the overall region paint a resoundingly positive picture, a closer look reveals that there are significant disparities between individual nations. In Kenya, for example, 73 percent of the population has a mobile bank account, and payment services such as M-Pesa dominate the country’s financial landscape. Yet in Nigeria, just six percent of the population use their phones for financial transactions, and 60 percent don’t have a bank account at all, despite the country being Africa’s largest economy.

The reason for this stark disparity lies predominantly in the difference between the two countries’ economic approaches. Tackling political barriers to reform is no doubt challenging, but it is a necessary and worthwhile endeavour: it will strengthen intracontinental trade and business ties, as well as make it easier for underbanked Africans to control their finances.

Leading the way
When M-Pesa launched in 2007, it was one of the first services to facilitate mobile transfers, not only in Africa, but worldwide. It had just two predecessors – Globe Telecom and Smart Communications – both of which began offering SMS transfers to customers in the Philippines in 2005. M-Pesa’s product, which was developed by mobile network Vodafone, allowed users to keep up to KES 50,000 ($480) in a virtual bank account, from which they could send funds to friends or relatives.

M-Pesa’s surprising success lies in the fact that mobile phone penetration has grown at an astonishing rate in Kenya over the past 10 years

For a country with an extremely large unbanked population, this was revolutionary. In 2006, just 18.5 percent of Kenyans had access to formal financial services; this was predominantly due to a lack of mainstream lender infrastructure, particularly in poorer rural areas. Banks had little motivation to establish retail branches or even ATMs in these locations due to the expense and a perceived lack of demand, but this perpetuated the issue of financial disenfranchisement, as residents did not have the means to travel to larger cities simply to access a bank. What’s more, it was unlikely they would be accepted for a bank account due to a lack of available funds or appropriate documentation.

It seems improbable that mobile money could have taken off so rapidly in such a disconnected and financially disempowered environment, but M-Pesa’s surprising success lies in the fact that mobile phone penetration has grown at an astonishing rate in Kenya over the past 10 years. This allowed the payments firm to gain a foothold in areas not previously touched by traditional financial services.

In 2007, 23 percent of the Kenyan population had a mobile phone, but in 2019, that figure has risen to 80 percent – an increase that was largely facilitated by investment in electricity and internet infrastructure at both a private and public level. Concurrently, the number of adults with access to formal financial services, including mobile payment services such as M-Pesa, has since risen to 82.9 percent.

Political opposition
Mobile adoption, while significant, is not the only factor that has contributed to the growth of Kenya’s digital financial landscape. Politics also played a key role: in 2007, Kenya’s traditional lenders heavily lobbied the government to crack down on M-Pesa, claiming the emergent firm was akin to a pyramid scheme and was overstepping the mark in launching financial services. They would have succeeded, too, had it not been for Bitange Ndemo, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology at the time, who made a strong case for the merits of mobile payments to President Mwai Kibaki.

Thanks to Ndemo’s persuasion, Kenya’s mobile money sector was able to thrive, but in other African nations the political environment has not been so conducive to success. In Nigeria, a regulation existed until 2017 that prevented network operators from transferring money for customers without the intervention of a bank. This was lifted by the Nigerian Government in the hope that it would help to boost the country’s financial inclusion rate, which stood at 40 percent at the time, according to World Bank research. However, the move was heavily opposed by traditional lenders, which had lobbied the government for years to prevent Nigeria’s powerful telecoms firms from entering the financial services sector.

In Zimbabwe, it has seemed in recent years as though mobile money could take off in a similar vein to Kenya. “Not as far as bitcoin or anything like that, but a very informal variant,” said Professor Stephen Chan, a professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London. “It was very much at a grassroots level, but the grassroots in Zimbabwe is very fired up [as a result of the country’s fragile economic situation] and very canny.” Any potential progress in the sector, however, has been quashed by the Zimbabwean Government. “The government was very reluctant to allow essentially a virtual economy to spring up, because it couldn’t control it,” Chan added.

Zimbabwe’s highly conservative minister of finance, Mthuli Ncube, has implemented a series of policies that have made it near impossible for payment firms to gain a foothold, the latest being the addition of a two percent tax on every transfer carried out via mobile. While Ncube claims this serves to prevent tax evasion, it also prices out many Zimbabweans from using mobile payment services. Following its implementation in August this year, Zimbabwe’s consumer rights association issued a statement claiming the tax will “not only burden the impoverished consumer, but will also drive the costs of doing business”.

Trust issues
Reticence to mobile money also comes from the people themselves, particularly in countries where traditional currency has been plagued by hyperinflation and corruption. In Zimbabwe, former prime minister Robert Mugabe’s overzealousness with the financial printing press contributed to one of the worst hyperinflationary episodes in global history, wiping out citizens’ savings and leaving the country without a stable national currency ever since. Kenya, meanwhile, was forced to discontinue its KES 1,000 ($10) note earlier this year after it emerged that it was routinely counterfeited. What’s more, according to Transparency International, more than a quarter of Africans have had to bribe an official to access public services in the past year, with the vast majority of such payoffs supplied in cash.

These deep-seated issues have not only eroded people’s purchasing power, but have also severely dampened confidence in both government and financial institutions. It’s little surprise, then, that the citizens of these nations have not embraced mobile money with open arms, as they have no guarantee that digital currency will not be beleaguered by the same problems.

Tackling these trust issues is crucial if mobile money is to succeed unilaterally across Africa, but nations will see the greatest success if they combine an anti-corruption drive with a comprehensive infrastructure investment programme. As for political opposition, M-Pesa’s success in Kenya has proved that mobile money has huge potential for good, particularly in terms of financial inclusion. This is the case not only for individuals, but also for small businesses, which are often a key economic driving force in rural areas. Allowing a private firm to provide those services – while an unfavourable choice for countries with highly conservative economic regimes – is a necessary trade-off in order to obtain the numerous benefits associated with mobile money.

How smart data can safeguard the planet

Posted on by Jack Pearson

One of the major dilemmas facing the world today is how the West can reduce its carbon footprint to offset the developing world’s industrialisation and increased carbon footprint. Digitalisation could provide some of the answers. Through the Internet of Things (IoT), digitalisation gives organisations the ability to collect valuable data from anywhere and in real time. This data can be used to make better-informed decisions and control processes, which in turn can minimise resource usage or waste.

The IoT delivers smarter, incremental solutions, as opposed to a ‘big bang’ approach to environmental change, where industries are expected to make sweeping changes overnight. An example of this is the development of the hybrid electric car – something being driven incrementally by industry, politics and, crucially, the market. In terms of sustainability, I’m not strictly talking about the engine: the data from devices like cars provides valuable information about how it is driven, in what conditions, its maintenance requirements, its consumption, its design, live traffic and alternate route information – multiple factors that can help minimise environmental impact. For example, by 2021, more than 5,000 London buses will be fitted with STW Technic’s TC1 Telematics Controller to monitor and analyse bus emissions in real time, providing valuable data on carbon emissions for future study and action. This could have a major impact in the city, which recently introduced ultra-low emission zones to improve air quality for its eight million residents.

Water management is another example of how to reduce resource usage and wastage. In England and Wales, 3.3 billion litres of water are lost due to leaky pipes every 24 hours – an amount that could sustain more than 20 million people for an entire day. Water management is a top priority in cities and remote areas alike, and Software AG is helping to create a solution that works across all geographies. In partnership with Telstra and Busselton Water, we are developing the Cumulocity IoT-based solution in Western Australia. The project combines digital meters, dedicated pressure sensors and Telstra’s NB-IoT network which, along with our IoT analytics solution, will deliver an accurate and effective water management service.

Software AG recently celebrated a half century of transforming customers’ lives through innovative products

Forging a green alliance
No single company can provide a perfect one-size-fits-all solution to every digital requirement, but a diverse IoT network can go a long way. This is the type of industrial strategy the EU excels at: collaboration at the highest level combined with individual solutions for individual problems. At Software AG, we have worked with Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, Dell and many other firms to remain at the forefront of the next industrial revolution over the coming decade.

The potential of industry collaboration is enormous. If power suppliers and individual consumers would work together to create smart grids, they could achieve a dramatic decline in greenhouse gases. Smart grids could help recover some of the six percent of transmitted power that ‘disappears’ in Europe and the US every year. Forecasts show that by 2030, the EU could generate 50 percent of its power from renewable sources. Smart meters will be vital in making this transition, along with the adoption of more IoT technology, such as smart buildings.

We are also working in collaboration with the Nordex Group, a leading supplier of wind turbines. Nordex is set to upgrade its 6,800 wind turbines using our IoT platform, which will provide clients with full-service monitoring to optimise the performance of their wind turbines and maximise their investments.

The interest in the possibilities of the IoT is there. We are in constant conversation with various organisations about how we can help them better implement IoT technologies, whether it’s for medical research or streamlining manufacturing. The most important thing is for IoT technology to offer freedom through adaptable automation, reducing day-to-day human involvement. Software must be independent and enable companies to change quickly so they can adopt emerging technologies and ensure maximum customer retention for years to come. We will continue to offer sustainability by providing freedom of choice, freedom to innovate and freedom to adapt.

Software AG recently celebrated a half century of transforming customers’ lives through innovative products. Today, we are recognised as one of the most visionary companies in the industrial IoT space. Everything the company has learned on its journey to date is utilised every day to lead our IoT software developments. This approach will serve us and our customers well as we look ahead to the next 50 years.

An element of success: hydrogen-powered cars could be around the corner

Posted on by Jack Pearson

On the remote archipelago of Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, locals often say you don’t need an umbrella – you need a riot shield. Orkney is almost entirely flat with very few trees, so when the islands are not being battered by storms and gale-force winds, they are usually swamped in haar, a damp fog that sweeps in from the sea. Hugh Marwick, a scholar who lived on Orkney during the first half of the 20th century, once called its climate “one of the vilest under heaven”.

But abysmal weather brings unique advantages, too: Orkney is one of the few places on Earth that sustains itself solely on renewable energy. Its winds, waves and tides generate around 130 percent of the electricity its small population needs. With such a surplus of energy, Orkney has even had to explore new ways of storing power to ensure it doesn’t go to waste. The answer, it found, was to convert excess electricity into hydrogen using a zero-carbon method. In 2017, Orkney became the first state to generate hydrogen from tidal power.

Now, the world’s superpowers are looking to this tiny corner of the planet for inspiration. Many have committed to decarbonising their economies: the EU seeks to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, while China has promised to bring emissions to a peak by around 2030. But in order to meet such ambitious targets, governments will have to broaden their renewable energy efforts to include hydrogen fuel.

Bumps in the road
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. By mass, it has the highest energy content of any fuel and, when burned, it produces no carbon emissions – only water. This makes it a highly attractive alternative to fossil fuels, particularly in sectors where electrification may not prove as effective, such as aviation, shipping, iron and steel production, or long-distance road transportation.

Investment and government support are precisely what the hydrogen sector needs if it is to play a key role in the clean energy economy

The concept of hydrogen fuel first became popular in the 1970s, when the term ‘hydrogen economy’ was coined by electrochemist John Bockris. During the multiple oil crises of the 1970s, many research programmes were launched into its commercial application, while conferences were held in the US, Europe and Japan. Despite these efforts, though, hydrogen had a hard time winning people’s hearts: the technology required for hydrogen production proved to be very expensive to develop and, once oil prices returned to pre-embargo levels, interest in lowering those costs waned.

Hydrogen regained some of its popularity during the late 1990s and early 2000s, as the world became obsessed with moving away from oil. An article published by Scientific American in 1998, entitled The End of Cheap Oil, even suggested global production of conventional oil would decline within 10 years: this would supposedly occur amid fears that prices would peak while demand kept rising, plunging the world’s economies into crisis. It was largely due to this belief that US President George W Bush became a strong proponent of hydrogen fuel cells. In 2003, he committed $720m to research into this area. Unfortunately for Bush, his successor’s secretary of energy, Steven Chu, later diverted much of that funding into battery research, causing hydrogen to fall out of the spotlight once again.

Light-bulb moment
Public awareness of the potential of hydrogen is still relatively low. Among climate advocates, automakers and governments, though, it is enjoying a renaissance: Japanese automaker Toyota, for example, has consistently bet on hydrogen technology, launching its first fuel-cell vehicle in late 2017, and this year, ahead of the G20 summit in Osaka, the International Energy Agency claimed the world was on the cusp of finally unleashing hydrogen’s potential. “Given the nature of the current climate emergency, the utilisation of a clean fuel generated from renewable energy sources is gaining significant traction,” Anthony O’Mullane, a professor of science and engineering at Queensland University of Technology, told The New Economy.

However, most of today’s hydrogen is far from clean. In fact, about 96 percent of total hydrogen production is made using methane, while just four percent comes from water electrolysis – the method of production through which zero emissions are emitted. What’s more, a huge shift is needed if water electrolysis is to occur on a large scale. It’s for this reason that hydrogen still has critics: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, has dismissed hydrogen fuel cells as being “mind-bogglingly stupid”.

Despite the criticisms of Musk – who, as the head of an electric car company, may be slightly biased against fuel cells – studies suggest that producing hydrogen through water electrolysis is set to become much cheaper. In August, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF) reported that the cost of renewable hydrogen could fall as low as $1.40 per kilogram by 2030, down significantly from the current range of $2.50 to $6.80. It even suggested this figure could drop to $0.80 by 2050, which would finally make hydrogen an economically viable, carbon-free energy source.

“The main barrier to the uptake of large-scale electrolysis to produce hydrogen has been cost,” O’Mullane said. “However, with improvements in electrolyser technology and manufacturing processes, this cost is steadily decreasing.”

One of the things that has made water electrolysis so expensive in the past is the catalysts used in the process, which are typically made from costly metals such as iridium oxide and platinum. But O’Mullane, along with PhD student Ummul Sultana, recently discovered a way of using cheaper and relatively more available materials instead. Technological advancements like this could, in the long term, help meet BloombergNEF’s estimates.

Powering forward
Government pressure will also play a key role in commercialising hydrogen technology. In light of the EU’s zero-carbon targets, German engineering company Bosch announced in April that it would be teaming up with Swedish fuel-cell company PowerCell to begin mass producing fuel cells for trucks.

“The EU’s fleet requirements for trucks call for a reduction of CO2 emissions by 15 percent on average by 2025, and 30 percent by 2030,” Heather Butcher, PR and Communications Manager at Bosch UK, told The New Economy. “Bosch’s view is that this target can only be reached by electrifying more and more of the powertrain. The fuel cell can play a decisive role here.”

Among the countries most aggressively pursuing hydrogen adoption is China, which aims to get one million fuel-cell vehicles on its roads by 2029. While it’s easy to scoff at such a proposal – the country is currently home to just 1,500 fuel-cell vehicles, most of which are buses – one must remember that China has made similar leaps in the recent past. Having lagged behind Japan, South Korea, the US and Europe until as recently as 2014, China is now the world’s largest electric vehicle market. It didn’t claim the top spot by accident, either: according to the US-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies, China has spent an estimated $58.8bn subsidising the electric car industry over the past decade.

Now, it plans to do the same for hydrogen. In September, the South China Morning Post reported that local authorities in 10 Chinese cities will hand out incentives of between CNY 2m ($280,190) and CNY 4m ($560,381) for each refuelling station constructed. When the country’s acquisition of foreign hydrogen technology is taken into account, BloombergNEF estimates that China will have invested over $17bn in hydrogen by 2023.

Investment and government support are precisely what the hydrogen sector needs if it is to play a key role in the clean energy economy. Although production is becoming more affordable, the difficulties of achieving large-scale hydrogen adoption should not be underestimated. Fuel-cell vehicles will need to compete with electric cars at a time when batteries are becoming cheaper and more efficient. With enough subsidisation, though, renewable hydrogen may finally find a home beyond the remote islands of Orkney, and take its place as the world’s preferred carbon-free energy source.

PhenoMx promises advanced medical imaging, anywhere, anytime

Posted on by The New Economy

“The products and services that will have the biggest impact on our health will not come from healthcare, but from outside of healthcare,” says digital health futurist Maneesh Juneja. As consumers we’re enjoying greater convenience – and we’re beginning to expect the same from healthcare providers. He and Mark Punyanitya – co-founder and CEO of medical imaging platform PhenoMx – discuss the future of healthcare, the need to technological health interventions more accessible, and the technology behind PhenoMx’s offering.

The New Economy: “The products and services that will have the biggest impact on our health will not come from healthcare, but from outside of healthcare.” These are the words of my guest: digital health futurist Maneesh Juneja; joining us also is Mark Punyanitya, co-founder and CEO of medical imaging platform PhenoMx.

Maneesh, tell me more about the innovations that you’re seeing – that are coming from outside of healthcare, but still to improve our health.

Maneesh Juneja: So what we’re seeing is the emergence of things like wearables, we’re seeing consumer health apps, which are being developed by entrepreneurs who are not necessarily part of the healthcare system; all designed to help people have a more convenient way of managing their health, possibly early detection of disease, and possibly even about prevention of disease through behaviour change.

Consumers are saying: hey, we’ve seen through retail, travel, banking, it’s possible to have more convenient products and services. So we’re asking that of healthcare now as well. So we’re starting to see this shift where technology is enabling healthcare to move outside of the hospital, into the home.

The New Economy: Mark, this is one of the places where PhenoMX comes in, because you’re revolutionising the technology that you’re using, to make it vastly more accessible.

Mark Punyanitya: Sure. So at PhenoMX we’re looking to take medical imaging, which traditionally has been quite behind-the-scenes, essentially liberate it, have an opportunity to use it anytime, anywhere. Whether that’s in a large city, a small village, or even a rural environment.

We’re currently using non-invasive MRI scanning to detect different changes in the major vital organs and tissues, to inform your likelihood of Alzheimers, fatty liver disease, or cardiovascular disease.

We look at automating and incrementing the efficiency, taking some of the consumer concepts of software as a service, pay-per-use, the ubiquity of technology, with a cheaper, quicker scan. A five minute liver scan, for example. Or a five minute brain scan. We drive down the cost of getting the scan done.

At this current time we’re still utilising the existing MRI infrastructure. But additionally, we’re looking at hardware that can be priced dramatically differently. Something that would make it possible to put an MRI scanner in the back of a truck, and take it to remote villages.

Being able to do imaging anywhere around the world, the automation we’re applying – whether it’s the software side or the hardware side – will enable a remote village to have the same level of scanning that could be done at a major academic university. Thus enabling remote patient monitoring – but from the inside of the body. The major vital organs and tissues, because of imaging.

The New Economy: And Maneesh, it is important that as well as being physically accessible, these innovative healthcare interventions are more financially accessible?

Maneesh Juneja: Correct, so, a lot of these technologies being developed are essentially only available if you are wealthy, or you live in a certain part of the world. And that’s scaring many people who are saying, we already have these huge social inequalities in health, and we don’t want these new technologies to make them even wider.

Today we’ve got 7.7 billion people on the planet, and there are literally billions that don’t have access to affordable, safe, high quality healthcare. And by the end of this century we’re going to have 11 billion people on this planet forecasted. So there’s a huge need for actually, how can we get as many people around the world to be able to access these new technologies?

The New Economy: Mark, is this sort of healthcare accessibility part of PhenoMx’s mission?

Mark Punyanitya: Absolutely. We’re taking highly advanced imaging capabilities, but using the ubiquity of technology to disperse it, dispense it, anywhere, anytime. Making the gap between the health disparities much closer together. Decreasing the prices, the efficiency, the automation. These are all components that we have expertise in, to make a more seamless user experience, and provide a package that can be implemented worldwide.

Maneesh Juneja: This kind of technology that we’ve been hearing about today could have huge implications to bring safe, high quality healthcare to everybody on the planet.

Think about that person in that village somewhere around the world, who’s living 200km from the nearest city with a big medical centre and all the equipment. If they can have access to these new technologies, and we can actually enable them to detect certain diseases, manage their health, just be able to live a healthier life: I mean that’s absolutely a fabulous idea.

Mark Punyanitya: So, we’re looking outside of the US. In the US it’s early adoption, but we see a broader perspective in Europe, the Middle East, Asia. Where there is a larger population number, but a familiarity with health screening and the ability to acquire data, medical records, bloodwork and things like that.

And we’re using imaging in that same manner. Can we acquire data on your body much more rapidly?

Additionally, we’re looking at public health and population health screening. And wanting to implement something that addresses some of the environmental factors, the social determinants of health, and tie them to these hard outcomes. Whether you’re developing asthma or something else; and then we’re enabling linking that to scanning your lung.

And then being unplugged. Having the same type of wireless capacity to attach it to the scanner, so it doesn’t have to be a hard line. Lots of technology to come that will make a big difference.

The New Economy: Maneesh, Mark, thank you very much.

Maneesh Juneja: Thank you.

Mark Punyanitya: Thank you.

Tackling the social determinants of health and rebalancing healthcare

Posted on by Jack Pearson

In 1948, shortly after the end of the Second World War, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was formed. This institution was created as a means to coordinate international health efforts, defining health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease”.

On March 25, 1965, ahead of the second national convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Chicago, Illinois, Dr Martin Luther King Jr proclaimed: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.” Just 13 years later, in 1978, the WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund convened at the International Conference on Primary Healthcare held in Alma-Ata. For the first time, healthcare challenges facing developing countries were seriously examined, resulting in the Alma-Ata Declaration. This declaration recognised the need for primary care in all nations and established a demand for equitable healthcare access.

The social determinants of health (SDOH) were created by the WHO with the aim of identifying the main causes of global health crises

However, in 2019, equitable access to healthcare still remains a significant challenge, both within the US and around the world. The social determinants of health (SDOH) were created by the WHO with the aim of identifying the main causes of global health crises. Providing equitable healthcare is hindered, compounded and exacerbated by income inequality, with poorer patients among the most at risk for receiving inadequate healthcare. This group – which accounts for the largest instances of avoidable healthcare costs – is affected by increasing rates of chronic disease, and also comprises healthcare patients who are in greatest need of support as defined by the SDOH. According to the landmark study Beyond Health Care: New Directions to a Healthier America by the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, an individual’s zip code in the US is a more accurate indication of future health outcomes than genetics are.

Global healthcare delivery is taking its lead from studies such as Harvard’s, as well as The Economic Burden of Health Inequalities in the United States, published by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland. The study claims: “More than 30 percent of direct medical costs faced by African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans were excess costs due to health inequities – more than $230bn over a four-year period. And when you add the indirect cost of these inequities over the same period, the tab comes to $1.24trn.”

What was once an ethical debate on the ways to tackle poverty – largely through improving housing, food, transportation or employee health and wellness – addressing SDOH has now primarily become a matter of healthcare economics. Health interventions for populations, once deployed only by necessity, can now be considered a secure and direct way to inspire innovative healthcare delivery solutions aimed at improving SDOH.

Chief among the solutions being rapidly scaled and deployed in response to this issue are software as a service (SaaS) technologies, such as TAVHealth, Healthify, Unite Us, Aunt Bertha and NowPow. These systems will be rolled out within the healthcare IT domain, but demonstrate promise for having a real-world impact for populations at risk.

The common denominator among SaaS solutions is their ability to strengthen the connection between patients and community resources. Their objective is to determine, measure and track when a social determinant has been addressed across the patient’s delivered care. As a result, hospital readmissions across the US – currently a more than $17bn annual systemic cost – could be markedly decreased. Reducing the financial burden to hospitals while simultaneously improving clinical outcomes for patients should be the aim of emerging SDOH SaaS technology companies: in doing so, tech companies would be moving the needle on SDOH in a more cost-effective direction.

Nevertheless, in preventing, detecting and providing early diagnoses for chronic diseases, SDOH SaaS tech companies fall short. There is a huge opportunity to target and address populations and their community health, which remains a key factor of the global healthcare crisis.

Surveying the damage
According to the 2019 Health Intelligence Network survey Healthcare Benchmarks: Social Determinants of Health, which gathered the opinions of healthcare professionals and screened patient populations for social determinants by prioritising their responses: “High-risk patients (those with two or more chronic conditions) are the leading patient populations targeted for [SDOH] screenings.”

High-risk patients with two or more conditions made up 42 percent of the survey respondents. Patients using Medicaid comprised 37 percent, those with behavioural health conditions represented 36 percent, low-income patients 32 percent, and the dual eligible made up 31 percent. Meanwhile, disease-specific patients made up 31 percent and those on Medicare represented 29 percent of respondents. Disabled patients made up 24 percent, the uninsured were 22 percent, and infants and children were 18 percent. Finally, others made up just eight percent of respondents.

The above online survey may be corroborated by the Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions, which, with roughly 300 hospitals and health systems in the US, intends to identify current health-related social needs, activities and investments, as well as the potential future direction of the industry. Deloitte’s efforts were aimed at better understanding how hospitals and health systems are operating, along with developing an insight into the challenges they face within the larger healthcare ecosystem. Interviews took place at hospitals, health-plan meetings and non-profit community organisations. Two key takeaways from the study were that hospitals are screening patients based on their social needs, and that the healthcare system is shifting towards value-based care, which may spur more investment for tackling the health problems associated with social needs.

Hospital investments vary, and sustainable funding may be a challenge. The healthcare stakeholders interviewed think that addressing health-related social needs is the ‘right thing to do’, and expect that alignment with value-based care will continue to encourage partnerships and produce innovative solutions.

Connecting the dots
Americans from all demographic groups face challenges to fulfil basic needs for housing, transportation, food and social needs, all of which can negatively impact physical and mental wellbeing when absent. Building housing and providing food for every American in need, as well as addressing other SDOH issues, is simply not sustainable.

In summation, it is clear from the research on SDOH that the debate over whether social factors are fundamental causes of health and disease is essentially over. A large body of research currently shows that society can make you sick or can promote your health, depending on a wide variety of factors. With this direct relationship now uncovered and agreed upon, the next step is therefore to define the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.

A standard of care brought forward by the WHO would likely transform personal health, systemic healthcare and healthcare delivery, as the capabilities of real-time physical health data is garnered using a personalised digital physical exam screening (PDPES). This MRI scan non-invasively images full-body or organ-specific tissue, requiring no contrast mediums or radiation, thus offering unparalleled safety for patients, including for paediatric, renal, diabetic and elderly patient populations.

When employed in addition to point-of-care physical exams, PDPES may unveil the onset of chronic disease, occult pathology or disease progression, and could potentially transform global healthcare. This technology also has the capacity to circumvent issues of health disparity among diverse populations: for example, the ability to promote pre-emptive imaging and catch diseases before they progress to life-threatening stages could allow for earlier intervention by physicians, who could then produce patient management plans at the first stages of the disease. This view is shared by the WHO, which stated in a presentation entitled Increasing Access to Diagnostic Imaging in Developing Countries: the Asha Jyoti Mobile Clinic: “Diagnostic imaging plays an important role not only in identifying pathology and tracking the progression of a disease, but also preventing disease via screening.”

Imaging innovations in healthcare will take SDOH strategy to the next level, marrying upstream care with increased access to the patients with the greatest need. Imaging has the potential to be invaluable for all patients within the health continuum, whether downstream, midstream or upstream.

Prevention is better than a cure
Individuals, communities, health insurers and public health more generally are most effectively influenced beyond the walls of hospitals. Community organisations connected by SaaS technology currently only scratch the surface in terms of early disease intervention. Healthcare providers must go further by investigating the sources of the disease. One way to do so is by developing technology that unveils health issues caused by lifetime or generational exposure to unaddressed SDOH factors before diseases develop further, thereby improving treatment and preventing the costs to the healthcare sector associated with developed diseases. This is the invaluable potential of the personalised digital physical exam. For example, US hospital emergency department (ED) physician culture and inadvertent human error may undermine SDOH and cause avoidable hospital readmissions. Federally mandated procedures are often altered and patient history screenings are shortened in crowded EDs. This may be a new norm within US urban hospitals, and highlights the importance of mitigating and implementing a PDPES alongside standard health screenings within EDs.

In the wake of increased rates of chronic disease and acute illness around the globe, healthcare providers and policymakers cannot wait any longer. Evidence suggests that currently available quantitative imaging technology capable of deploying innovative precision medicine – i.e. the personalised digital physical exam – when used in conjunction with traditional bedside physical exams may bend the curve on chronic disease, health and healthcare inequity, the health and wellness digital divide, physician burnout, and total cost of care. This is known as the ‘quadruple aim’ – a robust, upstream SDOH solution.

The costs to individuals and the system of putting off this innovation are simply too great. We cannot wait any longer.