13-May-2013

International experts recommend key focus areas for next 2 years

As leadership of the Arctic Council passes from Sweden to Canada May 15, experts say it is crucial that northern nations strengthen response capabilities to shipping-related accidents foreseen in newly-opened northern waters, as well as to more-common local emergencies such as floods, forest fires and rescue situations.

And Canada needs to lead by example. Despite having the world’s longest Arctic coastline and second-largest territory in the region, its far northern marine and aviation infrastructure badly lags by international comparison, according to experts with the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program, an initiative of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.

Northern emergency flight rescue operations today originate from the Royal Canadian Air Force base in the southern Ontario city of Trenton and involve at least eight hours of flying. The Canadian Coast Guard aims to respond to requests for icebreaking services within 10 hours. However, weather and distance often result in response times measured in days.

By contrast, Russia is building 10 search and rescue stations along its Northern Sea Route, expected to open in 2015.

The Arctic Council ministerial meeting this week is hosted by the outgoing chair, Sweden, in that country’s northernmost city, Kiruna.

News release in full, click here

Selected coverage: by

• Reuters, click here,
• Toronto Star, click here,
• The Canadian Press, click here,
• Postmedia News, click here,
• Agencia EFE, click here

Coverage summary, click here

29 April, 2013

59 creative, out-of-box health innovations devised in 13 low- and middle-income countries, plus 43 from Canada, share $10.9 million in seed grants and a single goal: Reduce debilitating disease, save lives in developing countries

Shaun Morris, infectious disease doctor with Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, delivers a neonatal kit to a pregnant woman in rural Pakistan. Morris has received one of 102 $100,000 grants announced worldwide April 29 by Grand Challenges Canada to fund “bold global health ideas with big impact.”

Grand Challenges Canada, which is funded by the Government of Canada, today announced 102 new grants of $100,000 each for bold new global health ideas. Of these, 59 grants went to innovators in 13 low- and middle-income nations worldwide to pursue bold new imaginative ideas to tackle health problems in resource-poor countries.

Grants of $100,000 each were also announced for 43 Canadian-originated projects to be implemented in a total of 49 countries throughout the developing world.

The full global portfolio of 102 creative, out-of-the-box ideas, selected by independent peer review from 436 applications, include:

• An instant test strip to diagnose deadly diseases like Ebola and dengue à la litmus paper
• A vaccine for smokers against nicotine’s addictive effect
• A glucose meter cell phone attachment for diabetics
• A tool kit to save newborn lives
• Engineering gut microbiome bacteria to defend against waterborne diseases like cholera and thyphoid
• Teaching old drugs new tricks in the fight against HIV
• Saving mothers and children with affordable, needle-free anemia-screening
• Using mobile phones to monitor maternal and child health in rural Nepal
• * A fast track to safer pesticides via super-computer
• Tapping local businesses in Tanzania: Malaria drugs on wheels
• Reading ultrasound images of rural patients via cyberspace
• …and many others.

News release in full: click here

Sample coverage: Toronto Star, click here, Vancouver Sun, click here, CBC, click here, Daily Mail (UK / India), click here

Coverage summary: click here

9-Apr-2013

Raising scientists: Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada celebrates 20 years of inspiring biotechnology studies and careers

Raising scientists: Canadian Governor General David Johnston meets national high school finalists, all 16 to 18 years old, Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada

Cutting edge research into an experimental therapy that deploys nano-particles of gold in the fight against cancer earned an Alberta high school student, 16, top national honours today in the 2013 “Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada” (SBCC).

India-born Arjun Nair, 16, a Grade 11 student at Webber Academy, Calgary, was awarded the top prize of $5,000 by a panel of eminent Canadian scientists assembled at the Ottawa headquarters of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

His research project, mentored at the University of Calgary, advances an experimental cancer “photothermal therapy” which involves injecting a patient with gold nanoparticles. The particles accumulate in tumours, forming so-called “nano-bullets” that can be heated to kill cancer cells.

Arjun showed how an antibiotic may overcome the cancer’s defences and make the promising treatment more effective. Arjun’s research, which a panel of expert judges led by Luis Barreto, MD, called “world class Masters or PhD-level quality,” also won a special $1,000 prize awarded to the project with the greatest commercial potential. (See full project description below, and online at http://bit.ly/12i4QIP)

Eleven brilliant students from nine Canadian regions, all just 16 to 18 years old, took part in the national finals. They had placed 1st at earlier regional SBCC competitions, conducted between March 21 and April 4.

Celebrating 20 years of inspiring young scientists in Canada, this year’s SBCC involved a total of 208 high school students collaborating on 123 projects, all mentored in professional labs over several months and submitted via the regional competitions.

Since its beginning in Toronto in 1994, some 4,500 young Canadians have competed in the SBCC, an event that has inspired sister BioGENEius competitions in the USA and Australia.

2nd place, $4,000 — British Columbia: Selin Jessa, 17, Grade 12, Dr. Charles Best Secondary School, Coquitlam, won the second place prize with research into how genetic mutations naturally help some HIV patients escape symptoms. Project description: http://bit.ly/16u1zZj

Arjun and Selin will compete for Canada April 22-23 at the International BioGENEius Challenge, conducted at the annual BIO conference, this year in Chicago.

3rd place, $3,000 — Quebec: Eunice Linh You, 17, Grade 11, Laval Liberty High School, Laval, who investigated how to tailor stem cell treatments for Parkinson’s disease (see http://bit.ly/YtJJnq)

4th place, $2,000 — Greater Toronto: Lauren Chan, 17, Grade 12, University of Toronto Schools, who described a potential new therapy to reduce the severity of diabetes (see http://bit.ly/YQKWon)

5th place, $1,000 — Manitoba: Daniel Huang, 16, Grade 11, St. John’s Ravenscourt School, Winnipeg, who discovered a potential new tactic to fight the world’s deadliest brain cancer (seehttp://bit.ly/14LeurK)

Honorable mention, $500:

Jared Trask, 18, Kaitlyn Stockley, 17, Grade 12, Holy Spirit High School, Conception Bay West, Newfoundland, who, for the second consecutive year, won the Atlantic region competition by proving novel ideas for creating biofuels (see http://bit.ly/YZkOVp);

Adamo Young, 16, Grade 11, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, who found that altering its nitrogen supply appears to tame a toxic fungus that ruins billions worth of grain worldwide (seehttp://bit.ly/YtJOaB);

Melanie Grondin, 17, Shawn Liu, 18, Vincent Massey Secondary School, Windsor, Ontario, who found a marker in medicine’s quest for the holy grail of leukaemia treatments: limitless supplies of healthy stem cells (see http://bit.ly/XGWICS).

Saruul Uuganbayar, 17, Grade 12, Centennial Collegiate, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who invented a molecular therapy for mutated cells with the dream of curing cancer (see http://bit.ly/XGWBqX); and

Following the presentation ceremony at the NRC, Governor-General David Johnston, a distinguished educator prior to his vice-regal appointment, received the students at Rideau Hall.

News release in full: click here

Coverage highlights: The Globe and Mail, click here, Agence France Presse, click here; The Canadian Press, click here, The Vancouver Sun, news story click here,  (op-ed) here, The Calgary Sun, click here, CTV Canada AM, click here

Full coverage summary, click here

United Nations University

UN-Water

22-Mar-2013, World Water Day / International Year of Water Cooperation

Amid changing weather and water patterns worldwide and forecasts of more severe transformations to come, calls have been growing for the UN Security Council to include water issues on its agenda.

And there’s rising international support for adopting “universal water security” as one of the Sustainable Development Goals — a set of mid-term global objectives being formulated to succeed the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, agreed by world leaders in 2000 for achievement by 2015.

But what does “water security” mean? The absence of a definition undermines progress in international forums. Marking World Water Day today at UN Headquarters in New York, a common working definition was published, forged by UN and international experts from around the world.

News release in full: click here

Example coverage: by Reuters, click here, by EFE (Spanish, click here), by the InterPress News Service, click here, by Triple Pundit (USA), click here

Coverage summary in full, click here

Deep Carbon Observatory

4-Mar-2013

Probing the secrets of volcanoes and diamonds, sources of gas and oil, and the origins of life itself, Deep Carbon Observatory scientists publish landmark volume 3 years into historic 10-year, $500 million global collaboration

From Earth’s surface to hundreds of kilometers deeper than oilmen drill, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is investigating the surprising quantity of carbon in the deep, dark Earth beyond photosynthesis.

The program is investigating deep carbon’s movement in the slow convection of the mantle, the percolating fluids of the crust, and the violent emission from volcanoes. It searches for the ancient origin of the deep carbon, and the formation and transformation of its many forms, ranging from gas and oil to diamonds and deep microbes.

Ninety percent or more of Earth’s carbon is thought to be locked away or in motion deep underground—a hidden dimension of the planet as poorly understood as it is profoundly important to life on the surface, according to scientists probing the world’s innermost secrets in the decade-long, $500 million project.

In a landmark volume, DCO scientists say estimates of carbon bound in the metallic core alone range from 0.25 to 1 percent by weight. If 1 percent proves correct, the core by itself sequesters four times more carbon than all known carbon reservoirs in the rest of the planet—and 50,000,000 times as much as that held in the flora and fauna on Earth’s relatively wafer-thin skin far above.

News release in full: click here

Sample coverage: by Reuters, click here, by The Canadian Press / Associated Press, click here, by Agence France Presse, click here, by the InterPress Service, click here, Agencia EFE (Spanish here, Portuguese here), by Public Radio International (Living on Earth), click here

Complete coverage summary: click here

20-Feb-2013

BioGENEiuses Miranda Wang, 18, and Jeanny Yao, 19 reprise their prize-winning 2012 SBCC presentation at TED2013, Long Beach CA, Feb. 27, 2013

Unexpected prizes from a high school biotech science competition, mentored by some of Canada’s top research experts, range from rich university scholarships and commercial patents to peer-reviewed journal citations and international speaking invitations, former teen participants say.

But the reward cited most often by alumni of the Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada (SBCC), this year marking its 20th annual competition, was the eye-opening experience of watching their inventive ideas succeed and being encouraged in a professional lab, creating in many a career-shaping passion for science.

News release in full: click here

Sample coverage: TED2013, click here, Vancouver Sun, click here

22 Nov. 2012

Grand Challenges Canada awards 68 $100,000 seed grants to innovators worldwide

Some 51 innovators in 18 low and middle income countries and 17 in Canada will share $7 million in Canadian grants to pursue bold, creative ideas for tackling health problems in resource-poor parts of the world.

Specially designed packages of anti-diarrhea kits for kids will hitch a ride on Coca-Cola’s distribution network, initially in Zambia

Among the Canadian-based projects: researchers will mimic rocket technology to propel coagulant nanoparticles into the bloodstream and stop maternal bleeding, a major cause of death in the developing world; test a high-tech Burn Survival Kit that includes a low-cost silver nanotubule dressing making treatment affordable; and develop an HIV infection detector that works in fewer than 5 minutes.

Out-of-the-box projects based overseas include a new trading system in Kenya: seeds and fertilizers for proof of child vaccinations; a $100 kitchen reno to reduce indoor pollution and problem pregnancies in Bangladesh; cultivating disease-fighting prawns in Senegal; creating wealth from human waste in cholera-troubled Haiti; and anti-diarrhea kits for infants hitching a ride on Coca-Cola’s distribution chain to get essential medicine to “the ends of the Earth.”

Grand Challenges Canada, funded by the Government of Canada, announced the 68 $100,000 grants under its Stars in Global Health program, which fosters affordable, breakthrough ideas to improve health in developing countries.  Successful projects may apply for $1 million scale-up grants.

The projects will be implemented worldwide:

• 38 in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana (4), Kenya (10), Nigeria, Rwanda (2), Senegal (2), Tanzania (2), Uganda (8), Zambia (4), Zimbabwe and South Africa),
• 23 in Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh (3), China, India (9), Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan (4), Vietnam),
• 5 in Latin America / Caribbean (Haiti (3), Guatemala, Nicaragua); and
• 2 in the Middle East (Jordan, Tunisia)

Interviews with the innovators and program officials are available.

For fully detailed grant descriptions, project contact information and links to video interviews and photos: http://bit.ly/RCRm5Y.

Full release: click here

Example coverage: Washington Post, click here; CNN International, click here; Toronto Star, click here, The Guardian, click 1) here and 2) here

Coverage summary, click here

About Grand Challenges Canada

Grand Challenges Canada supports bold ideas with big impact in global health. Funded by the Government of Canada, GCC funds innovators in low and middle income countries and Canada.  Hosted at the Sandra Rotman Centre, GCC works with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and other global health foundations and organizations.

14 Nov 2012

Loss of mangroves to fish farms, other development, a poor economic trade-off risking human and environmental well-being

Experts are urging policy makers to preserve mangroves and their essential services to nature and humanity alike, saying their replacement with shrimp farms and other forms of development is a bad economic tradeoff both short and long-term.

An unprecedented partnership of organizations – from forestry and conservation sectors and from across the United Nations – have released a policy brief drawing on the 2nd edition of the World Atlas of Mangroves (2010). It aims to provide managers with lessons learned in past mangrove conservation and management efforts, and with policy recommendations.

Found mostly in the tropics straddling the land and sea, mangroves make up less than half of 1% of forests of all kinds worldwide. Taken together, some 70 species of mangroves are found in 123 tropical and sub-tropical nations and territories but occupy just 152,000 square km in total — an area slightly larger than Nepal.

Yet these so-called “forests of the tide” provide enormous benefits to humanity, especially as essential harbors for biodiversity, as buffers against the destructive power of waves, and as nurseries for coastal and offshore fisheries worldwide.

Since 1980, the world has lost about one-fifth of mangrove forests and many of what remains is degraded, says the new policy brief, “Securing the Future of Mangroves.”

News release in full: click here

Example coverage, newswires: Reuters, here; SDA (Switzerland), here; AGI (Italy),  here; EFE (Spain), here

Malaysian Industry‑Government Group for High Technology

1 Nov 2012

‘Nutrition transition’ common to Mexico, India, China, other emerging economies

With health problems like obesity and diabetes on the rise due to changing diets in emerging economies, Malaysia is forging new linkages between domestic and international scientists and institutions in hopes of mitigating the problem.

It will also team with world experts to further secure its domestic food supply from anticipated shocks due to climate change and global supply chain disruptions.

Food security and nutrition research are among the main topics under discussion by Malaysia’s Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC) — a unique assembly of all-star international and Malaysian experts and leaders created to support sustainable development for Malaysia chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Statistics presented show the percentage of calories Malaysians derive from cereals, starchy roots, fruits and vegetables has dropped from roughly 60% in 1960 to just under 50%, the dietary difference being made up by more meat, fish, eggs, milk, sweeteners, oils and fat. Meanwhile, the availability of sugar and sweeteners in Malaysia was almost 50 kg per capita in 2007, second only to the USA at 67 kg.

And the health impacts are significant. Compared with a population snapshot in 1986, almost twice as many Malaysians are now considered overweight (29.4%) and obesity has almost quadrupled (to 15.1%). The percentage of Malaysians with high blood pressure has more than doubled to roughly one in three while Type 2 diabetes patients have more than tripled to 22%.

News release in full: click here

* * * * *

Asia’s newest megacity offers model for urban growth as populations swell worldwide

Malaysia’s low carbon Iskandar offers planning template for a planet with an urban population expected to double by 2050

Iskandar Malaysia, the first “smart metropolis” of Southeast Asia founded on principles of social integration as well as low carbon emissions thanks to a green economy and green technologies, is a potential template for urban development in emerging countries with burgeoning populations, international experts say.

Malaysia’s ambition for the massive new Iskandar development: a model of sustainable development and an economic hub in league with Hong Kong and neighboring Singapore.

News releases in full: click here

Example coverage: The Guardian (UK), click here, the Malay Mail, click here

Coverage summary: click here

10-Oct-2012

On World Mental Health Day, Grand Challenges Canada funds a burst of 15 innovative projects spanning the globe — Asia, Africa, Caribbean

Grand Challenges Canada, which is funded by the Government of Canada, today announced a landmark $19.4 million in support of 15 innovative, pioneering projects designed to improve mental health diagnosis and care in developing countries, many of them nations ravaged by conflict and disaster as well as poverty. The projects were selected through competitive scientific peer review from among 97 ideas submitted in response to a Grand Challenge to propose innovations that increase access, improve treatment, and address stigma for people with mental health disorders in developing countries.

Globally close to 450 million people have mental health disorders; more than 75% of that number live in developing countries. And, according to the World Health Organization, 85% of developing world patients with serious mental disorders receive no treatment at all.

“Mental health disorders are a leading cause of suffering and disability everywhere, but the problem is especially acute in the developing world,” said Dr. Peter A. Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada. “There is very little funding for mental health innovations in low- and middle-income countries, where mental illness is the most neglected of many neglected diseases. It’s a terrible denial of human potential.”

“Canada has a long and proud tradition of fostering innovation to improve the lives of people living in some of the most desperate situations, ” said the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance for Canada. “Global Mental Health is a significant challenge which, left unaddressed, could undermine the health, social and economic futures of developing countries.”

15 projects in 14 low and middle income countries will test bold new ideas for addressing mental health issues, where patients are often severely stigmatized – even chained or locked up in the absence of understanding or care.

News release in full, click here

Example coverage by: Agence France Presse, click here; by the InterPress News Service, click here; by the BBC, click here

More coverage links and summary, click here