These Indian fishermen take plastic out of the sea and use it to build roads 07-20

Every one of India’s 1.3 billion people uses an average 11kg of plastic each year. After being used, much of this plastic finds its way to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, where it can maim and kill fish, birds and other marine wildlife.

Fisherman in India’s southern state of Kerala are taking on the battle to cut the level of plastic waste in the oceans.

When the trawlers drag their nets through the water, they end up scooping out huge amounts of plastic along with the fish. Until recently the fishermen would simply throw the plastic junk back into the water.

But last summer Kerala’s fisheries minister J. Mercykutty Amma started a scheme to change this. Under her direction, the state government launched a campaign called Suchitwa Sagaram, or Clean Sea, which trains fishermen to collect the plastic and bring it back to shore.

In Suchitwa Sagaram’s first 10 months, fisherman have removed 25 tonnes of plastic from the Arabian Sean, including 10 tonnes of plastic bags and bottles, according to a UN report on the scheme.

From waste to roads

Once all the plastic waste caught by the Keralan fishermen reaches the shore, it is collected by people from the local fishing community - all but two of whom are women - and fed into a plastic shredding machine.

Like so many of India’s plastic recycling schemes, this shredded plastic is converted into material that is used for road surfacing.

There are more than 34,000km of plastic roads in India, mostly in rural areas. More than half of the roads in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are plastic. This road surface is increasingly popular as it makes the roads more resilient to India’s searing heat. The melting point for plastic roads is around 66°C, compared to 50°C for conventional roads.

Using recycled plastic is a cheaper alternative to conventional plastic additives for road surfaces. Every kilometre of plastic road uses the equivalent of a million plastic bags, saving around one tonne of asphalt. Each kilometre costs roughly 8% less than a conventional road.

And plastic roads help create work. As well as the Keralan fishing crews, teams of on-land plastic pickers across India collect the plastic waste. They sell their plastic to the many small plastic shredding businesses that have popped up across the country.

Plastics ban

The need for schemes such as Suchitwa Sagaram is emphasised by research that shows 90% of the plastic waste in the world’s oceans is carried there by just 10 rivers - two of which are in India.

According to a study by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, India’s Indus and Ganges rivers carry the second and sixth highest amounts of plastic debris to the ocean. The Indian Ocean, meanwhile, is choked with the second highest amount of plastic out of all of the world’s oceans. 

Like Kerala’s fisheries minister, Indian politicians appear to be taking action in the face of this mounting crisis.

This month India’s prime minister Narendra Modi pledged to eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022, starting with an immediate ban in urban Delhi.

The move came just three months after India’s western state of Maharashtra issued a ban virtually all types of plastic bag, disposable cutlery, cups and dishes, as well as plastic containers and packaging.

Residents face fines from 5,000 rupees (US$73) for a first time offence to 25,000 rupees ($367) and jail time for repeat offenders, while the state’s Environment Department is also encouraging people to recycle bottles and milk bags through a buy-back scheme.

While’s India’s plastic problem is substantial due to the size of its population and its rate of economic growth, schemes such as those in Maharashtra, Delhi and Kerala set an example to western nations.

In the US, for example each person on average generates up to 10 times the amount of plastic waste generated by their Indian counterpart.

If western nations followed India’s lead of combining political pressure with entrepreneurial ventures, perhaps the world will stand of a chance of avoiding the predicted catastrophe of there being more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. 

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Why diagnosing Alzheimer’s today is so difficult—and how we can do better 07-17

Shyam's take....

Bill Gates's next investment in Alzheimer’s research is in a new fund called Diagnostics Accelerator. This project of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) aims to accelerate bold new ideas for earlier and better diagnosis of the disease. Bill Gates is planning to invest more than 30 million for this cause. 

It is not for the first time, that research in Alzheimer disease management or prevention research has received attention or funding. However, when a person like Bill Gates devotes time and funds for a cause, the cause itself receives widespread attention from people all over the world. The awareness for the cause increases manifold. It gives direction to many philanthropists as to which cause they should invest. It simultaneously encourages the devoted scientists, researchers and the medical professionals working for this cause. These people not only find light at the end of the tunnel, they feel the entire tunnel has brightened up. This way Bill Gates involvement, more than the investment proves to be driver and huge catalyst. For me, his devoting time for the cause, is more important than his investment. I also like his idea of  venture philanthropy, it could mean that research could at least fund itself partially and the end product could bring back some returns for the investors or help create a corpus, that could fund further research.  Kudos Mr. Gates.

Now please read the article.....

When I announced that I was investing in Alzheimer’s research for the first time last fall, I thought I knew what to expect. I knew I would get to engage more deeply with the brilliant scientists and advocates working to stop Alzheimer’s—and I haven’t been disappointed. The things I’ve seen over the last seven months make me more hopeful than ever.

What I didn’t see coming was the amazing response I got from the Alzheimer’s community at large. Because my family didn’t talk publicly about my dad’s diagnosis before the announcement, I had yet to experience how remarkable the support community is. So many of you have shared your personal experiences with me, both in person and online (including here on TGN). It helps to hear from others who are going through the same thing.

Alzheimer’s research is a frontier where we can dramatically improve human life—both the lives of people who have the disease and their loved ones. I’m optimistic that we can substantially alter the course of Alzheimer’s if we make progress in several key areas. One of the biggest things we could do right now is develop a reliable, affordable, and accessible diagnostic.

The process of getting diagnosed with Alzheimer’s today is less than ideal. It starts with a cognitive test. If you don’t perform well, your doctor needs to rule out all other possible causes for memory loss, like stroke or a nutritional deficiency. Then your doctor can order a spinal tap or PET scan to confirm you have Alzheimer’s. Although these tests are fairly accurate, the only way to diagnose the disease definitively is through an autopsy after death.

There are two big problems with this process. First, it can be expensive and invasive. Most insurance plans in the United States won’t reimburse tests for Alzheimer’s. Patients often pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets. Meanwhile, spinal taps can be scary and uncomfortable, and PET scans require the patient to stay perfectly still for up to 40 minutes. That’s difficult for anyone to do—but especially someone with Alzheimer’s.

Second, patients aren’t being tested for the disease until they start showing cognitive decline. The more we understand about Alzheimer’s, the clearer it becomes that the disease begins much earlier than we previously thought. Research suggests Alzheimer’s starts damaging the brain more than a decade before symptoms start showing. That’s probably when we need to start treating people to have the best shot at an effective drug.

This delay is a huge problem in the quest for a scientific breakthrough. It’s currently so difficult to find enough eligible patients for a clinical trial that it can take longer to enroll participants than to conduct the study. We need a better way of diagnosing Alzheimer’s—like a simple blood test or eye exam—before we’re able to slow the progression of the disease.  

It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. It’s hard to come up with a game changing new drug without a cheaper and less invasive way to diagnose patients earlier. But most people don’t want to find out if they have the disease earlier when there’s no way to treat it. The commercial market for Alzheimer’s diagnostics simply isn’t there. There’s promising research being done, but very few companies are looking at how to turn that research into a usable product.

That’s why my next investment in Alzheimer’s research is in a new fund called Diagnostics Accelerator. This project of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) aims to accelerate bold new ideas for earlier and better diagnosis of the disease. Today I’m joining Leonard Lauder, ADDF, the Dolby family, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, and other donors in committing more than $30 million to help launch Diagnostics Accelerator.

Diagnostics Accelerator is a venture philanthropy vehicle, which means it’s different from most funds. Investments from governments or charitable organizations are fantastic at generating new ideas and cutting-edge research—but they’re not always great at creating usable products, since no one stands to make a profit at the end of the day. Venture capital, on the other end of the spectrum, is more likely to develop a test that will actually reach patients, but its financial model favors projects that will earn big returns for investors.

Venture philanthropy splits the difference. It incentivizes a bold, risk-taking approach to research with an end goal of a real product for real patients. If any of the projects backed by Diagnostics Accelerator succeed, our share of the financial windfall goes right back into the fund.

My hope is that this investment builds a bridge from academic research to a reliable, affordable, and accessible diagnostic. I expect to see lots of new players come to the table, who have innovative new ideas but might not have previously had the resources to explore them. If you think you’re one of these bold thinkers, we want to hear your great ideas. I encourage you to apply for funding on the new Diagnostics Accelerator website here.

Imagine a world where diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease is as simple as getting your blood tested during your annual physical. Research suggests that future isn’t that far off, and Diagnostics Accelerator moves us one step closer.

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India's Biotech Queen Kiran Mazumdar Elected As MIT Board Member 07-03

India's biotech queen Kiran Mazumdar Shaw gets elected as a full-term member of the MIT Corporation, the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),

A first-generation entrepreneur and a thought leader, Ms Shaw is ranked among the world's most influential people in bio-pharma.

Ms. Shaw is also on the board of directors of the US-India Business Council.

"Shaw is among the eight members who will serve the five-year term on the Board from July 1," the Bengaluru based biotech firm in a statement.

Ms Shaw, 65, is a pioneer of the Indian biotech sector and founder-chairperson of Biocon, a global drug maker for affordable and accessible healthcare.

"I am honoured to be elected as a full-time member of the MIT Board and look forward to contributing to its journey of making a difference in solving challenges of the world," she said.

A first-generation entrepreneur and a thought leader, Ms Shaw is ranked among the world's most influential people in bio-pharma by Fierce Biotech, Forbes magazine's 'World's 100 Most Powerful Women' and Fortune's 'Top 25 Most Powerful Women in the Asia-Pacific region'.

She has also been ranked number one in the Business Captains category on 'Medicine Maker Power List' 2018, an index of the 100 most influential people the world over in medicine where she has been among the top 10 since 2015.

"It is inspiring to be a part of a premiere research university like MIT, which is engaged in advancing knowledge, leveraging science and technology to address fundamental human needs for food, shelter, energy, transportation and social harmony," said Ms Shaw, who holds key positions in educational, industrial and government bodies, including expert committees of the Department of Biotechnology and governing councils of its institutes.

She is also on the board of directors of the US-India Business Council and the board of trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute at California's Claremont.

Ms Shaw was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2006.

She has established a 1,400-bed medical center in Bengaluru to deliver affordable cancer care to patients and a non-profit research institute dedicated to treating diseases.

Ms Shaw graduated from Bangalore University and has a master's from Ballarat College of Melbourne University in Australia.

Ranked among the world's leading universities, the 157-year-old MIT is an independent, co-educational and privately-endowed institution, with 1,000 faculty members, 11,000 under-graduate and post-graduate students and 130,000 living alumni.

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