Gates Grubstake Fund Awards Over $1.5 Million to Campus Researchers – University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

The Gates Grubstake Fund invokes the memory of Gold Rush prospectors who received seed money, grubstakes, for food and supplies so they could search for treasure. The funding supports the work of modern-day prospectors translational researchers affiliated with Gates Institute whose work developing cell- and gene-based therapies could make a difference in human lives. In 2022, four awardees received $350,000 each to support their work.

In addition, second-tranche awards are made to eligible previous Grubstake recipients who have demonstrated success in developing technology toward a clinical trial using original Grubstake funding, along with evidence that additional funding would allow them to reach an additional inflection point toward commercialization.

In total, over $1.5 million was awarded by the Gates Grubstake Fund to CU Anschutz researchers.

Ganna Bilousova, PhD: Somatic Cell Rejuvenation for Skin Transplantation and Wound Healing

With a steady increase in the aging population, the care of acute and chronic wounds in the elderly has become a priority topic for clinicians. Many options to treat wounds are currently available. However, none of them restores the functionality of aged skin cells, hence low success rate in the elderly. Ganna Bilousova, PhD, associate professor of dermatology, and Igor Kogut, PhD, assistant professor of dermatology, are developing a permanent corrective therapy for acute and chronic wounds in the elderly by rejuvenating the patients own skin cells using a patent-pending RNA cocktail of factors. The Grubstake Award will allow their teams to finalize their therapeutic product and compare its efficacy with the competition to accelerate development toward pre-investigational new drug (IND) filing with the Food & Drug Administration.

Mi-Hyun Nam, PhD: Restoration of Vision in Glaucoma Through Cell Therapy

Principal investigator Mi-Hyun Nam, PhD, research instructor in ophthalmology, and her co-PI, Natalia Vergara, PhD, assistant professor of ophthalmology, are developing a human stem cell-based therapy for treating glaucoma, the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide. Current medical therapies are limited to lowering intraocular pressure, which may prevent further vision loss, but no treatment to date can restore vision once it has been lost. The Grubstake funding will enable them to perform preclinical studies to determine the feasibility and efficacy of their therapy.

Eric Kohler, MD, PhD: Adjunctive LAT-Activating Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells (ALA-CART) Strengths

CAR-T cells have revolutionized the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma, inducing responses against cancers that no longer respond to traditional therapies. However, current CAR-T cell strategies are unable to induce long-term remissions in the majority of patients, owing to limitations in their persistence, potency and sensitivity. By studying CAR-T cell signaling, the lab of Eric Kohler, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, identified that inefficient activation of the molecule LAT was responsible for many of the limitations in current CAR-T cell therapies. Using this finding, they rationally designed a new Adjunctive LAT-Activating CAR-T cell (ALA-CART) that restores LAT signaling and demonstrates enhanced potency and persistence in preclinical models. Furthermore, ALA-CART cells demonstrated increased sensitivity to tumor cells with low levels of the targeted antigen, allowing for eradication of leukemia that would otherwise not be seen by current CAR-T cell therapies. These advancements hold the potential to close many of the vulnerabilities of CAR-T cell therapies and improve their long-term effectiveness for patients. Grubstake funding will be used to generate safety data and establish manufacturing workflows at the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility to transition this work to clinical trials.

Daniel Sherbenou, MD, PhD: Response Prediction for T Cell Engaging Bispecific Antibodies in Multiple Myeloma

Daniel Sherbenou, MD, PhD, associate professor in hematology, Department of Medicine, received a Gates Grubstake Award to commercialize the new myeloma drug sensitivity testing (My-DST) assay for profiling responses to T cell engaging bispecific antibodies for patients with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer afflicting more than 150,000 Americans. Bispecific antibodies are a promising new class of therapy that redirect a patients own T cells to kill the cancerous myeloma cells. To improve the clinical application of these drugs, My-DST has potential as a new laboratory test for measuring responses of an individual patients tumor cells from biopsy specimens. In this project, Sherbenous team will pursue regulatory approvals and scale up efforts to establish My-DST as a personalize medicine approach for the various bispecific antibodies in clinical use or in clinical trials.

Michael Verneris, MD: Multiomic Approach to Establish Mechanisms of Efficacy of Stem Cell-Derived Innate Lymphoid Cells in Gastrointestinal Tract Repair

Michael Verneris, MD, professor in the Department of Pediatrics, received a second-tranche award of $100,000. Innate lymphoid cells are tissue resident lymphocytes that can be restorative to injured mucosal tissues. In Crohns disease (CD), a subpopulation of ILCs (ILC3s) are depleted and the loss of these cells is thought to be part of the pathogenesis of CD. Replacement of ILC3s in CD may be therapeutic. Verneris laboratory has developed methods to generate ILC3s from hematopoietic stem cells and has found that adoptive transfer of these cells can improve the intestinal dysfunction in TNFdARE mice, which is a model of CD. With this funding they will perform CITE-SEQ and Xenium in situ analysis on ILC3 treated (and untreated) mice to better understand the impact of ILC3s adoptive transfer at single cell resolution. Additionally, they will continue to perform scale-up experiments with the goal of transferring this technology to the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility.

Eduardo Davila, PhD: Manufacturing of Genetically Engineered Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) Therapy

Eduardo Davila, PhD, professor in the Division of Medical Oncology, was awarded $50,000 in second-tranche funds. This funding will accelerate development toward pre-IND filing with the FDA by completing studies related to (1) specificity and potency assays to test TIL function; investigate changes in the T cell repertoire; and confirm that TILs do not become leukemic.

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Gates Grubstake Fund Awards Over $1.5 Million to Campus Researchers - University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Mass General Researchers Discover the Role of Intestinal Fibrosis … – Massachusetts General Hospital

Intestinal fibrosis is a common feature of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the primary cause of end-stage organ failure. Traditionally considered a bystander of inflammation, with negligible involvement in disease pathogenesis, new research published in Gastroenterology now shows that fibrosis has a direct bearing on disease progression in IBD.

The investigation was spearheaded by Nima Saeidi, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School, along with co-first authors, Shijie He, PhD, and Peng Lei, PhD.

The critical question posed by the investigators was how tissue stiffening influences the growth and differentiation of intestinal stem cells, which fuel the regeneration of intestinal epithelium?

This was addressed by developing a new in vitro platform, which allowed intestinal organoids to be cultured on an open lumen, planar system that could be manipulated experimentally.

The platform permitted the use of soft yet tunable substrates with biophysical properties mimicking native tissue, facilitating the long-term growth and differentiation of intestinal stem cells, similar to native epithelium.

Saiedi and colleagues discovered that upon elevating substrate stiffness to a similar range observed in IBD patients, both the number and capacity of stem cells to maintain homeostasis and cellular composition of the epithelium were potently reduced.

Concomitantly, the stem cells preferentially differentiated into goblet cells, leading to epithelial deterioration. Similar phenotypes were also noted in mouse models of IBD as well as in samples from human patients.

The investigators concluded that interfering with the molecular machinery involved in the cellular sensing of stiffness conferred protection against the detrimental effects of fibrosis and stiffening.

These findings demonstrate that intestinal fibrosis and stiffening are critical components of IBD pathogenesisand that targeting mechanosensing and mechanotransduction pathways may offer an attractive therapeutic strategy for IBD, says Saeidi.

The scientists also observed that despite the significant reduction in a specific population of stem cells, stiffening led to the expansion of another stem cell marker (OLFM4) outside the stem cell zone.

Our observations that stiffening increased the expression of OLFM4 may have significant implications for the development of colitis-associated colorectal cancer, says Dr. He.

A collaborative work between scientists from the Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Boston University, additional MGH co-authors included Dr. Richard Hodin and Dr. Ruslan Sadreyev.

This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. TheMass General Research Instituteconducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In July 2022, Mass General was named #8 in theU.S. News & World Reportlist of "Americas Best Hospitals." MGH is a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.

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Blood-Based MRD Testing Identifies AML Patients at Risk of … – Precision Oncology News

NEW YORK Using DNA sequencing to detect measurable residual disease (MRD) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients about to undergo a stem cell transplant can help predict who will have their disease recur, according to a new study by researchers at the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and elsewhere.

"Having this increased risk for relapse may not impact a person's decision about having a bone marrow transplant, but it could influence their next steps in care," said Christopher Hourigan, chief of the laboratory of myeloid malignancies at NHLBI and the study's corresponding author, in a statement.

Many AML patients who go into remission after their initial treatment will receive a hematopoietic cell transplant, but about 30 percent of them end up having their disease come back, the most common cause of death after transplant.

While previous studies showed that MRD testing can help predict who is at risk of relapse, there has not been a standardized method for MRD testing in AML, and there have been concerns about the standardization of flow cytometry-based testing.

To find out whether DNA sequencing-based testing could provide a good alternative, the NHLBI group looked for specific AML-associated variants in the blood of patients prior to their stem cell transplant and studied whether these correlated with higher rates of relapse or death after transplant.

For their study, published in JAMA on Tuesday, the researchers tested blood samples from a total of 1,075 patients, provided through the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, who subsequently had a stem cell transplant between 2013 and 2019.

Using a custom sequencing panel, they looked for variants in hotspot regions of five genes FLT3, NPM1, IDH1, IDH2, or KIT. All of the patients had AML associated with variants in one of these genes, and they all had gone into apparent complete remission before their transplant. The researchers divided them into a discovery cohort of 454 and a validation cohort of 621 patients. Variants present at an allele fraction of 0.01 percent or higher counted as a positive result for MRD.

For their analysis, the researchers decided to focus on the two most common AML mutation types FLT3 internal tandem duplications and NPM1 variants which were present in the initial disease of 822 of the patients tested. They found that patients in both the discovery and validation cohorts who had these mutations show up in their blood, about 17 percent, were at significantly higher risk of relapse and death compared to those without them.

Specifically, 68 percent of patients who were MRD-positive for these mutations relapsed, and only 39 percent survived for three years. This is compared to 21 percent of patients without MRD relapsing, and 63 percent surviving for three years.

In addition, having these variants in the blood was associated with lower rates of relapse-free survival after three years, though mortality for causes other than relapse was similar to patients without the variants.

Whether or not blood-based DNA mutation testing prior to transplant will actually result in better outcomes for AML patients at high risk of relapse remains to be seen.

Hourigan suggested that patients deemed to be at high risk of relapse may want to enroll in a clinical trial or consider "additional or different therapies."

"This information can also empower physicians to tailor transplant strategies, including considering different pre-transplant conditioning regimens and chemotherapies, to reduce an AML patient's risk for relapse and improve their long-term chance for survival," added Rear Admiral Richard Childs, clinical director and acting scientific director of NHLBI, in a statement.

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Sightings Of Double Murder Suspect Reported: Reward Offered – KPQ

A man suspected of killing an elderly couple in the Okanogan community of Chesaw more than a year ago is still on the loose.

And now a reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Dylan Harrington.

Chief Criminal Deputy Rick Balam of the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office says tips on his whereabouts have come in.

"There's been reported sightings, and over a period of time, people think they see things that may or may not be true. We have to take into account that there's a possibility that he is in fact in the (North Central Washington) area." Balam said.

Dave and Gerlyn Covey of Omak were found deceased at their property near Chesaw Feb. 16, 2022.Their bodies had been burned and a sheet of plywood placed over them in an apparent effort to conceal them. The search for the Coveys began after the couples truck had been found abandoned Feb. 13, 2022.

Detectives with the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office identified Harrington as a person of interest after they found the bodies. Detectives believe he had been squatting nearby and stealing supplies from the Coveys.

"Based on the information we have. We don't know for sure if he's even alive at this point. We assume he is that's why the Marshal's office is involved in it." Balam said.

Harrington is charged with two counts of first degree murder and two counts ofunauthorized removal or concealment of a body with national extradition.

The Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force led by the U-S Marshal's Serviceis offering up to $5,000 for information that helps them track down Harrington.

If you have any information, you're asked to call the U-S Marshal's Serviceat(866) 865-TIPS(8477) or submit a tip online via theUSMS Tips App.

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Wisconsin Surgery Research Roundup: December 2022 … – University of Wisconsin Department of Surgery

Wisconsin Department of Surgery members engage in remarkable research that yields many impactful publications every month. Were highlighting several of these publications monthly to showcase the diversity of research in the department; see the December 2022 selections below. The complete list of publications by month with links to full articles is available on our Recent Publications page.

Patients follow different financial hardship trajectories in the year after injury. Nishtala MV, Robbins SE, Savage S, Timsina LR, Murphy PB, Marka NA, Venkatesh M, Zarzaur BL.Ann Surg. 2022 Dec 1;276(6):959-966. Epub 2022 Mar 9.[PubMed ID: 36346893]

Pooled safety analysis of STRATA2011 and STRATA2016 clinical trials evaluating the use of StrataGraft in patients with deep partial-thickness thermal burns.Holmes Iv JH, Cancio LC, Carter JE, Faucher LD, Foster K, Hahn HD, King BT, Rutan R, Smiell JM, Wu R, Gibson ALF.Burns. 2022 Dec;48(8):1816-1824. Epub 2022 Jul 28.[PubMed ID: 35941023]

Association between neighborhood food environments and bariatric surgery outcomes.Murtha JA, Venkatesh M, Liu N, Jawara D, Hanlon BM, Hanrahan LP, Funk LM.Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2022 Dec;18(12):1357-1364. Epub 2022 Aug 22.[PubMed ID: 36123294]

Beyond the green: Operative room initiatives in sustainability for enhanced surgical resident education. Zhang R, Gast K.Plast Reconstr Surg. 2022 Dec 13. Epub ahead of print.[PubMed ID: 36729729]

Five hazardous attitudes in the operating room: The role of aviation culture and learning to fly safe. Garbuzov AE, Shaffrey EC, Poore SO.Plast Reconstr Surg. 2022 Dec 13. Epub ahead of print.[PubMed ID: 36729741]

Local/regional recurrence rates after breast conserving therapy in patients enrolled in legacy trials of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (AFT-01). Schumacher JR, Wiener AA, Greenberg CC, Hanlon B, Edge SB, Ruddy KJ, Partridge AH, Le-Rademacher JG, Yu M, Vanness DJ, Yang DY, Havlena J, Strand C, Neuman HB.Ann Surg. 2022 Dec 14. Epub ahead of print.[PubMed ID: 36521077]

Genetic engineering of immune evasive stem cell-derived islets. Sackett SD, Kaplan SJ, Mitchell SA, Brown ME, Burrack AL, Grey S, Huangfu D, Odorico J.Transpl Int. 2022 Dec 5;35:10817.[PubMed ID: 36545154]

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Wisconsin Surgery Research Roundup: December 2022 ... - University of Wisconsin Department of Surgery

Splicing Deregulation Detected and Targeted in Type of Childhood … – UC San Diego Health

Pediatric acute myeloid leukemia or pAML is a childhood blood cancer, one that has proved confounding to clinicians and researchers, with a high relapse rate and relatively few identified genetic mutations (compared to the adult version) that might explain its cause.

In a new study, published in the March 7, 2023 issue of Cell Reports, an international team led by scientists and physicians at University of California San Diego School of Medicine deployed an array of analytical and gene-splicing tools to parse more deeply the mysteries of mutation in pAML.

A micrograph depicts acute myeloid leukemia cells. Though treatments have dramatically advanced, AML in children can become resistant to therapy. New research suggests the reason lies not with genetic mutations, but with how genes are expressed and transcribed. Courtesy of Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Compared to adult AML, pediatric AML is associated with relatively few known mutations, which likely stems from the fact that children have not yet been much exposed to environmental factors that damage DNA, said senior study author Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, director of the Sanford Stem Cell Institute and a hematologist at UC San Diego Healthspecializing in blood disorders.

Our hypothesis was that the drivers were not genomic alterations, but rather occurred within transcriptomic and epitranscriptomic processes.

The transcriptome describes all of the RNA expressed by genes in an organism, such as a person. RNA is used to convey the genetic (DNA) information needed to make proteins and perform or regulate cellular functions. Transcriptomics is used to learn how genes are turned on and off in different cells and how that may be linked to certain diseases. The epitranscriptome refers to all of the modifications to RNA that occur within a cell.

In their study, Jamieson and colleagues at UC San Diego and in The Netherlands pinpointed a deregulation in splicing part of the process of decoding gene instructions into proteins that causes a therapeutic vulnerability to a small molecule splicing inhibitor called rebecsinib, which was discovered in the lab of co-author Michael Burkart, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego.

In research published last month, Jamieson and colleagues reported that rebecsinib, an experimental drug, reversed malignant hyper-editing by an inflammation-induced protein known as ADAR1 p150, which promotes immune silencing, metastasis and therapeutic resistance in 20 different cancer types, including leukemia.

Our findings suggest a new approach to detecting and targeting therapy-resistant leukemia stem cells in pediatric AML and other cancer stem cells that become recalcitrant to treatment as a consequence of this splicing deregulation, Jamieson said.

An estimated 54,000 children and adolescents in the United States are living with or in remission from blood cancers, with leukemia the most common, accounting for more than one-quarter of cases.

PAML is a type of leukemia in which the bone marrow makes a large number of abnormal blood cells. In healthy children, bone marrow makes blood stem cells that become different types of mature blood cells over time. Myeloid stem cells may become red blood cells that carry oxygen to tissues; granulocytes, which are white blood cells that help fight infections; or platelets that form clots to stop bleeding. Lymphoid stem cells become lymphocyteswhite blood cell that are part of the immune system.

The exact cause of pAML is unknown, but children with certain genetic disorders, such as Down syndrome or Fanconi anemia, have been identified as risk factors.

In AML, myeloid stem cells usually become a type of immature white blood cell called a myeloblast. These leukemia cells do not function as healthy white blood cells, but rather accumulate in blood and bone marrow, crowding out healthy cells and leading to infections, anemia or easy bleeding. When AML cells spread outside the blood to other tissues, including the brain, internal organs and skin, they can form solid tumors.

Treatment of pAML has significantly advanced. In the 1980s, almost all children diagnosed with the disease died; today up to 75% survive, but success depends upon comprehensive diagnostics, intensive therapy and effective supportive care. In places where these elements are lacking, survival rates can dip below 50%.

Study co-authors include: Inge van der Werf, Phoebe Mondala, Kathleen Steel, Larisa Balaian, Luisa Ladel, Cayla Mason, Raymond Diep and Jessica Pham, Warren C. Chan, Adam Mark, James J. La Clair, Peggy Wentworth, Kathleen M. Fisch, Leslie Crews, Thomas C. Whisenant, Michael D. Burkart and Mary E. Donohoe, all at UC San Diego; Jacqueline Cloos, Amsterdam University Medical Center; and Gertjan J.L. Kaspers, Princess Mxima Center for Pediatric Oncology and Emma Childrens Hospital, The Netherlands.

Funding and support for this research came, in part, from Padres Pedal the Cause, the National Institutes of Health (grants R01CA205944, R01DK114468-01, 2P30CA023100-28, UL1TR001442), California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (TRAN1-10540), MPN Research Foundation, LLS Blood Cancer Discoveries, NASA (NRA NNJ13ZBG001N), Moores Family Foundation, Koman Family Foundation, Sanford Stem Cell Institute and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.

Disclosure: Michael Burkart is a co-founder of Aspera Biomedicines. Catriona Jamieson is a co-founder of Aspera Biomedicines and Impact Biomedicines, and has received royalties for intellectual property licensed by Forty Seven Inc.

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Splicing Deregulation Detected and Targeted in Type of Childhood ... - UC San Diego Health

BRTXs ThermoStem: A New Weapon In The Fight Against Metabolic Syndrome – Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), BioResto – Benzinga

Metabolism is the chemical process whereby the body produces energy from food. By breaking down carbohydrates and fats into sugars, the cells access fuel that can be used or stored via the liver or body fat. A metabolic disorder can occur when the body's chemical reactions become abnormal. This results in metabolic syndrome, where there is an excess or scarcity of health-preserving essential substances. Metabolic syndrome includes diseases such as obesity (increased fat deposits in the body) and increased glucose in the blood. These conditions increase the risk of comorbidities, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Obesity has become a global epidemic . For example, up to 40% of adults in the USA are obese, and the rates continue to climb across multiple populations. By 2030, over one billion individuals worldwide are predicted to be obese, with 1 in 7 men and 1 in 5 women living with the condition. Obesity is associated with an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, sleep apnea, and some cancers. Obesity is estimated to increase U.S. healthcare spending by $170 billion annually, so it is no surprise that companies like Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and Teva (NYSE:TEVA) are working on the epidemic as well.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2022 over 37 million Americans had diabetes, with up to 95% having type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes has been considered a disease in adults . However, it is becoming more common in children, adolescents and younger adults.

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BioRestorative Therapies Inc (NASDAQ:BRTX) focuses on innovative home-grown solutions to treat metabolic syndrome. It was founded by medical doctors, scientists, and world-renowned stem-cell researchers committed to developing stem-cell therapies to address unmet needs in patients with common yet serious diseases.

Pioneering research led by Biorestorative Therapies on newly identified human adult brown fat stem cells has led to the development of ThermoStem, a possibly revolutionary off the shelf allogeneic cell-based therapeutic.

Stem cells are a unique kind of therapeutic cell. They are some of the most potent cells in the body, which can develop into many other more specialized and organ or tissue-specific cells. Brown fat stem cells are taken from a healthy donor and grown in the laboratory before being transplanted into the patient's body to generate new brown fat tissue or initiate metabolic homeostasis. Brown fat regulates body temperature by breaking down body fat and glucose in the blood. Brown fat produces energy and in so doing burns calories. Individuals with detectable brown fat are at a reduced risk of being diagnosed with cardiovascular and metabolic issues, such as type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, and high blood pressure.

The ThermoStem program harnesses the bodys ability to create new brown fat tissue from human brown adipose-derived stem cells . The novelty of the technology was acknowledged by the European Patent Offices Notice of Allowance issued on the 6th of February, 2023.

A bright future could await BioRestorative Therapies and the metabolic syndrome market in general. This is due to the heightened demand for personalized once-off treatments for the increasing number of individuals with lifestyle diseases and metabolic syndrome. There is also some intense clinical interest in this space.

In 2017, the global metabolic disorder therapeutics market was valued at $49.65 billion and was projected to experience an impressive CAGR of 7.56% from 2019 to 2025. North America is the leading region driving this growth. The increasing prevalence of obesity and diabetes, high healthcare spending, and rising awareness about metabolic disorders continue to propel regional market growth even further.

The Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to experience the most rapid CAGR of 8.27% due to its fast-paced economic growth. The APAC market is driven by shifting lifestyles and greater disposable income levels, leading to increased obesity and diabetes.

Visit https://www.biorestorative.com for more information on the company and its product candidates.

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

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BRTXs ThermoStem: A New Weapon In The Fight Against Metabolic Syndrome - Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), BioResto - Benzinga

Meet the first ever Saudi astronauts to head to the International Space Station – Al Arabiya English

Ali al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi - members of the inaugural Saudi national astronaut program - will part of the four-man crew Axiom-2 mission to blast off on May 12 from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. (Supplied: Axiom)

Vision 2030

Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English

Published: 10 March ,2023: 01:59 PM GST Updated: 10 March ,2023: 04:10 PM GST

In a matter of weeks, Saudi Arabia will make history when it sends its first-ever astronauts to the International Space Station including the first Arab female in space.

Ali al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi - members of the inaugural Saudi national astronaut program - will part of the four-man crew Axiom-2 mission to blast off in May from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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It comes nearly 40 years after Saudi Arabia sent the first Arab - Prince Sultan bin Salman - to space in 1985.

The two Saudi astronauts will join Axiom Spaces second all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), marking another pivotal step toward Axiom Station, the worlds first commercial space station and successor to the ISS.

Mission Specialists al-Qarni and Barnawi, representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will be the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS.

Rayyanah Barnawi is an astronaut representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Supplied)

This mission represents a return to human spaceflight for Saudi Arabia and will make the Kingdom the first nation not part of the official International Space Station partnership to have two astronauts aboard the ISS at the same time.

While 263 people from 20 countries have visited the ISS, Saudi Arabia will become only the sixth nation to have two national astronauts simultaneously working aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Rayyanah Barnawi is an astronaut representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and serving as a mission specialist on the Ax-2 mission. Barnawi has a Master of Biomedical Sciences from Alfaisal University and a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences from Otago University. She is also a research laboratory technician with nine years of experience in breast cancer and cancer stem-cell research.

Saudi Arabia will send its first two astronauts to the International Space Station. (Twitter)

Ali al-Qarni is an astronaut representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and serving as a mission specialist on the Ax-2 mission. Al-Qarni graduated with a Bachelor of Aerospace Science from King Faisal Air Academy. He is also an Air Force captain and fighter pilot. He has 12 years of experience flying fighter aircrafts and 2,387 flight hours.

In the official release shared by Saudi Arabia announcing the two Saudi astronauts on the Ax-2 mission, it stated, This flight is an integral milestone of a comprehensive program aiming to train and qualify experienced Saudis to undertake human spaceflight, conduct scientific experiments, participate in international research, and future space-related missions contributing to the Kingdoms Vision 2030.

Ali al-Qarni is an astronaut representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and serving as a mission specialist on the Ax-2 mission. (Supplied)

Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with Axiom Space in September of 2022 to fly two astronauts to space from the Saudi Space Commission as mission specialists on Ax-2.

Al-Qarni and Barnawi Axiom Spaces Director of Human Spaceflight Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut, will lead the privately funded mission, and aviator John Shoffner of Knoxville, Tennessee, will serve as pilot.

To simulate their 12 days in space, the crew of Ax-2 have recently participated in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), a training program designed to push people to the extremes.

Ax-2 crew members spent about a week inside the HERA habitat, a unique 650-square-foot three-story structure at NASA Johnson Space Center. The habitat serves as a ground-based analog for isolation, confinement, and remote conditions in exploration scenarios.

As part of HERA, the Axiom Space Mission Integration and Operations (MI&O) team planned a space mission similar to what the crew will experience on Ax-2.

Focused on completing several key objectives, crew members worked on completing tasks on their timeliness and trained on equipment and procedures they will be using when they visit the International Space Station. The crew worked through emergency scenarios and participated in team-building exercises ahead of their historic mission.

As a big focus of the mission is on inspiring students and STEAM engagement; the crew was joined a live outreach event speaking directly with the children of Axiom Space employees who asked curious questions about space and life as an astronaut.

NASA and its ISS partners recently approved the Ax-2 crew, clearing a major milestone for the four-person multi-national team to travel to the orbiting laboratory.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Ax-2 crew aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the ISS from Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Once docked, the Axiom Space astronauts plan to spend 10 days aboard the orbiting laboratory implementing a full mission comprised of science, outreach, and commercial activities.

The mission is targeted for launch in the spring of 2023 and will be the first private space mission to include both private astronauts and astronauts representing foreign governments, as well as the first private mission commanded by a woman.

Axiom Spaces second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station cements our mission of expanding access to space worldwide and supporting the growth of the low-Earth orbit economy as we build Axiom Station, said Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space. Ax-2 moves Axiom Space one step closer toward the realization of a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit and enables us to build on the legacy and achievements of the ISS, leveraging the benefits of microgravity to better life on Earth.

For his part, the Saudi Space Commissions CEO Dr. Mohammed Bin Saud al-Tamimi said that embarking on human spaceflights reflects countries superiority and global competitiveness in many fields such as technology, engineering, research, and innovation.

This mission is also historic as it will make the Kingdom one of the few countries in the world that brings two astronauts of the same nationality aboard the International Space Station simultaneously, al-Tamimi said.

Axiom Space is the commercial space industrys only full-service orbital mission provider conducting end-to-end crewed missions for private astronauts, both private individuals and those representing foreign governments.

Axiom Space's broad range of services in collaboration with NASA and SpaceX includes training and flying private astronauts, access to training facilities and instructors, hardware and safety certification, and operational on-orbit management.

Candidates for flight complete Axiom Space's rigorous training curriculum over many months in preparation to live and conduct meaningful work in space.

The expert team at Axiom Space is helping nations and organizations build human spaceflight programs, develop astronaut selection programs, and provide the expertise needed to expand the international community of space explorers to a larger and more diverse representation of humanity.

The first private astronaut mission to the ISS, Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), launched April 8, 2022, with four private astronauts who spent 17 days in orbit working on 26 science payloads aboard the station and conducting more than 30 STEAM educational and public outreach engagements. The crew splashed down off the coast of Florida on April 25, 2022, to conclude the historic mission.

Private astronaut missions to the ISS are a precursor to Axiom Station, the worlds first private space station, part of NASAs efforts to develop a thriving low-Earth orbit ecosystem and commercial marketplace.

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Saudi Arabia to send first female astronaut to the International Space Station

The Middle East has the potential to become a leader in the global space industry

UAE astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi speaks to Dubai ruler from space

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Startups have become face of India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem – Devdiscourse

Startups have become the face of India's entrepreneurial ecosystem, the president of National Academy of Sciences, Balram Bhargava stated in his writing, however adding that India will have to take care of the new 'Flipping' trend. Bhargava writes that looking at trends of the Economic Survey 2022-23, the increasingly pivotal role of the startups becomes very clear.

Firstly, there has been an explosion in the number of startups from 452 in 2016 to 84,012 in 2022. Secondly, startups are driving a significant portion of job creation in India, having created 900,000 direct jobs. Thirdly, a big percentage of this growth is emerging from Tier II and III cities, which are now home to 48 per cent of Indian startups. As per Bhargava, Health and biomedical research, startups are playing a critical role in driving innovation in genomics and stem-cell research, reinventing healthcare services by using cloud computing and AI, streamlining telemedicine and revolutionizing hospital and patient information management systems.

"In 2021, India became home to 3,548 active healthtech startups, which received 2.2 billion USD in funding. The nation has also emerged among the top 12 destinations for biotechnology globally, projected to make up 19% of the world's multi-billion biotech market by 2025. By 2024, India will have over 10,000 biotech startups, which will provide high quality and affordable medicines, diagnostic and MedTech products and services to the public, taking the nation closer to its goal of universal health coverage.," Bhargava writes. However, in recent times, the trend of 'flipping' has emerged as a major barrier in this story of indigenous startup driven innovation and economic growth.

Flipping, in simple terms, is the act of transferring the entire ownership of an Indian company to an overseas entity while mirroring the original shareholding of each investor. It transforms the Indian company into a 100 per cent subsidiary of a foreign entity, while the founders and investors retain the same ownership via the foreign entity. Flipping is often observed at the early stages of startups, occurring in India due to promises of high valuations by foreign Private Equity firms, Bhargava points out. There are numerous instances of flipping in Indian start-ups. In such cases, while the Indian founder gains a significant valuation in US dollars, the country loses. It loses ownership of Intellectual Property, data, research, taxes, and any market cap that could have accrued if it had been listed in the Indian stock markets. This is in addition to the loss of critical human resources, especially in sensitive sectors such as biomedical innovation.

The company, its investors, value capture, IP and data are domiciled overseas with little accountability to Indian regulators, while utilizing Indian customers, Indian workforce, Indian IP and Indian data to create wealth overseas. However, Bhargav believes that all is not lost.

"The Economic Survey 2022-2023 shows the growing recognition in policymakers and government to reverse this phenomenon and reflip the startups. Through simplification of tax structures, particularly on employee stock options, facilitating capital flows, strengthening confidence in tax litigations, incubating, and fostering a conducive environment for startups, particularly in social innovation and impact investment sectors and promoting mentorship programs with private entities, the Survey charts a clear roadmap to curb the flight of innovation and retain our young entrepreneurial talent. The Survey also recommends the institution of an Inter-Ministerial Board certification for startups," Bhargava writes. Furthermore, the government's ongoing efforts to modernise the IP regime, reduce legal compliances and promote IP filing for startups have already started showing dividends. Between 2016-2021, India saw a 46 per cent growth in domestic filing of patents. The recent shift of domicile by PhonePe from Singapore to Bengaluru appears to be a testament to the rigorous efforts being made to stem flipping and harbour indigenous talent. However, some observers remain sceptical and are of the view that the flipping trend may have stalled more on account of US Fed's Quantitative Tightening, which has made overseas listing a less lucrative option, Bhargava states.

As per Bhargava, startups will be the future of innovation and entrepreneurial growth in India across industries. The health sector will be no exception, as new ventures will develop indigenous solutions to health challenges and leverage breakthrough technology to build universal access to life-saving drugs, diagnostics and treatments. Fostering the ecosystem of startups and creating conducive regulatory and policy frameworks to promote their growth will be a critical part of India's journey towards a health technology and innovation global powerhouse. "In this globalised village of a world, there are several new bilateral initiatives being undertaken on fostering and investing in cutting-edge start-ups. However, India has to guard against losing such jewels in her crown to foreign shores," Bhargava adds. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Startups have become face of India's entrepreneurial ecosystem - Devdiscourse

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