The tenth anniversary of the completion of the first draft of the human genome, which cost US$3 billion, was marked earlier this month by critics saying that, while science had benefited, there had been none of the major health breakthroughs that were promised by the endeavour. Mayosi acknowledged that the project is unlikely to yield quick returns but said the long-term...
Monthly Archives: June 2010
How can modern drug discovery methods enhance the value of African traditional medicines, asks South African drug expertKelly Chibale. Africa’s biodiversity has the potential to be a major resource for developing pharmaceuticals to treat endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. It is already the source of a wealth of traditional medicines used...
Traditional and modern medicine have much to offer each other despite their differences. Priya Shetty assesses an uneasy relationship. Traditional medicine (TM) is due a revival. For millennia, people around the world have healed the sick with herbal or animal-derived remedies, handed down through generations. In Africa and Asia, 80 per cent of the population still uses...
Image via Wikipedia African innovation policy needs pragmatism and cooperation, not the wave of idealism sweeping through development science, argues Linda Nordling. Perhaps it is a fear that aid from the financially-tumultuous North might be squeezed. Perhaps it is a growing frustration at rich countries’ failure to keep their promises to the world’s...
[ADDIS ABABA] Africa must shift its focus from basic to applied research if it is to transform from poverty to prosperity, a conference in Ethiopia has heard. The second Science with Africa Conference — focusing on science, innovation and entrepreneurship — took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last week (23–25 June). It examined policies and actions needed to promote...
In the summer of 2008, IBM announced the opening of new “cloud computing” centers in South Africa and China. Cloud computing enables the delivery of personal and business services from remote, centralized servers (the “cloud”) that share computing resources and bandwidth — to any device, anywhere. ...
