India, UK based biotech firm wins 'Star Trek' creator's better humanity award
London: An India and UK headquartered genomics biotech company is among four worldwide projects awarded the USD 1-million 2020 Roddenberry Prize designed to advance the vision of 'Star Trek' creator Gene Roddenberry to better humanity.
Launched this year in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, the prize pivoted to engage organisations who demonstrated their agility and innovation on the frontlines of COVID-19.
Global Gene Corp was recognised in the Science category for democratising healthcare through genomics by mapping and organising the world's genomic diversity.
In the process, the company based out of Mumbai and Cambridge was lauded for helping the world overcome the bias that 80 per cent of all existing genomic data come from people of European ancestry.
"Growing up in India as a 'Star Trek' fan, Gene Roddenberry inspired us with his vision of a future where technology is a force for incredible positive impact on humanity," said Sumit Jamuar, Chairman & CEO of Global Gene Corp.
"This recognition of our work to create an equitable and fair world where all of us, irrespective of where we live, can benefit by leapfrogging to the healthcare of the future enabled by genomics, digital health and creating the next generation of therapeutics is a truly remarkable moment in our journey to create lasting transformation," he said.
Global Gene Corp said that the prize money of USD 250,000 for each winning project will go towards furthering its research and development programmes.
"To deliver our mission, Global Gene Corp has built technology platforms to enable large scale studies on human health and well-being, facilitating creation of Electronic Health Records, Genomic data repositories and analytics, Biobanking, Digital Health apps and accelerating Therapeutic discovery," explains Jamuar, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni who co-founded the firm with a strategic priority to map and organise the world's genomic diversity.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted unacceptable inequities in healthcare globally by infecting more than 20 million people so far, with greater trauma, not unexpectedly, in developing countries. The need for inclusion of different ethnicities and populations to understand the disparity in healthcare outcomes and research has never been clearer," he said.
The other winners of the 2020 Roddenberry Prize include two US-based projects: Digital Green in the Environment category for its work in empowering smallholder farmers by harnessing the collective power of technology across India, Ethiopia and other parts of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Generation in the Humanity category as a non-profit that trains, places, and supports people of all ages into life-changing careers, also operating in India as well as France, Italy, Spain and Mexico.
The fourth winner, under Education, is France-based Bibliotheeques Sans Frontieeres (BSF) or Libraries Without Borders, set up to democratise access to information and education.
"Gene's vision was for big, bold ideas to change the world," said Roddenberry Foundation Chief Executive Lior Ipp.
"The year's prize invested in organisations able to move quickly and boldly in combating COVID-19, from spreading COVID-19 awareness to 'last-mile' populations to delivering online job training to contact-tracing and risk evaluation in genetic mapping, this year's prize winners are extraordinary organisations responding to humanity's needs during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, he said.
The organisers said that the 2020 prize attracted over 2,500 applications from non-profit and for-profit enterprises of all sizes from around the globe.
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CT Ravi seeks impartial probe into Ballari clash, firing incident
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Chikkamagaluru: Legislative Council member C.T. Ravi on Friday called for an impartial and fair investigation into the banner-related clash and firing incident that occurred in Ballari.
Speaking to reporters in Chikkamagaluru, Ravi said the incident must be investigated thoroughly without prejudice or hatred influencing the probe. He said it was important to clearly establish who opened fire and who was responsible for the killing.
Referring to Valmiki Jayanti celebrations, Ravi said it was the BJP government that began officially observing the occasion, while the Congress, he alleged, had earlier denied the existence of Lord Ram and indirectly questioned the legacy of Valmiki. He recalled that during the Ram Setu case, the Congress had told the Supreme Court that Ram was a fictional character and not a historical figure.
On the Ballari incident, Ravi said registering cases or taking action with malicious intent was not appropriate. He added that whether banners were put up with permission or without it, forcibly removing them was wrong. If banners had been erected without permission, a complaint could have been filed instead.
Ravi also questioned how the government could justify people going near the residence of G. Janardhan Reddy to display strength. He said these circumstances suggested that the banner issue may only have been a pretext and that there could be other factors behind the violence.
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