Talking About NMR Applications Development at Cambridge with ProVC Prof. Jeremy Sanders.

Talking About NMR Applications Development at Cambridge with ProVC Prof. Jeremy Sanders.

One on the high points during my CAPREx Fellowship in Cambridge was a meeting with the Pro VC of the University of Cambridge Prof. Jeremy Sanders. This meeting was made possible by the gracious introduction by Prof. Ivan Addae-Mensah, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana. Prof. Addae-Mensah, mentor of mine, happened to have studied in the same department as Prof. Sander way back in time. The meeting was rather easy to arrange considering his very busy schedule.

Meeting at a time that I had a fairly good grasp of the concepts of the NMR technique, I was surely going to test my wits with the highly accomplished Professor of Chemistry with two very advance books on NMR practice. Through the conversation in became clear that the Chemistry Department at the University is the worlds foremost centre for the developments of NMR applications. The latest groundbreaking discovery using solid state NMR for bone formation in mammals was made by Prof. Melinda Duer which Implicates PolyADP Ribose in Biomineralization (Science 2014). 

The Chemistry department was the first to acquire the first commercial NMR machine in 1957 which was a 40 MHz machine. In 1964, 100 MHz machine was also acquired. During the PhD studies of Prof. Sanders, the department of Chemistry acquired the first Fourier Transformed 100 MHz NMR machine from Varian 1971. The department was also the first to acquire a 400 MHz NMR machine in 1980 before acquiring the 600 MHz in 1990. Currently the department has more than 15 NMR machine including 200, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 950 MHz machines. This definitely the home of NMR applications and I am happy to have studied a bit that.

Of Chemical Physics and Nuclear magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR): "Learning a new technique is like learning a language"

Of Chemical Physics and Nuclear magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR): "Learning a new technique is like learning a language"

The CAPREx Postdoctoral fellowship programme came up at the time in my research development where I was searching for a new expertise. With my background in Developmental Biochemistry and now working on Natural Product Chemistry, I needed to learn how to determine the structures of compounds.

So I arrived in Cambridge in Spring time when the city is most lively.  I came in from a visit to the ETH-Zurich where I did some work on Mycobacterial Proteomics using Mass Spectrometry. 

Working with Dr. Finian Leeper has been excellent. Learning a new technique is indeed like learning a language. Luckily for me, the Department of Chemistry in Cambridge has been the home of NMR applications development (see my second post for me details) and so many excellent textbooks have been written by former and current faculty members on NMR techniques.  I spent a lot of time reading up the basic principles of NMR from a book by Dudley Williams and Ian Fleming. Dr. Leeper then took me through hands-on spectral analysis using real data.

I completed my study in Cambridge with a lot of excitement about my newly acquired language. This not only adds a major intellectual latitude to my research but also creates new opportunities to train others. As an aside, my pursuit of Chemical Physics drew me into Cosmology as the principles in both field mirror each other. And so I have acquired as many books on Cosmology as I did for NMR. I will encourage my colleague fellows and future fellows to strongly consider using their fellowship time in Cambridge to acquire something completely different from their past experiences, especially as Cambridge boast of world experts in almost all area of academic disciplines. I hope to continue to expand on my collaborations with Dr. Leeper in this exciting field of drug discovery for infectious diseases.

ZMapp against Ebola virus: GMO is action

‪#‎ZMapp‬ is an experimental mixture of three humanized monoclonal antibodies for immunological protection against the ‪#‎Ebola‬ virus, and manufactured in the Nicotiana plant (Here is ‪#‎GMO‬ in Action). On 4 August 2014 the drug was first tested on humans. It was administered to two Americans who had been infected with Ebola. Both people appeared to have had positive results

Making the case for the University Ghana (UG): Progress is being made to put UG on a powerful growth trajectory.

Making the case for the University Ghana (UG): Progress is being made to put UG on a powerful growth trajectory.

Recent News:

University of Ghana receives funding for PhD training

Then someone asked:

Does the University of Ghana have the capacity at the present time, in terms of human resources, to offer a serious PhD programme in any department of the university? From what anecdotal evidence I have of the quality of some of its graduate programs, I doubt that very much. Why not focus on arresting the decline in the quality of its undergraduate and masters programs, instead of making this big leap into PhD training.

Here is my take:

I work there and I know that we have unused capacity for PhD training. If you understand the university system worldwide, it will be easier for you to link the quality of undergraduate programmes and PhD training. UG has so many top-rate faculty members who are not training the number of PhDs they deserve to. The teaching load issue is only in a few courses NOT the whole University. The output of the University is actually a question to society, parents, and basic education, not just the university. You do not put just anyone in a University and expect wonders; the people must be prepared and ready.

A case in point is the year-to-year change in student learning power, which is just shocking. In one year you have 50% easily getting first class; truly genius. In the end not all maintained their first class but at some stage in their training 50% were above that mark. With almost zero re-sits. The very next year you have a class that re-sits so many papers and that is the picture. The vast majority of people coming into the University are unsuitable and unprepared and that is the critical point. You cannot force people not to be excellent, if they are that good it will show. UG is on a powerful growth trajectory. Ghanaian should support. Many international agencies are pushing some resources.

The fortunes of UG have suffered at some point in its history, things got critical in 2006 at UG but things have long turned around and the institution is much stronger now. The new funding programme is designed to make UG a Pan-African Doctoral Training Academy. The same funder, the Carnegie Foundation is already supporting a programme called "UG-Diaspora linkage programme". Several Ghanaian scholars working abroad have spent 1-2 years teaching and doing research at UG. So it not true that this programme is tailor made for diaspora people to get a Ph.D in African Studies at UG.

UG is determined to grow and there are several positive developments. Please spread the news and also check the homepage regularly for news and facts. Those using one-off situations to make a broad representation can use some more information. These international agencies that are providing funding to UG will not knowingly throw money away if UG is not unto something positive. 

It is not a case of pretending that the UG is doing just fine. We all know full well that the University has a long way to go. What we all need to understand is that the University is the baby of the society. If we all want to reap where we do not sow, how can we build a world-class university? Many units of the University are doing very very well. Noguchi Memorial Institute for Biomedical Research (built with Japanese money, operates with grants from US, UK, Swiss, Denmark, etc etc). Noguchi actually now operates off the ECG grid, why? The Japanese Government installed a solar farm. Other units doing very well are the School of Public Health, Economics Department, Earth Sciences Department, Law Faculty, School of Communication Studies, UG Business School, Regional Institute of Population Studies (RIPS), Institute of Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER), etc etc. Not to leave out my own Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology. Do you know about the two new World Bank funded African centres of excellence (ACE) WACCI and WACCBIP? UG was the only University in West and Central Africa that won two of the fifteen World Bank ACE. And WACCBIP is brainchild of the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology. We cannot claim these are all BAD news? Problems still, yes, there are more out there but so much is also happening and we need to be grateful and keep growing. There are many game changing developments on the University of Ghana campus and I see this University finally spearheading the development of Ghana in a very significant way. So for me I am encouraged to do my best and I want to let the world know that.

To mention that the university should focus on its strengths which in African studies is very wrong. A big University of 30,000 students should be strong only in its African Studies Department? Oh please. No University is built on a single department or even a single faculty. There is so much to the University than the snippets of anecdotes being relied on by most people in the appraisal of the University’s performance. It’s interesting to be asking whether anyone thinks UG has the capacity for the 30,000. It’s actually not the choice of UG to have 30,000. Ghana does not have the higher education institutional capacity for its youth. That is the problem here. So there is pressure on the few existing ones to take in more. It’s all a function of the society we are in today. And the capacity must be built and UG will not just sit there and hope that one day the capacity will appear. I have already stated a number of initiatives aimed at building more capacity to buttress this point. There are still many people incessantly posing the question: whether it was not better for UG to concentrate its limited resources to build a strong faculty to deliver improved undergraduate training? But here is the case where the answer to this question is in the question itself. You cannot have improvements in the calibre of faculty of a university when there is no graduate work at the PhD level. PhD level graduate work is the engine of academic progress and the generation of new knowledge. You cannot separate the two. It does not happen anywhere in the world. UG has many elements aligned now for a major lift off, to show the way for progress for Ghana and Africa.

Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD) || parthur14@gmail.com || http://pakar1-corner.blogspot.com/

What is TOUGH LOVE??? and what is PLAIN INSENSITIVE behave???

What is TOUGH LOVE??? and what is PLAIN INSENSITIVE behave???

A CASE STUDY: from elsewhere on FB (by Jessica Opare-Saforo of Citi FM)



A friend called me last night sobbing... telling me how hard things are for her and her decision to 'end it all.' My reply? 'You will get no sympathy from me'. #toughLove.

Before u judge me about being insensitive. .. This is my reason I said that.
That phone call made me realise something.
It's easy for us to slip into depression about all the things going wrong in our lives. The devil whispers into our ears and tells us what a bad person we are, tells us we are a failure, that we don't deserve to live this beautiful gift called life that God has freely given. It gets hard, there are no shortcuts, no free tickets, just the cold hard truth that we are above all else... human and therefore fallible. Yes! So is Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey etc. I don't really know their religious affiliations or am I one to judge them, but if they can succeed, if they didn't give up in spite of their many challenges... how much more you who puts your trust in the Almighty God, the giver of life? Ei... wipe those tears... u are putting God to shame. Has He not blessed you beyond your expectations? Look around u. people are going to bed hungry, ppl are riddled with infirmity, ppl are barren, ppl are desperate for money to pay for their most basic needs. Ppl have REAL problems. Put The Devil To Shame And Praise God thru your circumstance. You have it better. You have it well.' (I rest my case)




MY TAKE #1


You said: {people are going to bed hungry, ppl are riddled with infirmity, ppl are barren, ppl are desperate for money to pay for their most basic needs. Ppl have REAL problems} Now you are acknowledging that there are some people in this bracket all the time?? What if your friend is this bracket and you are busily denying this reality.?? What you should do is empathise with your friend and get this friend out if this bracket? Being in Denial is not the same as being hopeful. Jesus said the poor will always be amongst you? Different people will slip into poorer situations from time to time but we all help either other out.

>>>> Someone said: IMPATIENCE leads to all the complaints:

>>>> ANSWER: the day you get swept by life. you see what patience mean. insensitive denial selfies.



MY TAKE #2


What if the call was from the sister of your friend who said your friend complained of the same issues (you are not willing to listen) the previous night and then took his/her own life?? Would you have launch the same self righteous insensitive sermon? NOT AT ALL. You will say "he/she could have just asked me instead of bringing sorrow to me"...... Before you motivate someone by pointing to the good in their life, you ought touch their heart and calm them down, assure them of your care. when their head is up you can then tell them to match on with hope. Unless unless, this person in question is some careless, irresponsible, selfish person. Then by all means your choice of sermon is understandable. I am really ticked of about this issue because I think it is exactly what is killing our country GHANA. Everybody is MISCHARACTERIZING the neighbour conditions and prescribing NONSENSE are medicine.


LETS SEE.

The Scientific Ghana Series 1: The GM Technology Debate Raging in Ghana

The Scientific Ghana Series 1: The GM Technology Debate Raging in Ghana

The debate over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in Ghana has been raging fiercely and I am particularly excited about the awareness this increased media activity will create. In this article I will attempt to put forward my take on this GMO debate in Ghana as a way of helping the wider society to examine this critical issue in a broader sense. I am particularly encouraged to write this piece after a thorough discussion I had with two of my brothers on this GMO issue confronting Ghana. They appear to have carefully followed the radio and television debate for many weeks but that have been left with major gaps in their understanding of GM technology. These two gentlemen are both very well educated and they are both successful career people, but they are understandably unaware of all the sides of the issues. GMO issues regard the following: 1 - Whether we need to worry, 2 - The origins of this genetic technology, 3 - The purpose of it and, 4 - The impact going forward into the future. I will address these four aspects in this article.

First of all, there is no need to worry when it comes GM foods and their use in all forms and purposes in Ghana. The process of genetic modifications (GM), which is the means by which living things change their hereditary materials, occur in nature on daily basis. This is how organisms evolve. Genetic modification in nature unlike the man-made ones (i.e. GM technology) is mostly random and requires strong selection to be effective. Every living being undertake this important process. It is one of the reasons behind the different traits children possess which appear to be beyond what they inherit from their parents. GM on the other hand is highly selective and need driven. GM like any other technology requires careful and sensible application for it to be completely safe. All technologies in this world are inherently dangerous. Take any household cleaning agent and you will have a lethal weapon in your hand. The safety lies only in the "appropriate use".

Secondly, the origins of modern GM are Mother Nature herself. The entire tools scientists use in devising GM organisms are all obtained from other living things. What scientists have done is to use creativity and the drive to solve urgent societal problems to overcome the slow pace of genetic modifications as they occur in nature. A typical example is the development of medical insulin required by people suffering from type 1 diabetes. The initial method of production was from the pancreas of foetal calf. It is estimated that that the world may need a whole continent of Africa full of cattle in order to meet the current global demand for insulin. This is where GM technology comes in handy. Scientists who were moved by humanity’s need for insulin have been able to device a means by which the gene for insulin is copied from humans and transferred into bacteria that grows easily in a broth. The dramatic change of fortune is that, we no longer need to rear cows until maturity before getting insulin from its fetus.

Thirdly, the purpose of every technology is to simply improve on life. Those who have vehemently opposed the introduction of GMOs in Ghana would have also prevented the use of jet planes in Ghana had their permission being sought. Airplanes are accepted today through a highly regulated industry. Anytime flaws that are discovered to endanger life; measures are quickly taken to correct any problems that arise from time to time. GM needs to be viewed and used the same way.

Finally, the impact of genetic modification technology is going to be extremely powerful and beneficial to society. We are already going a step further and design brand new living things using existing living things as seeds. Scientists have already designed and assembled new genetic materials from scratch. Existing living cells have then been used to boot these genetic materials into operation to yield a cell of unique kind. These technologies are going to change our life in a remarkable way.  The moral question is to make it safe to ourlives. The human imagination is unstoppable. We in Ghana must start digging now.

Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD) || parthur14@gmail.com || http://pakar1-corner.blogspot.com/

A New Funding Model for Scientists_PAKAR's Take

I find the idea very interesting. The WG: Grant Mechanism and Global Research System will debate this extensively at the next GA in Chile.

I like the basal fund idea in the new proposed funding model. It will be nice to add a reward fund on top of the basal fund. Which rewards scientists whose choices create growth of young scientists, less-funded topics, increase new discoveries and breaks new grounds. And a punitive deductions from the Basal Fund for scientists whose choices consistently creates unproductive and negative outcomes in the research community.