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TWAS Newsletter, Vol Year 2018 - Vol. 30 - No.3/4 NEWSLETTER A PUBLICATION OF THE WORLD ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Trieste, City of Science The 28th TWAS General Meeting PUBLISHED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE KUWAIT FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCES Advance your career. Advance global science. With a TWAS fellowship, you can earn a PhD or do postgraduate research at top universities in the developing world. Learn more at www.twas.org/opportunities/fellowships 4 CONTENTS 2 Bai Chunli’s 18 Using stem cells distinguished service to restore eyesight The retiring TWAS President guided TWAS Stem cell transplants create remarkable to new heights, says TWAS Executive Director possibilities to repair eyes. Romain Murenzi. 20 Big data techniques 3 In the news for a better future Infrastructure plans could disrupt Indian The Elsevier Foundation’s symposium convened wildlife. Zimbabwe faces a cholera crisis. experts in big data and machine learning. 4 TWAS: a vital voice for science 22 An urgent focus At the 28th General Meeting, science and on the environment policy leaders praised TWAS’s contributions. TWAS Young Affiliates spot toxic elements in living organisms and unusual places. 8 6 Q&A: An era of growth and impact 24 Flower power – (top) Fabrizio Nicoletti, minister Bai Chunli explores challenges, opportunities and soil power, too plenipotentiary in the Italian Ministry that await TWAS. Experts emphasize that flowers could be key of Foreign Affairs and International to improving crop yields. Cooperation, delivered remarks at the opening ceremony of the 14th TWAS General 8 Hassan elected Conference and 28th General Meeting. TWAS president 26 Solving the puzzle To the right are TWAS Executive Director The founding executive director returns of sandy soils Romain Murenzi and Ylann Schemm, to take a key leadership role. Lydie-Stella Koutika wins the TWAS-Al-Kharafi director of the Elsevier Foundation; (below) Prize for work on enriching soil. Mohamed Hassan (left), just after his 9 Quevedo Wins election as TWAS president, is congratulated 27 by Mohamed M. El-Faham, scientific Abdus Salam Medal Surprising insight adviser to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Winners count among the elite science on infectious disease in Egypt. (Photos: TWAS/Paola Di Bella) leaders from the developing world. For discoveries on malaria, Sedaminou Gbenoudon wins the TWAS-Abdool Karim Prize. Cover picture: Trieste, Italy, is a world 10 R.A. Mashelkar wins capital of South-North science cooperation 28 Sudan: a vision – and the headquarters of TWAS. The 14th TWAS-Lenovo Prize TWAS General Conference and 28th General The Indian polymer scientist helped develop of sustainable eneregy Meeting were held in Trieste in November and find uses for smart gels. Hazir F. A. Elhaj wins the TWAS-Samira Omar 2018. (Photo: Universal Images Group Prize for testing plants as biofuel producers. North America LLC / DeAgostini / Alamy Stock Photo) 12 A revolution in medical research 29 ‘Green’ cement for a better future Ismail Cakmak, a 2016 TWAS Prize winner In a TWAS Medal Lecture, pioneering Tchakouté Kouamo Hervé wins the in agriculture from Sabanci University researcher Subra Suresh describes advances in Turkey, visiting field trials in Zambia. in disease treatment. TWAS-Atta-ur-Rahman Award for work on climate-friendly cement. 14 Making light bounce and bend 30 24 Palestinian TWAS Fellow Hala J. El-Khozondar Zooming in on malaria delivered a TWAS Medal Lecture about her mosquitoes metamaterials research. Yeya Tiemoko Touré wins 2018 TWAS-C.N.R. Rao Award for discovering genetically different mosquitoes. 16 The spirit of science Scenes from TWAS’s 28th General Meeting in Trieste, Italy. 31 People, places & events TWAS Newsletter, Vol. 30 No. 3/4, 2018 1 EDITORIAL BAI CHUNLI: DISTINGUISHED SERVICE he past six years have been a period of robust of TWAS Fellows were women; today the number Tgrowth and gathering strength for TWAS. We is 13.1% – over a quarter of our new Fellows now have members in more countries than ever in these six years have been women. And we before, and our programmes are serving more have met his goal of expanding membership scientists. These advances have done much to to 100 countries – 104, to be exact. burnish the Academy’s international reputation, Under Prof. Bai’s leadership, TWAS has both in the South and the North. had an important role at conferences on Many factors contribute to this success – our climate in Asia and on climate, ecosystems allies, our Regional Partners, our Secretariat, and human livelihoods in Africa. He has built and our effective global communication. But to our relationship with the Royal Society, and understand the Academy’s recent growth, one enthusiastically supported the founding of conclusion is inescapable: TWAS President Bai academies of sciences in Ecuador and Rwanda. Chunli has been instrumental in guiding us to These accomplishments and others, taken historic new heights. together, have transformed the Academy. Romain Murenzi, Bai was president of the Chinese Academy Through these contributions, Prof. Bai takes his TWAS Executive Director of Sciences (CAS) when he took office at TWAS place alongside past presidents José Vargas, in 2013, and within weeks, he delivered a major C.N.R. Rao and Jacob Palis, each of whom has new initiative: The CAS-TWAS President’s PhD earned a permanent position of honour in the Fellowship Programme initially offered 140 PhD annals of science for the developing world. scholarships per year, and soon expanded to Prof. Bai will serve an important role as 200 per year. Today, thanks to the CAS-TWAS immediate past president. And he has left the Fellowships, TWAS has more than 1,000 young Academy in the hands of another good leader. scientists from the developing world at top I am pleased to welcome Mohamed Hassan research centres pursing their PhDs. of Sudan as the new president of TWAS, This initiative was promptly followed by effective in 2019. Mohamed is a storied figure the opening of five CAS-TWAS Centres of in our history: founding executive director of Excellence, focused on key areas such as TWAS, close adviser to TWAS founder Abdus climate, water, environment, biotechnology and Salam, a globally influential science diplomat. green technology. In November of this year, Prof. Hassan was Lenovo, the global computing and technology inducted by Pope Francis into the elite ranks leader, emerged that same year as a vitally of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. important partner. Lenovo had sprung from the With such eminent leadership, drawn from TWAS President fertile soil of CAS in the mid-1980s, at about throughout the global South, we can be Bai Chunli the same time TWAS was taking its first steps. confident of the Academy’s continued success Now the company underwrites the prestigious in the years to come. TWAS-Lenovo Science Prize, and it provides essential support for the TWAS Young Affiliates Romain Murenzi, TWAS Executive Director Network (TYAN), a platform for the unification and collaboration of young scientific talents in the Global South. From the start, Prof. Bai has urged us to expand our membership to more women and to more countries. At the start of 2013, 9.8% 2 TWAS Newsletter, Vol. 30 No. 3/4, 2018 WORLD NEWS TWAS NEWSLETTER Published quarterly by The World Academy in India, leading to problems such as habitat of Sciences for the fragmentation and wildlife-vehicle collisions. advancement of science IN THE NEWS in developing countries Experts call for stringent Environment Impact with support from Assesment with the involvement of wildlife the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement biologists. of Sciences (KFAS). Mongabay: ICTP Campus Experts urge Africa to get www.bit.do/RoadsWildlife Strada Costiera 11 more electric cars 34151 Trieste, Italy tel: +39 040 2240327 Africa needs low-carbon transport system fax: +39 040 224559 such as electric cars to cut air pollution, say e-mail: [email protected] website: www.twas.org environmental experts. Electric vehicles reduce burning of fossil fuels, the main source of TWAS COUNCIL transportation-induced air pollution. Africa has President Bai Chunli many used cars that have little to no emission Immediate Past President control mechanisms and that run on low-quality Jacob Palis fuel. Vice Presidents The combined effect is that for most African Moctar Toure Mohammed Hamdan cities, air pollution is heavily a result of the Rabia Hussain emissions from motor vehicles, says David Khatijah M. Yusoff Manuel Limonta-Vidal Rubia, a program officer of UN Environment. Zimbabwe’s chronic cholera crisis Secretary-General SciDev.Net: Residents of Harare’s poor suburbs of Glen Ajay K. Sood www.bit.do/AfricaElecCars View and Budiriro endure dry traps, burst pipes, Treasurer Samira Omar Asem and human excrement flowing out of leaking Council Members sewer lines daily. Worse still, they now live in Robin Crewe Asian powers bring focus to biofuels the epicentre of Zimbabwe’s deadliest cholera Abdel Nasser Tawfik Habib Firouzabadi New policy schemes in India and China are outbreak in a decade. Bishal Nath Upreti anticipated to significantly boost the market for The outbreak – one of several in Zimbabwe this Mahabir Prashad Gupta biofuels. year – has claimed at least 54 lives nationwide, Ex-officio Council Member Fernando Quevedo For example, India recently announced a new with three quarters of the nearly 10,000 national biofuels policy that allows ethanol infections in densely populated Glen View and TWAS Executive Director Romain Murenzi production from agricultural waste
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