Life Sciences in Lithuania Fastest Growing Industry in Europe

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

LIFE SCIENCES IN LITHUANIA FASTEST GROWING INDUSTRY IN EUROPE 90 % 19 % 16th place 1 % of GDP 90 of all Lithuanian Life Annual average growth In 2017 Lithuania reached Life sciences is worth 1 % Sciences production is of the industry the 16th place in Scientiﬁc of GDP in Lithuania exported to more than American Worldview 100 countries biotechnology rankings EDUCATION AND TALENT POOL TOP EXPORT DESTINATIONS: 8 universities USA 15 % United Kingdom 9 colleges Netherlands Programmes: biotechnology, 43 % 11 % molecular biotechnology, Germany chemistry, genetics, medicine 11 % Russia and other 8 % France 6 % 6 % Other Vilnius university students won the Grand Prize at the international synthetic biology competition iGEM COMPANIES BY SUBSECTOR: in 2017 43 % 28 % 16 % 13 % 8% of all students (> 10,000) enrolled in biology, chemistry, Medical instruments pharmacy, physics, medicine, diagnostics and medical Biotechnology technologies R&D on medical sciences Pharma INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION Virginijus Šikšnys - Lithuanian biochemist, who has received numerous awards, including the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, the Novozymes Prize and the shared Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for the invention of CRISPR-Cas9, a precise nanotool for editing DNA, causing a revolution in biology, agriculture, and medicine. Life Sciences Baltics is the only international forum in progress through networking. Held every two years, the Baltics for world-class biotechnology, pharmaceuti- the international forum brings approximately 1,500 life cal and medical devices experts from all around the sciences experts, researchers and businesspeople to world. It provides a unique opportunity to explore the Vilnius from over 30 countries and features 60 new horizons of partnerships, exchange ideas and seek world-class speakers, including Nobel Prize laureates. INFRASTRUCTURE million 400 EUR investment in life sciences infrastructure 5 sciences and business valleys Jūrinis Santaka 15 000 Nemunas researchers and scientists Santara Saulėtekis 16 open R&D centers INTERNATIONAL NAMES CONTACT: [email protected] A government agency promoting entrepreneurship, supporting business development and foster export. A www.enterpriselithuania.com one-stop-shop for foreign entrepreneurs looking for business partners in Lithuania. www.edb.enterpriselithuania.com.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Investigating Cosmic Snowballs
Investigating Cosmic Snowballs Professor David Jewitt CREDIT: NASA INVESTIGATING COSMIC SNOWBALLS Professor David Jewitt and his team at UCLA explore the nature of comets. These fleeting visitors to our cosmic shore are important sources of information, and can help to reveal the origin and evolution of the solar system. Most recently, Professor Jewitt’s team have explained the unusual activity of some of the most distant comets in the solar system. Comets play a vivid historical role in the orbital periods of less than 200 years), human psyche, often being interpreted and the other supplying long-period as portents of impending doom. In the objects (greater than 200 years). The era of modern science, we realise that nearest store of cometary precursors, comets are simply icy leftovers, frozen in containing billions of nuclei larger time since the solar system’s formation than a kilometre across, is called the about 4.6 billion years ago. Kuiper Belt. This is a fat disk of objects encircling the Sun with an inner edge Far from bringing us doom and disaster, at Neptune’s orbit – approximately 7.5 comets offer scientists unparalleled billion kilometres from the Sun, or 30 opportunities to learn about the earliest AU – and reaching out to at least several periods of the solar system’s evolution. thousand AU. Pluto resides in this region At the same time, they are some of and is now recognised as large Kuiper the most challenging objects to Belt object. study and remain some of the least well understood. The Kuiper belt was discovered by Professor David Jewitt and his former What Are Comets and Where Do student Jane Luu in 1992.
[Show full text]
Alector Strengthens Board of Directors with Appointments of David Wehner, Richard Scheller and Louis Lavigne
Alector Strengthens Board of Directors with Appointments of David Wehner, Richard Scheller and Louis Lavigne November 16, 2018 SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alector, a privately held biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegeneration, today announced the following additions to its board as independent directors: David Wehner, Chief Financial Officer of Facebook Richard Scheller, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of 23andMe Louis J. Lavigne, Jr. former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Genentech “David, Richard and Lou bring extensive technical and operational expertise to our team, as we continue our progress towards becoming a fully integrated biotechnology company,” said Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Alector. “We look forward to leveraging their insights in drug development, strategic financial management, business operations and corporate growth strategies in order to accelerate transformative medicines with the goal of curing neurodegenerative diseases.” Mr. Wehner brings extensive financial and operational experience to Alector. Prior to his current position as chief financial officer of Facebook, Mr. Wehner served as vice president of corporate finance and business planning at Facebook. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of Zynga and served in various positions at Allen & Company for nine years, where he ultimately served as a managing director. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wehner was an equity analyst at Hambrecht & Quist. Mr. Wehner holds an M.S. in applied physics from Stanford University and a B.S. in chemistry from Georgetown University. Dr. Scheller is a preeminent neuroscientist and experienced drug development leader.
[Show full text]
Nanoscience Prize 2020 Explanatory Notes
NANOSCIENCE PRIZE 2020 EXPLANATORY NOTES Looking inside matter atom by atom Manipulating matter at very small scales — even as precisely as moving single atoms — to create particles and devices with new functionalities is the ultimate ambition of nanoscience and nanotechnol- ogy. None of this could be achieved with- out an imaging technique that allows materials and devices to be studied with atomic resolution. In making their award, the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience committee has selected four scientists who contributed to the develop- ment and use of two types of instrument, generally known collectively as aberration- corrected transmission electron micro- scopes, which can provide information about the structure and other properties of materials with sub-ångström resolution, hence allowing individual atoms to be distinguished. Figure 1. The schematic for an aberration corrector in the 1990 paper by Harald Rose. Optik 85, 19–24 (1990); © Elsevier GmbH Optical microscopes can at best resolve and additional lenses form a magnified analyse the energy lost by electrons when features a few hundred nanometres image which is recorded with a CCD or a the beam scatters from atoms in the across, so a different approach is neces- CMOS camera. Ruska’s design is today material. This technique, known as elec- sary to distinguish single atoms. The scan- called CTEM, for conventional transmis- tron energy loss spectroscopy, or EELS, ning tunnelling microscope and the atomic sion electron microscope. Conventional” can provide information on the atomic force microscope, invented in the 1980s, means that, apart from employing elec- composition and electronic states inside achieved atomic resolution. However, they tron radiation, CTEM follows the design of the material.
[Show full text]
VITA David Jewitt Address Dept. Earth, Planetary and Space
VITA David Jewitt Address Dept. Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, UCLA 595 Charles Young Drive East, Box 951567 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567 [email protected], http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/ Education B. Sc. University College London 1979 M. S. California Institute of Technology 1980 Ph. D. California Institute of Technology 1983 Professional Experience Summer Student Royal Greenwich Observatory 1978 Anthony Fellowship California Institute of Technology 1979-1980 Research Assistant California Institute of Technology 1980-1983 Assistant Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1983-1988 Associate Professor and Astronomer University of Hawaii 1988-1993 Professor and Astronomer University of Hawaii 1993-2009 Professor Dept. Earth, Planetary & Space Sciences, UCLA 2009- Inst. of Geophys & Planetary Physics, UCLA 2009-2011 Dept. Physics & Astronomy, UCLA 2010- Director Institute for Planets & Exoplanets, UCLA, 2011- Honors Regent's Medal, University of Hawaii 1994 Scientist of the Year, ARCS 1996 Exceptional Scientiﬁc Achievement Award, NASA 1996 Fellow of University College London 1998 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2005 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2005 Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2005 National Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Honorary Professor 2006-2011 National Central University, Taiwan, Adjunct Professor 2007 The Shaw Prize for Astronomy 2012 The Kavli Prize for Astrophysics 2012 Foreign Member, Norwegian Academy of Sciences & Letters 2012 Research
[Show full text]
By Ardem Patapoutian Mom Was an Elementary School Teacher and Principal and My Dad Was a Writer and Accountant
I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where my by Ardem Patapoutian mom was an elementary school teacher and principal and my dad was a writer and accountant. The youngest of three kids, I attended small Armenian schools which was eight years old when the Lebanese continued shrinking in class size as more Civil War began. Life was often families escaped the war. By my freshman understandably stressful, with curfews, high school year, we were down to five limited hours of electricity, and the not students, all dear pals, where I was infrequent explosion. As Armenians, we perhaps middle of the pack in my subjects were usually treated as quasi-neutral but definitely the shortest in stature. The parties to the Christian-Muslim strife, and I school closed the next year, and I moved At age 13, front and center with basketball, Beirut, circa 1980 to a multicultural and academically rigorous private high school where I initially flailed but eventually found a knack for math and science classes, a classic late bloomer. I had three havens of childhood I remember with fondness: my sports club where I played basketball (not well, see height above) and table tennis (local champ!), our trips to the Mediterranean Sea and the wooded mountains surrounding Beirut, and the beautiful campus of the American University of Beirut, where I attended one year of undergraduate classes as a pre-med major. However, the conflict continued to At four years old, with older brother and sister next to the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, ca 1970 escalate, and one fateful and terrifying morning, I was captured and held by armed militants.
[Show full text]
Human GPS” – the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine: Great Scientific Fraud?
International Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Journal Review Article Open Access The “human GPS” – the 2014 Nobel prize in medicine: great scientific fraud? Abstract Volume 3 Issue 3 - 2018 The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John O’Keefe, David Salinas Flores May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser, researchers for their discoveries of cells that Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, constitute a positioning system in the brain, an “inner GPS” in the brain. The Nobel Peru Foundation affirm that the proof which demonstrate that their researches performed on rats also work on humans, is based on information obtained from brain imaging Correspondence: David Salinas Flores, Faculty of Medicine, techniques and patients who have undergone neurosurgery. It is a mystery why the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru, Tel Nobel Foundation promotes with conviction that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine +511996371790, Email [email protected] winners has found the human brain Global Positioning System. Nowadays, recent researches lead to suspicion that many neuroscientists’ researches can be based with Received: April 25, 2018 | Published: May 10, 2018 brain nanobots performed in Latin America, being one of the most suspicious, the BRAIN initiative, this project was promoted by The Klavi Foundation. The 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine winners have close relations with this foundation, Therefore, there is a strong suspicion that illicit human experimentation with brain nanobots would have been the real source of information about 2014 Nobel research. Keywords: Nobel prize, scientific fraud, nanotechnology, hippocampus, latin America, brain, computer interfaces Introduction A scientist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico thinks that it is erroneous to speak about the existence of a “human The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is considered the GPS”, because GPS equipment works receiving signals from satellites highest scientific award in science and it is the award a doctor orbiting the Earth.
[Show full text]
The Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture
The Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture 24 April 2013, 17:00 – 20:00 The Nordic Embassies in Berlin, Rauchstraße 1, 10787 Berlin-Tiergarten In co-operation with: Berlinffff The Kavli Prize is a partnership between The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, The Kavli Foundation and The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research Programme: 16:30 Registration Please be seated by 16:55 17:00 Welcome Sven E. Svedman, Norwegian Ambassador to Germany 17:05 ”The Kavli Prize: fostering scientific excellence and international cooperation” Ms Kristin Halvorsen, Norwegian Minister of Education and Research 17:20 „Internationale Herausforderungen – internationale Kooperationen: Der Auftrag der Wissenschaft“ Prof. Dr. Johanna Wanka, Federal Minister of Education and Research 17:35 Short remarks Prof. Dr. Herbert Jäckle, Vice President of the Max Planck Society 17:40 Short remarks Professor Kirsti Strøm Bull President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters 17:45 Lecture: “Following the Brain’s Wires” Kavli Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg 18:10 Lecture: “Towards an Understanding of Neural Codes” Prof. Dr. Gilles Laurent Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt 18:35 Reception Exhibition Hall of the Nordic Embassies in Berlin “Following the Brain’s Wires” Kavli Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk To understand neural circuits we need to know how neurons are connected. Over the past decade we have developed methods that allow the reconstruction of neural wiring diagrams via the acquisition and analysis of high-resolution three-dimensional electron microscopic data. We have applied these methods to the retina in order to explore, for example, how direction-selective signals are computed.
[Show full text]
By Knut Urban Stuttgart and Director of the Max Planck Stuttgart, Germany
I grew up in the early post-war period in by Knut Urban Stuttgart and Director of the Max Planck Stuttgart, Germany. This city is known for Institute for Metals Research, became its automobile industry and for its large interested in my results on the optical number of small and medium-sized apprenticeship in the field of electrical properties of plastically deformed industrial companies. engineering, which in the sixties, was the germanium at low temperatures and prerequisite for studying physics at the offered me a doctoral thesis. Seeger was My father was an electrical engineer and university. This was an important time for internationally recognized for his he ran a factory for small electric motors. me, because learning the skills of practical pioneering work in the field of crystal Over the decades, he set the main accents electrical engineering, including design defects, and he was one of the most of the company with a whole series of his and working in production with ordinary versatile solid state physicists of his time. own inventions. In my parental home workers not only helped me to acquire Accordingly, the fields dealt with in his there was a lot of thinking, reading and important professional knowledge, but institute and the experimental and discussing about science and technology. also strengthened my social skills. theoretical methods used were many and In addition to parental care, I owe to my Subsequently I enrolled at the Technical varied. father and my mother a critical, open, but University of Stuttgart to study physics. cooperative way of thinking. This was later Inspired by my work in the field of Seeger presented his doctoral students very beneficial to me, not least semiconductors at Bosch company with challenging topics and trusted that professionally.
[Show full text]
Science Prizes for the Future Research In
Science Prizes for the Future Research in observational X-ray astronomy, inventions of aberration-corrected lenses in electron microscopes, and the discovery of sensory receptors for temperature and pressure win USD 3 million Kavli Prizes Seven scientists from five countries honoured for breakthrough discoveries in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience May 27, 2020 (OSLO) — The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters today announced the 2020 Kavli Prize Laureates in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. This year’s Kavli Prize honours scientists whose research has transformed our understanding of the very big, the very small and the very complex. The laureates in each field will share 1 million USD. This year’s Kavli Prize Laureates are: • Kavli Prize in Astrophysics: Andrew Fabian (UK) • Kavli Prize in Nanoscience: Harald Rose (Germany), Maximilian Haider (Austria), Knut Urban (Germany) and Ondrej L L Krivanek (UK and Czech Republic) • Kavli Prize in Neuroscience: David Julius (US) and Ardem Patapoutian (US) “The 2020 Kavli Prize Laureates represent truly pioneering science, the kind of science which will benefit humanity in a profound way, inspiring both current and future generations,” says Hans Petter Graver, president of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The 2020 Kavli Prize Laureates Understanding the role of black holes in the ‘ecosystem’ of galaxies The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics is awarded to astronomer and astrophysicist Andrew Fabian for his pioneering research and persistence in pursuing the mystery of how black holes influence their surrounding galaxies on both large and small scales. For decades, researchers have pondered the mechanics and physical processes of galaxies, and many have made discoveries that point to aspects of their inner workings; yet none has the unique vantage point of Fabian: to take a multi-scale understanding and systematically know where to look to put the pieces of the puzzle together and create the bigger picture of this vast ecosystem.
[Show full text]
By Krista Conger It Was an Unconventional Location for a Pair Of
B ECKMAN CENTER for MOLECULAR and GENETIC MEDICINE PG. 6 MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR PHYSIOLOGY AT THE BECKMAN CENTER: DEEPENING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE FROM SYSTEMS TO CELLS TO MOLECULES By Krista Conger The researchers had no way of knowing that they had moved offices in the nick of geological time. In October It was an unconventional location for a pair of of 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake caused $250 neuroscientists. But Daniel Madison, PhD, and million of damage across the university. The building Richard Tsien, PhD, gamely set up shop in a building that housed Tsien and Madison’s former offices and attached to the Stanford Museum of Art. It was late laboratories was one of many architectural casualties 1988 and their intended home-to-be, the Beckman destroyed beyond repair. Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, was still under construction. Not so the new building. “My ‘office’ was one of several pie-shaped spaces “The Beckman Center performed during the delineated by old cubicle dividers in the rotunda of a earthquake just as it had been designed, and the large dome, with its little cupola,” Madison recalled. “It building itself was not significantly damaged,” said was pretty dark, and there was rarely anyone else Richard Lewis, PhD, a professor and former chair of around. I felt like I was in an ancient cloister. It was the department. both a little cool and a little creepy.” Paul Berg, PhD, the Beckman Center’s first director Tsien and Madison had been recruited from Yale and co-recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry University as part of the then-newborn Beckman for his work in recombinant DNA, later recalled for the Center’s audacious new effort to bring advances Stanford News Service, “When we were allowed into in basic science into clinical practice.
[Show full text]
Nanoscience Prize Explanatory Notes
N A N O S C I E N C E P R I Z E EXPLANATORY NOTES THE ability to control the basic building blocks of matter on a very small scale is one of the core themes of nanoscience. Being able to put atomic, molecular, and nanoscale species where we want them provides new understanding of quantum properties and allows us to create new structures from scratch with a wide range of potential applications. In making their award, the Kavli Nano- science Prize Committee has chosen two scientists whose development of unprece- dented ways to control matter on the nano- scale have greatly pushed forward the boundaries of human knowledge and proved highly influential in inspiring hun- dreds of others to follow in their footsteps. In 1989, Donald M. Eigler, of IBM’s Almaden Research Centre, San Jose, Cali- fornia, US, became the first person to move Quantum Corral an individual atom in a controlled way. The discovery of the STM’s ability to image variations in the density distribution of surface state electrons created This fundamental advance was the realisa- in the artists a compulsion to have complete control of not only the atomic landscape, but the electronic landscape tion of the vision of physicist Richard Fey- also. Here they have positioned 48 iron atoms into a circular ring in order to “corral” some surface state electrons nman, who three decades earlier had out- and force them into “quantum” states of the circular structure. The ripples in the ring of atoms are the density dis- lined in a classic lecture the possibility and tribution of a particular set of quantum states of the corral.
[Show full text]
Highly Prestigious International Academic Awards and Their Impact on University Rankings
RESEARCH ARTICLE Highly prestigious international academic awards and their impact on university rankings Lokman I. Meho American University of Beirut, P.O. Box 11-0236, University Libraries, Riad El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon an open access journal Keywords: awards and prizes, bibliometrics, higher education, highly prestigious international academic awards, performance indicators, university rankings Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/qss/article-pdf/1/2/824/1885828/qss_a_00045.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 ABSTRACT This study uses the checklist method, survey studies, and Highly Cited Researchers to identify Citation: Meho, L. I. (2020). Highly prestigious international academic 100 highly prestigious international academic awards. The study then examines the impact of awards and their impact on university using these awards on the Academic Ranking of World Universities (the Shanghai Ranking), rankings. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(2), 824–848. https://doi.org/10.1162/ the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University qss_a_00045 Rankings. Results show that awards considerably change the rankings and scores of top DOI: universities, especially those that receive a large number of awards and those that receive few https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00045 or no awards. The rankings of all other universities with relatively similar numbers of awards Received: 21 December 2019 remain intact. If given 20% weight, as was the case in this study, awards help ranking systems Accepted: 25 March 2020 set universities further apart from each other, making it easier for users to detect differences in Corresponding Author: the levels of performance. Adding awards to ranking systems benefits United States universities Lokman I.
[Show full text]