Knowledge Ecology International

On December 14, 2010, Life Technologies Corporation, which among other things owns Ion Torrent, which sells the Ion Personal Genome Machine sequencer, announced seven new medical innovation prizes. The first three prizes are related to improvements in the Ion semiconcudtor sequencing products. Each of the three sequencer prizes is funded at $1 million, and will be awarded to contestants that can achieve the following goals:

1. produce twice as much sequence data,

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The US based National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are collaborating on a program called Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development (BREAD). A May 12, 2010 NSF announcement about the program is available here. Continue Reading →

As 2011 unfolds, the following conferences and negotiations are expected to shape the knowledge governance landscape this year at WHO, WIPO and WTO.

World Health Organization

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The following table compares the annual deaths from cancer, to the annual incidence of the disease, broken down by cancer type and income group. The data in the table is annual deaths divided by annual incidence, show as a ratio.

For several types of cancer, there is not much difference in the reported ratios, between different income groups. For other types of cancer, the differences are large, and in favor of patients living in higher income countries. Cancer types with the largest disparities by income include the following:

• Mouth and oropharynx cancers

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The following graph presents the year 2000 raw mortality rate of breast cancer patients in 36 European Countries. The graph compares the ratio of breast cancer deaths to the annual incidence of breast cancer, to the per capita incomes in those countries, all based upon year 2000 data. Continue Reading →

USTR has issued a request for comments on ACTA. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2011. The notice gives very little guidance regarding the issues the USTR would like addressed in the comments.

[Billing Code 3190-W1-P]

Office of the United States Trade Representative

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Request for Comments from the Public

Agency: Office of the United States Trade Representative

Action: Request for written submissions from the public

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Today USTR provided some additional insight into negotiations of a regional, Asia-Pacific trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. The USTR web page on the TPP negotiations is http://www.ustr.gov/tpp. At present, the TPP negotiators include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Japan and Canada have expressed interest in joining the negotiations, and USTR clearly would like to design an agreement that will be open to other countries. Our discussions focused on the intellectual property chapter in the agreement. Continue Reading →