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LONDON: A new NFT digital asset from the University of Pennsylvania showcases pivotal mRNA research that could lead to life-changing vaccines for COVID-19 and beyond.
Dr. Drew Weissman, a physician and immunologist known for his groundbreaking contributions to RNA biology, and the RNA biochemist Dr. Katalin Kariko developed the modified RNA technology that became a foundational component of BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
Now, 18 months later, “Vaccines for a New Era,” the University of Pennsylvania mRNA NFT — non-fungible token — will be released on July 15, a Christie’s press release said.
The digital asset includes a 3D model of the critical technologies that have enabled mRNA vaccines as well as research focused on the discovery and development of mRNA therapeutics for some of the world’s most deadly diseases.
The NFT also features a dynamic video that shows how mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines work, including how the mRNA vaccine enters the body’s cells and stimulates an immune response.
The animated digital art demonstrates mRNA encoding of the SAR-CoV-2 spike protein encapsulated inside lipid nanoparticles and administered as a vaccine, providing protection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease.
The NFT also includes an explainer, image copies of Penn-owned mRNA patent documents, and an original letter from Dr. Weissman.
The proceeds from the sale of the NFT will be used to further important research at Penn.
While much of the attention focused on how quickly COVID-19 vaccines were developed in response to the pandemic, Dr. Weissman said that it resulted from a career’s worth of research and dedication by him and many other scientists worldwide.
“I laugh because it’s a 25-year overnight success,” Dr. Weissman said.
Initially, he and Dr. Kariko struggled to secure funding for their critical research.
“‘It took over 10 years to get people to recognize the potential of modified mRNA technology for therapeutic and vaccine development,” he said. “But Kati and I weren’t just sitting in a room hoping; we never gave up. The data looked very promising. The feeling that it would someday work and be a useful technology in creating new therapies kept us going.”
Dr. Kariko and Dr. Weissman together discovered how to modify mRNA to significantly reduce its inherent inflammatory activity.
Dr. Weissman’s lab later developed a delivery technique to package the mRNA in fat droplets known as lipid nanoparticles. These advances contributed to mRNA becoming safer, more effective and more practical for use in vaccines.
When the DNA sequence for the coronavirus was released on Jan. 10, 2020, vaccine developers immediately began to use Dr. Weissman and Dr. Kariko’s modified mRNA technology.
“When we saw that it was a coronavirus, we knew it was the spike protein that would be targeted in a vaccine,” Dr. Weissman said.
The first modified mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, which was initially found to prevent severe disease and death with exceptional efficacy, was an important milestone.
“As a physician, my career aim has always been to contribute to development of technologies and products that help people,” Dr. Weissman said. “So seeing these extremely positive results of the Phase 3 human trials for modified mRNA vaccines against SAR-CoV-2 was an incredible feeling,” he said.
“Art is really important in communicating scientific ideas to the public. It’s a way to introduce people to science, how it works, why it’s so exciting, and its future potential. The COVID-19 vaccine is just one of many potential future products that may benefit from the modified mRNA technology developed at Penn.”
Dr. Weissman and his colleagues are developing a variety of potential future vaccines and therapies, such as a pan-coronavirus vaccine to prevent future pandemics, a universal flu vaccine, as well as vaccines to prevent herpes and malaria, among others.
Dr. Weissman also highlighted the possibility of using mRNA in vaccines to prevent fatal allergies and for gene therapies to treat sickle cell anemia.
The sale of the University of Pennsylvania mRNA NFT: Vaccines for a New Era will run exclusively online from July 15-25.
KARACHI: Nabeel Qureshi’s highly anticipated film “Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad,” starring Pakistani megastars Mahira Khan and Fahad Mustafa, hit cinema screens across the country on the Eid holiday, with the cast saying that the release was a feature with many firsts: A cop film and a musical masala movie with an important message.
The movie, which encountered delays due the COVID-19 pandemic, brings Khan and Mustafa together on the silver screen for the first time and has generated a lot of anticipation among film fans and cinemagoers.
The action-packed movie simultaneously released on Sunday in 14 countries, including the UAE, UK and US.
“I genuinely think this is an entertaining film. It’s a relevant film. I have not seen a cop film in Pakistan before. I have not seen such action before,” Khan told Arab News in an interview ahead of the launch. “It’s a full on, what we say in Urdu, masala film, and it also has a very important message.”
The movie has “a lot of firsts” and features characters that people will remember for a long time, Mustafa, a film and television actor and producer best known for hosting popular game show “Jeeto Pakistan,” said.
“It’s the first cop film. Nobody (in Pakistan) has done that before or maybe lately nobody has done it,” the lead actor told Arab News. “We are only trying to create characters people can relate to for a very long time.”
Speaking about her character, Khan said that she stood for a “message,” whether it related to the harassment of women or human and animal rights.
“She is a girl who doesn’t think about social norms, societal norms. She does what she wants to do and she has a very strong moral compass,” Khan said. “She believes this is right and this is wrong.”
Khan added: “And she also believes in giving second chances,” chuckling as she glanced at Mustafa.
The actor was confident that his fans would love the film.
“This is the film that can actually bring people out of their house and make them watch that cinematic experience,” Mustafa said. “So, I think this is the last hope. I really hope that they come out and we’d be able to do more films then.”
The two actors had some interesting anecdotes to share, with Mustafa recalling a tough shoot with a lion on the set.
“I had no clue I was scared of lions,” he said. “The lion was real and it was right there, and in the end, it is a lion, so what do you do?
“It was a little scary and fun but I don’t really want to remember that day, you know, it was not a fun shoot.”
Khan recalled a scene where she was carrying a puppy on a bike. As the camera came close, the dog turned its face and began kissing the lens.
“We had these little moments,” a smiling Khan added.
“Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad” is not the only Pakistani movie releasing on Eid, and will face tough competition from the much-awaited Humayun Saeed and Mehwish Hayat-starring “London Nahi Jaunga.”
Mustafa said that he believed both films needed each other.
“It is not time to compete but collectively … as a unified group, we should be working together,” the actor said.
So much is riding on both the films doing well, Khan added. “The box office will dictate how investors, distributors and filmmakers will all feel about cinema, because at the end of the day, it is a business.
“Go watch ‘London Nahi Jaunga,’” both actors then said in unison.
At the end of the day, the two stars said that they were relieved to be returning to the big screen.
“This is the real thing; this is what actors live for,” Mustafa said.
Khan added: “Nothing like a film, nothing like cinema … Oh, we wanna do this forever … cinema has that magic.”
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s announcement that he would resign on July 13 has failed to appease the public, as calls for him to step down immediately continued on Sunday, a day after protesters stormed the presidential palace and thousands of people descended on the capital Colombo.
The island nation of 22 million people is facing its worst economic crisis in memory, triggered by a severe shortage of foreign reserves that has stalled essential imports. Sri Lankans have suffered through months of food and fuel shortages that forced schools to shut and led to record inflation, reaching 54.6 percent in June.
Nationwide protests have rippled amid the devastation, with many campaigning outside the president’s office since March to demand Rajapaksa’s resignation. Many hold the leader responsible for the country’s economic meltdown.
The demonstrations reached new heights on Saturday, when thousands of people marched to Colombo and hundreds of others stormed into the presidential complex and later the premier’s house, forcing Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to announce their resignations.
Rajapaksa’s resignation was announced by parliamentary speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena.
“He asked me to inform the country that he will make his resignation on Wednesday the 13th, because there is a need to hand over power peacefully,” Abeywardena said in a televised statement on Saturday.
Wickremesinghe had announced his own impending resignation but said that he would not step down until a new government was formed.
Doubts lingered among Sri Lankans following the announcements, as many continued their calls for the country’s leadership to resign immediately.
“They have done enough damage. They should resign immediately,” Nuzly Hameem, a 28-year-old engineer and activist who took part in Saturday’s protests, told Arab News.
“Protesters won’t fall for these tricks played by the politicians.”
Mohammed Nivad, a Colombo-based executive, told Arab News that he is also expecting “political tricks” to come into play.
“Seeing what has been going on in the country from the time the president was appointed and how he was appointed, we can expect more tricks until he is finally sent off,” Nivad said.
Rajapaksa, whose family has dominated Sri Lankan politics for much of the past two decades, has previously resisted calls to resign. The country’s downward spiral had forced members of the ruling dynasty to give up their seats in the government, including his brother and former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was replaced by Wickremesinghe in May.
Both Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa must resign together, according to Shreen Saroor, a women’s rights activist based in Colombo.
“The country and its people have been suffering for too long from the clutches of Rajapaksas. Corruption and nepotism have become the norm of their rule and that made people who voted for them to chase them from power,” Saroor told Arab News.
Though the fuel crisis made travel challenging for many, protesters crowded onto buses and trains, and some made their way on bicycles and on foot over the weekend to travel to the capital, as discontent swelled over the government’s inability to address the devastating economic crisis.
“People’s commitment to the struggle is very impressive,” human rights activist Muheed Jeeran told Arab News. “People are frustrated about the hardship they are going through now.”
Mujibur Rahman, an opposition lawmaker from the Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, estimated that more than half a million protesters were in Colombo on Saturday and said that the process of forming a new government is underway.
“We are already in the process of forming an all-party conference to form a new government with a new prime minister and a new president, which can give a new lease of life to this dying government,” Rahman told Arab News.
“The president and prime minister have to resign in response to the public outcry, and we hope for the best.”
BANGKOK: The United States and Thailand signed agreements on Sunday to deepen the countries’ already strong ties as Washington steps up its efforts to counter China’s expanding influence in Asia.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai pledged to advance partnerships in climate change, law enforcement and security cooperation.
Blinken’s visit comes a day after he met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Indonesia on the sidelines of the G20 foreign minister’s meeting.
Blinken will also meet with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. China’s Wang has been engaged in intense diplomacy across Asia in recent weeks and met Prayuth on Tuesday.
“We are taking the partnership between us fully into the 21st century,” Blinken said, adding that Thailand is an important ally “in a region that is shaping the trajectory of the century.”
Bliken last year postponed a trip to Thailand, the oldest US ally in Asia, after halting a regional tour when a COVID-19 case was found in the press corps accompanying him.
The Biden administration has sought to shore up ties with a region that had become uncertain about US commitment during a period of perceived neglect under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. At that time, China expanded its influence while pushing investment and trade integration.
“We have also laid the foundation for the next 190 years,” the Thai foreign minister said, as the two countries prepare to mark 190 years of relations next year.
Talks with Prayuth will include the crisis in Myanmar and expanding cooperation, the State Department said.
Myanmar’s military has increased pressure against ethnic minority armies since a coup last year and is encountering resistance on multiple fronts, including militia groups allied with the ousted government.
Earlier on Sunday, Blinken met Myanmar youth leaders in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
After Thailand, he will make a previously unscheduled stop in Tokyo to offer condolences to the Japanese people after the killing of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the State Department said.
TOKYO: Japanese went to the polls Sunday in the shadow of the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, gunned down while making a campaign speech for the governing party that cruises to a likely major victory.
Amid voting Sunday, police in western Japan sent the alleged assassin to a local prosecutors’ office for further investigation toward pressing murder charges, the day after a top regional police official acknowledged possible security lapses that allowed the attacker to get so close and fire a bullet into the still-influential former Japanese leader.
In a country still recovering from the shock, sadness and fear of Abe’s shooting — the first of a former or serving leader to be assassinated in postwar Japan — polling started for half of the upper house, the less powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament.
Abe was shot in Nara on Friday and airlifted to a hospital but died of blood loss. Police arrested a former member of Japan’s navy at the scene. Police confiscated his homemade gun and several others were later found at his apartment.
The alleged attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami, told investigators he acted because of Abe’s rumored connection to an organization that he resented, police said, but had no problem with the former leader’s political view. The man had developed hatred toward a religious group that his mother was obsessed about and that bankrupted a family business, according to media reports, including some that identified the group as the Unification Church.
Abe’s body, in a black hearse accompanied by his wife, Akie, returned to his home in Tokyo’s upscale residential area of Shibuya, where many mourners, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, their predecessors and top party officials, paid tribute. His wake and funeral are expected in coming days.
Nara prefectural police chief Tomoaki Onizuka on Saturday said that Abe’s assassination was his “greatest regret” in his 27-year career. He said problems with security were undeniable, that he took the shooting seriously and will review the guarding procedures.
Abe’s assassination ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election shocked the nation and raised questions over whether adequate security was provided for the former prime minister.
Some observers who watched videos of the attack noted a lack of attention in the open space behind Abe as he spoke.
Experts also said Abe was more vulnerable standing on the ground level instead of atop a campaign vehicle, a standard for premier-class politicians, but that option was reportedly unavailable due to his hastily arranged visit to Nara.
Mitsuru Fukuda, a crisis management professor at Nihon University, said police were seen focusing frontward and paying little attention to what was behind Abe, noting that the suspect was approaching the former leader unnoticed until he fired the first shot.
“Clearly there were problems,” Fukuda said.
The first shot narrowly missed Abe and hit an election vehicle. The second entered from his upper left arm damaged his neck artery, causing massive bleeding and death.
Fukuda said that election campaigns provide a chance for voters and politicians to interact because “political terrorism” was extremely rare in postwar Japan. It’s a key democratic process, but Abe’s assassination could prompt stricter security at crowded events like campaigns, sports games and others.
On Saturday, when party leaders went out for their final appeals under heightened security, there were no more fist-touches — a COVID-19 era alternative to handshakes — or other close-proximity friendly gestures they used to enjoy.
After Abe’s assassination, Sunday’s election had a new meaning, with all political leaders emphasizing the importance of free speech and their pledge not to back down to violence against democracy.
“We absolutely refuse to let violence shut out free speech,” Kishida said in his final rally in northern city of Niigata on Saturday amid tightened security. “We must demonstrate that our democracy and election will not back down to violence.”
According to the Asahi newspaper, Yamagami was a contract worker at a warehouse in Kyoto, operating a forklift. He was described as a quiet person in the beginning but started ignoring rules that led to quarrels with his colleagues, then he started missing work and quit in April citing health problems. A next-door neighbor at his apartment told Asahi he never met Yamagami, though he recalled hearing noises like a saw being used several times late at night over the past month.
Japan is known for its strict gun laws. With a population of 125 million, it had only 21 gun-related criminal cases in 2020, 12 of them gang-related, according to the latest government crime paper. Experts say, however, some recent attacks involved use of consumer items such as gasoline, suggesting increased risks for ordinary people to be embroiled in mass attacks.
While media surveys have predicted a major victory for the governing Liberal Democratic Party amid fractured and weak opposition, a wave of sympathy votes from Abe’s assassination could bring a bigger victory than Kishida’s modest goal of winning the house majority.
Even after stepping down as prime minister in 2020, Abe was highly influential in the LDP and headed its largest faction. His absence could change power balance in the governing party that almost uninterruptedly ruled postwar Japan since its 1955 foundation, experts say.
“This could be a turning point” for the LDP over its divisive policies on gender equality, same-sex marriages and other issues that Abe-backed ultra-conservatives with paternalistic family values had resisted, said Fukuda.
Japan’s current diplomatic and security stance is unlikely to change because fundamental changes had been already been made by Abe. His ultra-nationalist views and realistic policy measures made him a divisive figure to many, including in the Koreas and China.
Abe stepped down two years ago blaming a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis he’d had since he was a teenager. He said he regretted leave many of his goals unfinished, including the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia, and a revision to Japan’s war-renouncing constitution that many conservatives consider a humiliation because of poor public support.
Abe was groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” nation with a stronger military through security alliance with the United States and bigger role in international affairs.
He became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, at age 52. But his overly nationalistic first stint abruptly ended a year later, also because of his health, prompting six years of annual leadership change.
He returned to office in 2012, vowing to revitalize the nation and get its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. He won six national elections and built a rock-solid grip on power.
CHASIV YAR, Ukraine: A Russian missile struck an apartment building in eastern Ukraine Sunday, killing at least 15 people as Moscow’s forces sought to consolidate their control over the Donbas region.
“During the rescue operation, 15 bodies were found at the scene and five people were pulled out of the rubble” alive in the town of Chasiv Yar, the local emergency service said on Facebook.
“At least 30 others are under the rubble” of the four-story building after it was hit by a Russian Uragan missile, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said earlier on Telegram.
The building was partially destroyed in the strike, AFP correspondents saw at the scene where dozens of rescuers were sifting through the rubble with a mechanical digger.
Rescuers had so far been able to establish contact with three people under the rubble, emergency services said.
Having fought long battles to capture the last areas of the neighboring region of Lugansk, Russian troops are now turning their focus to Donetsk as they look to take control of the whole Donbas region.
One Chasiv Yar resident, who did not give her name, showed AFP journalists around the wreckage of her apartment.
“Yesterday, 11 or 10 o’clock in the evening, I was in the bedroom, and when I was leaving, everything started thundering and cracking…,” she said.
“The only thing that saved me was when I ran here, because immediately afterwards all of this crashed down.”
Another woman who had ventured inside to see what she could salvage from her apartment retrieved a blue bird, still perched in its cage.
Looking down from her balcony, where her pet had escaped the blast, she lifted up the cage with a brief, triumphant flourish.
Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had condemned what he said was Russia’s deliberate shelling of civilian targets.
The Donetsk region was under persistent shelling, while Russian ground attacks were all but paused, the Ukrainian army general staff said Sunday.
Ukraine’s forces had hit a Russian base in the occupied southern region of Kherson, they added, without elaborating.
On Saturday, three people were killed and 23 wounded by shelling in Donetsk, governor Kyrylenko said.
Strikes were also reported in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city in the northeast, where a “teaching establishment” and a house were hit, wounding one, according to regional governor Oleg Sinegubov.
Zelensky condemned the widespread Russian bombardments in an address Saturday night.
“In just one day, Russia hit Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, the communities of the Zaporizhzhia region,” Zelensky said.
Russian strikes “absolutely deliberately” and “purposefully” targeted the residential sector, hitting “ordinary houses, civilian objects, people,” he said.
“Such terrorist actions can really only be stopped with weapons, modern and powerful,” Zelensky added, thanking the United States for its latest military aid package.
Washington has signed off on a $400-million package, including four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to add to eight already in place and high-precision artillery ammunition not previously sent to Ukraine.
“It’s a further evolution in our support for Ukraine in this battle in the Donbas,” a senior defense official was quoted by the US Department of Defense as saying.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia’s restriction on Ukrainian grain exports may have contributed to turmoil in Sri Lanka triggered by severe shortages of food and fuel.
“We’re seeing the impact of this Russian aggression playing out everywhere,” Blinken told reporters in Bangkok.
Renewing a demand that he has made repeatedly, Blinken called on Russia to let an estimated 20 million tons of grain leave Ukraine, which Moscow invaded in February.
Russian officials in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv meanwhile announced the start of the harvest “in the liberated territories of the region,” Russian news agency RIA Novosti announced Sunday.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of having stolen its wheat harvest in the occupied eastern regions, to illegally sell it on the international market.
Russia continued its crackdown on news coverage critical of its conduct in the war, blocking the website of the German daily Die Welt Sunday, the latest in a growing list.
Since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the German newspaper has published content in Russian.
Canada agreed Saturday to deliver to Germany turbines needed to maintain the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, despite sanctions in place against Russia and appeals from Ukraine.
The turbines were undergoing maintenance at a Canadian site owned by German industrial giant Siemens, and Gazprom blamed its absence for cuts to deliveries via the pipeline, raising fears of a gas shortage in Germany.
Canada also announced on Saturday its intention to extend economic sanctions against Russia to industrial manufacturing.
