Science Summit at United Nations General Assembly 77 (UNGA77)

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for health in many countries in Africa will include addressing sickle cell disease (SCD), a chronic non-communicable disorder (NCD). Africa is the epicenter of the disease burden: an estimated 80% of patients live in Africa and more than 300,000 new babies with SCD are born on the continent each year. Historically, health systems in many regions have been ill-equipped to provide optimal preventative and therapeutic healthcare over the life-course of patients with SCD. The result has been high rates of mortality and severe morbidity beginning in early childhood. In this context, the current era of scientific innovation holds promise for helping patients, health workers, policy makers, and other stakeholders to make a sustained impact on population health as it relates to SCD.

This Thematic Session will focus on three critical areas of scientific contributions: (a) Biomedical science to help better understand the nature of SCD in patients in Africa specifically, with an emphasis on discovering genetic underpinnings of disease pathophysiology; (b) Implementation research to guide the effective delivery of interventions proven to save lives from SCD in Africa including newborn screening and distribution of existing medicines; (c) Partnerships in research and development of new therapeutics with target product profiles that will facilitate wide and sustained use in Africa. The focus will be on gene therapy to cure SCD.
Muhimbili University of Health & Allied Sciences (MUHAS), Tanzania, will convene this Thematic Session. MUHAS is part of SickleInAfrica, a multinational consortium comprising national-level stakeholders in Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with coordinating centers in South Africa and Tanzania. MUHAS also hosts Sickle CHARTA, a consortium for health, advocacy, research and training in Africa for SCD. The main goal is to reduce the burden of SCD through the generation and application of scientific knowledge, and by conducting research in Africa.

The event speakers will feature national and global leaders in SCD-focused biomedical research, implementation science, and R&D. The event will serve to educate a diverse audience of stakeholders on current research efforts underway and to foster dialogue that will inform strategies for accelerating SCD-focused science, promoting the development of research infrastructure through partnerships with global partners, and assuring the sustainability of science in improving health of SCD in Africa

The session will:

• Educate stakeholders on a state-of-the-art understanding of SCD in Africa and major scientific activities underway that have both immediate and long-term implications for health outcomes.
• Outline how the output of basic biomedical science, including elucidating genetic underpinnings of disease, will translate to improved health care.
• Define key implementation research learnings and outstanding needs to assure successful delivery of newborn screening at large scale in Africa and the safe and effective distribution of approved medicines such as hydroxyurea that are proven to save lives and reduce severe morbidities.
• Showcase current efforts to discover definitive gene therapy cures for SCD and explore the anticipated enablers and barriers to achieving widespread access for patients in Africa.
• Recommend pragmatic approaches to cross-sector collaboration that will maximize the quantity and quality of research to address SCD in Africa with an emphasis on conducting research in Africa.

This event will take place in New York and participation is possible online and in person. However, 
in person participation requires a personal invitation by the organizers.  

Convened by "Medicines for Future (M4F)" initiative, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria, and Cape Bio Pharms, South Africa, in cooperation with the International Society for Plant Molecular Farming.

Agenda 
Venue: Hybrid; Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York, and Video Conference
Date:    Tuesday, September 27th, 2022, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm EDT
Organizers: Medicines for Future (M4F), represented by Josef Glössl, Declan Kirrane and Kurt Zatloukal, and Cape Bio Pharms, represented by Belinda Shaw

     Mr Declan Kirrane ISC Intelligence, Moderator
     Prof Josef Glössl M4F and BOKU, Co-Moderator
10:00 Welcome 
     Ambassador Dr. Alexander Marschik (Host) Permanent Mission of Austria to the UN in New York
10:10 Introductory Remarks
     Intisar Soghayroun Minister of Science and currently President of Khartoum University, Sudan
     Prof. Frédéric Ouattara Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Burkina Faso
     Dr Danuma Usman Member of the Nigerian Parliament. Chairman of the Science Committee
     Dr Cynthia Asare Bediako Chief Director, Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ghana
10:20 Setting the Scene: Infectious Diseases as Global Health Challenges
     Prof. Florian Krammer Dept Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
     New Collaboration Model for Addressing Global Health Challenges
     Prof. Kurt Zatloukal M4F and Medical University of Graz, Austria
10:40    Plant Molecular Farming (PMF) as Key Enabling Technology 
     Prof. Julian Ma Institute for Infection and Immunity, St George's, University of London, UK
     Prof. Inge Broer International Society for Plant Molecular Farming (ISPMF)
11:00 The Versatility of PMF as Demonstrated by Case Studies 
     Prof. Waranyoo Phoolcharoen Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and Baiya Phytopharm, Thailand
     Dr. Martín Salinas Moolec Science, BIOCERES, Argentina (tbc)
     Dr. Ofra Chen Transalgae, Weizmann Science Park, Rehovot, Israel (tbc)
     Belinda Shaw Cape Bio Pharms, South Africa
     Prof. Edwin Scott Asemota Collaborative Malaria Plant Vaccine Development Initiative, Nigeria and Germany
11:25 The Future Perspectives of PMF
    Prof. Ed Rybicki Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa
11:35 Moderated Panel Discussion: Policy Framework for Stimulating Cooperative Capacity Building for Better          Access to Medicines and Vaccines
Participants: Speakers from above plus additional Panelists
   Ben Durham Department of Science and Innovation, Pretoria, South Africa
   Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda LifeWatch ERIC, Madrid, Spain
   Dr. Hermann Garden Policy Advisor Health Innovation, OECD
   Prof. Motlalepula Matsabisa Faculty Health Sciences, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
12:25 Outlook and next steps 
     Declan Kirrane
12:30 End

Rationale for the session
Equal access to affordable medicines and vaccines is a key goal in SDG 3b, Good Health and Well-Being. However, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how disparate infectious diseases affect global health systems and highlighted global inequality for R&D, manufacturing and ultimately vaccine accessibility. Specifically, as a result of widespread economic inequities millions of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) lacked appropriate access to medicines because the domestic biopharmaceutical production capacity was limited. High global demand of biopharmaceuticals (vaccines or medicines) further aggravated the supply shortage, with detrimental consequences for the health of LMIC populations. A route forward to improve the resilience of LIMC against similar global pandemics in the future is to build local medical infrastructure and to educate skilled people capable of managing emergency situations in public health.
The current COVID-19 pandemic clearly showed that centralized approaches to vaccine development, manufacture and distribution were inefficient and unequal. Therefore, we would like to present a new model for global collaboration and capacity building in the context of the UNGA77 Science Summit. Diversifying biopharmaceutical production into technologies that are less depended on expert staff and specialized infrastructure can reduce production costs and improve regional independence of LMIC from global supply chains. At the UNGA77 science session, Plant Molecular Farming (PMF) will be highlighted as one such diversifying options because it is an innovative and versatile technology platform to achieve a simple, scalable and low-cost yet versatile and reliable production of biopharmaceuticals.
In the Science Session “Green Medicines - Plant Molecular Farming and New Collaboration Model for Addressing Global Health Challenges”, the collaboration between the initiative Medicines for Future (M4F), the International Society of Plant Molecular Farming (ISPMF) and the further participating organizations aims to contribute increasing the accessibility of essential medicines to people in low- and middle-income countries.

For a full description of the session please see the uploaded pdf file below

Digital Twins for Personalized Cancer Medicine
Cancer incidence is steadily increasing and is a major burden for patients, their families and society. Despite new treatments, such as immunotherapies, only ca. 25% of cancer patients benefit from their treatment. We need new approaches. Here, I will introduce Digital Twin strategies that aim to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment by constructing computer models of cancer patients that allow to simulate the disease in silico, optimize and select the best possible therapy for each patient. Using childhood cancer as paradigm I will discuss where we are, what the challenges are, and what we can achieve in the next 5 years. I also will discuss what type of teams and infrastructure we need to make Digital Twins a clinical reality. As example I will use Precision Oncology Ireland, a consortium of academia, industry, and charities, which develops personalized diagnostics and therapies for cancer patients.