Bringing Renewable Energy to Local Farmers.
Eco-innovative farming solutions are vital to ensuring the
global reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to
agriculture. Biodôme du Maroc, a small, fast-growing Moroccan
company, provides local farmers with a technology that gives
them access to renewable energy for on-farm use.
Founded in 2013 by Dr. Fatima Zahra Beraich, Biodôme du Maroc
is the first Moroccan company to specialize in the recovery of
organic waste through natural treatment and environmentally
friendly processes. This is to enable farmers in rural areas to
produce biogas and fertilizer.
For the environment, biogas helps to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions from abandoned organic waste and minimizes the risk
of polluting waterways. This “clean” method of energy production
also reduces reliance on wood as a fuel source.
Biodôme du Maroc offers a range of small-scale agricultural
anaerobic digesters. These digesters use a simple and innovative
system to produce biogas and recover organic matter. Inside
underground concrete enclosures, farmers can deposit different
kinds of organic waste, such as household, plant and animal waste,
which is fermented in a biological accelerator. In this process, gas
is produced through methanization or anaerobic bio-digestion,
where bacteria naturally break down organic matter within weeks.
By providing a technology that produces gas from organic waste, Biodôme du Maroc gives local farmers access to renewable energy for agricultural production.
Dr. Beraich currently holds six patents covering innovations that
improve the efficiency and performance of Biodômeʼs bio-digesters.
“The process of securing a patent means that our technology
is evaluated by experts and allows us to understand just how
different our inventions are from other competing technologies.
This allows us to protect the inventive characteristics of our
outputs,” explains Dr. Beraich. “With these patents in hand, we
hope to be able to license our more recent patented innovations.”
The support of the Moroccan Association for Research and
Development (R&D Maroc) – part of the network of Technology and
Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) in Morocco – has played a critical role in the success of Biodôme du Maroc. “I learned about the TISC network at an outreach event at the University organized by the
Moroccan Industrial and Commercial Property Office,” Dr. Beraich
explains. R&D Maroc helped Dr. Beraich secure seed funding and also
ensured she had the help she needed to draft her patent applications, and license and access the technology she required to create and commercialize her bio-digesters. Biodôme is currently marketing its patent-protected bio-digesters in Morocco and across Africa.
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World IP Day
Good morning from Linden, Guyana!
On Twitter/X today, I saw a post on World Intellectual Property (IP) Day. I believe World IP Day will be on April 26th. It appears that the post is for people to obtain information on the use/development of social media materials for the day. It seems interesting, but I need to learn/understand more.
I am into publishing original papers, poems, and such so I am into intellectual property. Intellectual property - ideas, inventions, and other creations of the mind that belong to an individual or organization - is important. It brings knowledge. It drives progress and development.
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Happy World Intellectual Property Day
Happy World #intellectualproperty! At Genex Logistics, we understand the importance of protecting your intellectual property during the global supply chain process. Let us help you safeguard your brand and products with our secure logistics solutions.
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#WorldIPDay #GenexLogistics #SecureLogistics
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On World Intellectual Property Day, we celebrate the ingenuity and creativity that drives innovation in the global economy. At Warehousity, we're proud to support businesses of all sizes with secure, reliable warehousing and logistics solutions that protect their valuable intellectual property.
Whether you're storing physical goods or digital assets, our state-of-the-art facilities and technology ensure your property is safe and secure. Happy World Intellectual Property Day!
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#worldipday #warehousity #logisticssolutions #safeandsecure #intellectualproperty
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Africaʼs First Integrated Drug Discovery and Development Platform.
Africaʼs first integrated drug discovery and development center. H3D was founded at UCT in April 2010 and focuses on translational medicine, which involves early-stage medicine discovery in the lab through to the treatment of patients in clinical settings. WIPO Magazine recently sat down with Chibale to learn more about H3D, and the role intellectual property plays in its groundbreaking work.
WM: What is the potential of drug discovery in Africa?
KC: Africa is arguably the most genetically diverse continent.
Everybody came from Africa and went somewhere else. That means diseases are not African problems or African diseases, they are human diseases, human problems. So, drug discovery in Africa has huge potential to contribute to humanity and to create local jobs.
And how is H3D affecting health innovation in Africa?
H3D is having an impact at various levels, particularly by creating drug discovery infrastructure and platforms capable of contributing to the global pipeline of innovative products that could be further developed. In other words, we have strengthened our capacity to translate basic science knowledge into potential life-saving medicines. And we are bridging the gap between the lab and the patient.
You focused initially on malaria. Why?
Malaria was an opportunity for us to build the infrastructure required for translational medicine. At the end of the day, beyond understanding the biology of the human malaria parasite, the drug discovery principles are the same for malaria or cancer. For example, regardless of the disease, among other things, the common goal is to understand how the human body will handle the drug candidate. The malaria project was an opportunity to work with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and to subsequently engage with new partners, such as Merck and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Once we developed the infrastructure we needed for that project, we began adding other diseases, including tuberculosis (TB), and antimicrobial resistance. In 2022, we had an opportunity to work with Johnson & Johnson as one of the companyʼs three satellite centers for global health discovery. In sum, malaria was an anchor program that enabled us to acquire the skills and experience we wanted to develop, and which we then transferred to other diseases.
How important are such partnerships to H3Dʼs work, and to
developing a robust health innovation ecosystem in Africa?
Partnerships are extremely important, even for innovative pharmaceutical companies with financial muscle. Indeed, some of the product portfolios they offer include drug candidates licensed in from third parties. This enables them to de-risk the early stages of drug development. For H3D, partnerships were important from the start, for three reasons. First, to tackle infrastructure challenges; second, to build the technology platforms we needed; and third, to access skilled people. Partnerships are also important to secure funding. When you have a project with global support, you attract partners who share the same goals, funding grows, and you gain access to a network of centers of excellence. Partnerships can bring to the table what you donʼt have, because everyone is interested in the projectʼs success. When there is mutual interest, you can make a huge difference.
What about the importance of building a local procurement
support system?
One of the main barriers to scientific innovation in Africa has been a lack of infrastructure in the broad sense. This includes a local procurement support system with functioning laboratories, access to the spare parts you need when something breaks down, the ability to access reagents and chemicals readily and rapidly, and so on.
Of course, from a business perspective, we need scale that justifies the business. At present, there are too few players, so business opportunities are limited. Thatʼs why weʼre working to expand the community to create the demand that will foster the businesses we need to supply the chemicals and reagents required for research and development, for example.
What is the role of intellectual property in all this?
When thereʼs an unmet medical need, you have to innovate, and IP incentivizes innovation. IP is an enabler and underpins robust innovation ecosystems. Cash-strapped universities can use IP to generate new sources of income from their research, through university spinouts, for example. IP is also a magnet for investment. People want to invest in a country where there is respect for rules and laws, including IP.
Do you still need IP in Africa for infectious diseases, where
commercial returns are low?
Absolutely. Because IP is also a responsibility, even for infectious diseases where commercial returns are perceived to be low. Without IP you would have a free-for-all. When it comes to health equity, itʼs important to remember that the person who owns the IP can decide whether to share it voluntarily or not.When you hold IP rights in a medicine, you can control its use to some extent. Thatʼs why, in Africa, we need to be owning IP. When we do, and we find an appropriate partner to take the IP forward, we get a return. I would rather own 1% of one billion than 99.99% of zero.
IP is also a responsibility, even for infectious diseases where commercial returns are perceived to be low.
What is the current focus of H3Dʼs work?
In terms of drug discovery, weʼre focusing on action studies to identify biological targets and to better understand the mechanism of resistance of these targeted organisms to drugs. These organisms are very clever. Our job is to outsmart them.
Do you still see the need for new approaches?
Yes. At a scientific level, Iʼm an advocate for Afro-centric drug discovery. You need to find a target to hit – an enzyme or a protein – which may respond differently in different populations for genetic reasons.
Genetic differences in the expression and activity of drug-metabolizing
enzymes can lead to variable responses to therapeutics. For example, in people of African descent, due to genetic mutations, enzymes responsible for metabolizing the antiretroviral drug Efavirenz work more slowly than in other populations and this can result in toxicity, even death, due to drug overdose if dosages arenʼt adjusted appropriately. So, drug development needs to move from a one-size-fits-all focus toward a population-centric approach.
We really need to invest in understanding the genetics of the African
population with respect to biological drug targets we go after and the
enzymes responsible for metabolizing specific drugs. Also, we need to address the funding gap in translational medicine, which
many investors find too risky. This will require policy changes to encourage investors to see drug development as a continuum that requires investment at each stage of the value chain. This would create opportunities to share both risks and benefits, and ultimately will benefit everyone.
Read the full interview online and learn more about Chibaleʼs recommendations for developing a robust health innovation system in Africa.
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