Quantum computing in drug discovery by Dr. Shahar Keinan, Co-founder and CEO @ Polaris Quantum Biotech
October 20 @ 1900hrs CAT | Register to join | https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMoceyhrDMiHtCansNZCiGz5W7Ppwhbt1u5
We are currently celebrating the first approved vaccine against malaria more than 130 years after naming the Plasmodium parasites that cause the disease. Despite concerns over its moderate efficacy, this is “a historic event,” said Dr. Pedro Alonso, director of the W.H.O.’s global malaria program. According to the WHO, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic (of which the vaccination rate is very low in Africa due to limited supply), malaria is still a primary cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that more than 260,000 African children under the age of 5 annually die from the disease.
According to Africa C.D.C., Africa currently has a low capacity to manufacture vaccines: less than 1% of Africa’s routine vaccines are produced locally, and this mainly happens in 5 countries (South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Senegal).
Some of the barriers that countries need to overcome to build local manufacturing capability of pharmaceuticals are limited local skills and access to effective tools. Building quantum computing skills to take advantage of cloud access to devices may help complement current efforts to reduce reliance on global supply in the future.
By bringing together the three sciences: Physics (Quantum Computing), Biology (Genetics), and Chemistry (Molecular drugs), it is possible to create designs, build IP, and dramatically lower the barrier to doing computational simulations that accelerate drug design, and the understanding of chemical processes that are observed in the lab.
Sign up for the 20th of October at 1900hrs CAT to learn more from Dr. Shahar Keinan, C.E.O., and Co-founder of Polaris Quantum Biotech. She will give a high-level talk about quantum computing in drug discovery. Don’t miss out.
This event is FREE and open to all.
All our events are best enjoyed with others so please invite your quantum tech colleagues and sign up for the one-on-one networking cocktail to get the full experience.
Have a great week!
Farai Mazhandu | President | OneQuantum Africa
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📢 Important Announcements
Welcome QUANTUN
We are happy to announce the launching of the Tunisian Quantum Network QUANTUN. This initiative aims to federate the efforts of Tunisian researchers in the fields of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technologies and to help them contribute to the second quantum revolution.
QUANTUN is coordinated by Sihem Jaziri and Mourad Telmini . Please kindly share this announcement with interested colleagues, collaborators, and young researchers and students.
For any request, you may contact the coordinators or send an email to QUANTUN at : quantunnetwork.tunisia@gmail.com
QEgypt Young Researcher 2022
It's our pleasure to announce the QEgypt Young Researcher 2022
#QEYR22 program for this year.
The program is designed to help both undergraduate and grad students to be familiar with the current booming quantum technologies and their academic and industrial impact.
All accepted applicants will have a supervisor from one of the members of Alexandria Quantum Computing Group
You can apply after fulfilling the requirements through the form: https://lnkd.in/dJpE8SVq
Deadline to submit your application: 30 October 2021 at 11:59 pm.
The possible outcomes of the projects are:
1. Developing quantum educational material using open source tools.
2. Implementing research papers using open-source software.
3. Active participation in a research project for publication.
For more details please check the website: https://lnkd.in/dN4eEdHv
#QEgypt #QWorld #quantumcomputing #aleqcg #education #internships #research
Interested in supporting our mission?
You are passionate about quantum and want to make quantum technology accessible in your local community? OneQuantum is searching for chapter presidents who would like to open a new chapter in all countries or regions.
Our Mission is to equip our members and the wider community with strong local networks and access to the global quantum community by offering communities, mentoring, career services and projects.
Get in touch via brooke@onequantum.org if you are interested!
October 18 deadline to apply for a summer 2022 internship with IBM Quantum
So, whether you are a developer, an engineer, or a researcher, we have opportunities for you to come to build the future of quantum with us.
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News, updates, events, and more
Check out The Week in Quantum Computing - October 11th and get a summary of this past week in detail by Andre M. König, Chairman @ OneQuantum
Send us feedback, we would love to hear your thoughts.
Moderna Plans to Spend $500 Million on Vaccine Plant in Africa
While Pfizer and BioNTech plan to start producing their Covid-19 vaccine at a Biovac Institute facility in Cape Town and will be focused on the final stage of the manufacturing process, vial filling, and packaging, the Moderna plant, will produce the active mRNA ingredients for vaccines.
Africa’s commitment towards digital transformation and technology is bold and can drive fast-paced growth and foster inclusion. Sign up for #GITEXGLOBAL to hear from thought leaders from the continent.
Google confirms $1B investment into Africa, including subsea cable for faster internet
That includes a $50M fund to invest in African startups
Google said that it would be investing $1 billion to support “digital transformation” across Africa. This will include landing a subsea cable into the continent to enable faster internet speeds, low-interest loans for small businesses, equity investments into African startups, skills training, and more.
“We’ve witnessed a number of transitions since quantum physics first emerged over 100 years ago. Things like transistors, lasers, and MRI would never have been conceivable without quantum physics. So you could argue that many applications of quantum physics are already here. The late 1980s produced various theories on how quantum physics could be used for information technology, computers, secure communication, and enhanced sensor systems. In the late 1990s, researchers began experimenting with ways of making such systems a reality, and the first successful implementations led to a period of experimental advances and a surge in expectations. Today, we really are in a transitional phase between fundamental physics and real-world applications.”
In conversation with: Oxford Quantum Circuits’ Ilana Wisby
CEO Ilana Wisby shatters all deep tech founder stereotypes. Her unique skill set seamlessly crosses both the business world and academia, garnering accolades in each along the way. Wisby studied music as well as physics at Royal Holloway University and credits her communication skills to this creative outlet, which involved high-level performance and intense discipline.
Over a five-year period of experiments, The University of Warwick in collaboration with Element Six has managed to improve the sensitivity of their magnetometer by a factor of 10 million, starting from a threshold of milli-tesla to nano-tesla, making the technology suitable for applications like the early diagnosis of heart disease and the detection steel corrosion.
SuperQ Signs MoU With IIT-Kharagpur to Collaborate on Superconductor Research
SuperQ is a next-generation research and product development company aiming to build and deploy industry-scale superconducting devices technology. Novel discoveries in superconducting-based products will pave the way for growth in a multitude of domains. Some of them range from healthcare, power generation, energy storage and distribution, high-energy physics, and quantum computing.
Strangeworks introduces the Backstage Pass program to help developers and researchers to accelerate R&D in quantum computing across research, government, and commercial organizations.
The Azure Quantum ecosystem expands to welcome Qiskit and Cirq developer community
With these new capabilities in Azure Quantum, you can bring, reuse, and submit your existing Qiskit and Cirq source code with little to no change, and at the same time develop and submit quantum programs using Q#.
Transaction values Rigetti at a pro forma equity value of approximately $1.5 billion. The combined company is expected to receive approximately $458 million in gross cash proceeds, which includes a fully committed PIPE in excess of $100 million, direct investment, and $345 million of cash held in the trust account of Supernova II, assuming no redemptions.
The silicon quantum computing company, today announced btov Industrial Technologies has joined Atlantic Bridge and other Equal1 investors in a multimillion Euro funding round. The funding, which will accelerate the introduction of the world’s most compact and cost-effective quantum computers, brings the initial capital invested in Equal1 to over €10 million.
Built on the company’s nearly 20-year track record of delivering ground-breaking technology innovations and powerful, usable quantum systems, software, and tools to market, the new roadmap, code-named Clarity, makes D-Wave the only quantum computing company to offer both annealing and gate-model quantum computers via an integrated, full-stack quantum platform.
Archer is a technology company developing advanced semiconductor devices, including chips that are relevant to quantum computing and medical diagnostics. Archer’s flagship development, the 12CQ chip, is a world-first qubit processor technology that could allow for quantum computing powered mobile devices (‘QPMDs’)
Quantum Dice announces the closing of a £2m Pre-Seed round
Quantum dice aims to secure a connected future by leveraging integrated photonics technology to develop the world’s first compact and continuously self-certifying Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) device for encryption and cybersecurity.
Readout of White House Summit on Quantum Industry and Society
Ilyas Khan will share his experience as a successful serial entrepreneur and discuss the upcoming trends and challenges in the rapidly evolving area of quantum computing technology at The Global Disruptors Society. Sign up here to attend.
Nearly optimal quantum algorithm for generating the ground state of a free quantum field theory
Noise performance & thermalization of single-electron transistors using quantum fluids
Estimating the threshold of a new quantum code using stim and pymatching
There is a lot more happening that we miss. Please share your quantum news, challenges, successes, and support with us via farai@estrapadus.com and we will share them with the Africa community. We love to celebrate with you or even help you to find a match or someone who can offer you support.