Category Archives: Human Longevity

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Jeanne Calment of France was believed to be the worlds longest lived person when she died in 1997 at age 122. A recent headline-grabbing study about the limits of the human life span has drawn rebuttals with implications for how universities and scientists might approach the reproducibility crisis in research.

From the beginning, it seemed like a difficult prediction.

In an article published last October in Nature, three researchers affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City said they had crunched the numbers and concluded that humans will never consistently live much beyond 115 years.

"From now on, this is it," one of the three authors, Jan Vijg, a professor of genetics at Albert Einstein, told The New York Times one of several major news outlets that helped promote the sobering news. "Humans will never get older than 115."

With more statistical expertise on research teams, one expert argues, scientists could think with more nuance about whether a research finding is significant.

But almost immediately, the conclusion was attacked by numerous critics citing various problems with the Albert Einstein teams statistical analysis. That criticism cascaded Wednesday when Nature published another five rebuttals.

Among the allegations: Mr. Vijg and his partners failed to properly consider what statisticians call the "null hypothesis." In this case, Bryan G. Hughes and Siegfried Hekimi of McGill University explained in one of the critiques, applying the null hypothesis means statistically including the possibility that the maximum human life span actually will continue to increase.

"There are strong statistical grounds to question the validity of their conclusions," wrote another team, comprising Maarten P. Rozing, Thomas B.L. Kirkwood, and Rudi G.J. Westendorp of the University of Copenhagen. "There might be a limit to human lifespan, but we believe that their results provide no evidence," wrote a third, Adam Lenart and James W. Vaupel of the University of Southern Denmark.

Mr. Vijg stands by his work. The "real problem," he said, "is that some people get hysterical when someone openly sheds doubt on the idea that we can live forever, or at least much longer than we do now."

As scientists across various fields move through a period of soul-searching over the disturbing number of studies that apparently cannot be reproduced, the leading suspects include industry bias, financial and career pressures, poor study design, and wide variations in research methodologies, equipment, and standards.

But the conversation over the study on aging points to another possibility: that too much research is hamstrung by a lack of pure statistical ability. Universities, scientists, and advocacy groups may have overlooked the seriousness of that problem as they hunt for more complex or nefarious causes of the reproducibility crisis.

Cory Fournier, an adjunct instructor in mathematics at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, came to that conclusion earlier this year, after he cobbled together $1,000 in scarce union funds to journey to a big national conference on scientific reproducibility.

Mr. Fournier said he made the trip to the National Academy of Sciences headquarters in Washington, D.C., expecting to commune with fellow statisticians. After all, he reasoned, there are lots of ways that research errors can be tied to poor statistical analyses including haste-induced shortcuts, technical confusion, and outright manipulation.

Instead, upon arrival in the conference hall, he noticed a strange absence. "I dont believe that I met any other statisticians," he said.

At least one did speak at the three-day event Giovanni Parmigiani, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard University. And Mr. Parmigiani and other experts assembled by the National Academies did cite statistical rigor as one of the key areas needing improvement.

But Mr. Fournier sees an oversight at a more fundamental level. In all fields, he said, researchers need either to develop a working knowledge of statistics or to include someone with statistical expertise on their research teams.

And with that expertise, scientists should think with more statistical nuance about questions such as whether a research finding is statistically significant, Mr. Fournier said.

Many studies answer that question with a simple "yes" or "no," relying on a calculation called a p-value to do so. For a p-value of .05, as is typical, a studys finding will be deemed significant if researchers identify a 95-percent chance that it is genuine.

More useful, Mr. Fournier said, would be a practice in which yes-or-no declarations would be replaced in journal articles by more specific estimates of how likely it is that a particular research observation did not just randomly occur: such as 1 in 20, or 1 in 100, or 1 in 1,000.

That numerical specificity of estimates may already exist inside many articles, Mr. Fournier said. But highlighting it in words, he said, should help emphasize what statisticians know to be true science cannot make definitive yes-or-no declarations in most cases and perhaps also encourage the publication of studies now abandoned in the belief they failed to show a useful outcome. Better statistical expertise also could help scientists construct experiments that are more likely to be reliable in the first place, he said.

One of the conference organizers, Victoria Stodden of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said she recognizes the ways that biases of various types financial conflicts of interest, academic promotion incentives, and the allure of fame can contribute to irreproducibility problems in science.

But Ms. Stodden, an associate professor of information sciences, said she agrees that the ongoing misuse of statistics is a broader problem. While researchers may need to work harder to include statisticians on their teams, she said, statisticians also must to work harder to study how they could be more helpful to their interdisciplinary colleagues.

"Developing a research agenda within the statistical community to address issues surrounding reproducibility is imperative," she said.

For his part, Mr. Vijg isnt convinced his team failed basic statistical analysis. His paper used records from sources that included the International Database on Longevity and the Human Mortality Database. It then made calculations suggesting that, while average human life expectancy may continue to increase, the maximum of age of the oldest surviving humans will not substantially move beyond about 115 years.

"We went through a highly experienced and reputed statistician before submitting the work," Mr. Vijg said in a written exchange about the criticisms. At the same time, he argued that resolving differences in findings between competing labs is less a matter of procuring advanced statistical expertise and more a matter of the two groups getting together and identifying variations in their experimental conditions.

"Look, statistics is a tool, nothing more," he said. "It certainly is not the arbiter of scientific truth."

Look, statistics is a tool, nothing more. It certainly is not the arbiter of scientific truth.

An author of another of the five critiques published Wednesday by Nature, Nicholas J.L. Brown of the University of Groningen, said the case exhibits multiple problems seen across science including statistical errors and some researchers basic pursuit of fame.

The statistical errors, wrote Mr. Brown and his colleagues at Groningen, included a failure by Mr. Vijgs team to compare the fit of its model to alternatives, and the use of small sample sizes that failed to properly handle the case of a lone outlier, Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at the record age of 122.

Mr. Vijg said repeatedly that his Nature paper made no "definitive statement" about a maximum human age and that he felt "amazement" that anyone might think otherwise. But he acknowledged approving a news release about his study issued by Albert Einstein College with the headline: "Maximum human lifespan has already been reached, Einstein researchers conclude."

The scientific question at hand never even seemed to make much sense, said Mr. Brown, a doctoral student in health psychology at Groningen, because advances in average human lifespan are far more important than the future maximum age of a single person. "The whole article might as well have been designed to create clickbait headlines," he said.

That type of low-value scientific pursuit is only becoming more common with the advent of modern computer-processing capabilities, Mr. Brown said. Computers let people "explore a half-million alternative realities in 10 minutes," and then pick out something that seems interesting, without spending too much time on developing meaningful hypotheses, he said.

Without qualified statistical experts to guide them, researchers will continue to encounter big problems, Mr. Brown said. "Statistics is demanding in the same way as flying a plane, but many scientists only have the equivalent of a drivers license," he said. "As a result, theyre crashing into the side of a mountain on a rather regular basis."

Paul Basken covers university research and its intersection with government policy. He can be found on Twitter @pbasken, or reached by email at paul.basken@chronicle.com.

Original post:
A New Theory on How Researchers Can Solve the Reproducibility Crisis: Do the Math - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The UK is home to acollection of hotspots known as The Golden Triangle for biotech. This week, we take a look at the top biotechs in one vertex, Oxford.

Ahh, Oxford.The image of Hogwarts for fans of the Harry Potter films and home to one of the worlds best all-around academic institutions, Oxford University. Though it ranksjust abit behind its counterpart at Cambridge, the university gave rise to some of the most promising biotechs in Europe, including two unicorns and a number ofchallengers.

Small wonder that bigger industry players are staking out territory in Oxfords biotech scene! German CRO Evotec recently launched Lab282with Oxford Sciences Innovation to act as a bridge between academia and industry. Then in January, Novo Nordisk spent 135M to start a diabetes research centerat the university.

Most of the biotechs are located south of Oxford at Milton Park check em out below!

It may yet be too early to call Immunocore a success story, but the immuno-oncology company has made a name for itself as a biotech unicorn since it raised $320M (293M) in the largest private round in Europe on record. Though CBO Eva-Lotta Allen told me that all immuno-oncology drugs are still experimental, her companystechnology seems to have the confidence of the likes of Neil Woodford and the Baker Brothers convinced. So what is it?

Immunocore relies on its ImmTAC platform, which strips down TCRs to bi-specific molecules and couples them to an anti-CD3 system to activate a T cell response and eradicatetumor cells. The majority of the pipeline is in Phase I, but Immunocores lead candidate IMCgp100 has made it to the pivotal stage in uveal melanoma and cutaneous melanoma. Beyond immuno-oncology, the company is looking to expand into infectious and autoimmune diseases.

Oxitecs founder and CEO Hadyn Parry waded into the thorny issue of GMOs and engineered sterility to stem epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases like Zika, as well as malaria and dengue. As he explained at Refresh earlier this month,Were not using toxic chemicals to fight these diseases but were using themosquitoto fight itself.

The company has since been able to reduce mosquito populations of the Aedes aegypti species by an incredible80-90% by releasing Oxitecs so-calledFriendly Aedes mosquito in field trials in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, the US or India.The results from this technology sealed Oxitecs exitto become part of Intrexon for 146M ($160M) in 2015.

After closing last years largest fundraising round of 120M, Oxford Nanopore has entrenched its position as a British biotech unicorn with nearly 500M raised in total since it was founded in 2005. Its MinION pocket sequencer, which was just used to sequence whole human genomes, has the potential to democratize genome sequencing and disrupt the market and you know the company isserious when onegets hit witha lawsuit from Illumina, as Oxford Nanopore did in 2016.

The biotechs device hinges on a nanopore that directly reads a DNA strand in an electrical, single-molecule and label-free process.CEO Gordon Sanghera told methat the companys R9-Series nanopore is able to read more than one billion bases per 48-hour run with up to 97% accuracy.The company has designed the MinION for broader use,targetingtheclinical diagnostics niche with aFlongle attachment; but the device isalsofinding use in academic research.

PsiOxusworks on oncolytic viruses that turn those so-called cold tumors hot by stimulating an immune response, as CEO John Beadleexplained to us. Theplatform, Tumor-Specific Immuno-Gene Therapy (T-Sign), uses a viral vector to deliver anti-cancer therapeutic transgenes to tumoral cells. In particular, NG-348 encodes the gene forMembrane-integrated T-Cell Engagers (MiTEs), T-cell activating ligands located on the cell surface.

This technology wonPsiOxusa 850M deal with BMSlast December, after a whopping 34.7M (25M)Series C propelled by Neil Woodford, GSKs VC arm and Imperial Innovations in 2015.

PsiOxus isnt scientific co-founder Leonard Seymours only company healso co-founded Oxford Genetics.As CEO & co-founder Ryan Cawood told me, the companywas born when the teamfound thattesting gene therapy plasmidswasincreasingly tough because we justcouldnt make them. Typically, theyre built from an amalgam of sources with no standardization.

So, Oxford Genetics set out to improve DNA design with its synbio-based SnapFast platform, and the team believes in its potential to improve cell and gene therapies through this approach to personalised medicine. Backers like Innovate UK, which handed the company a1.61M (1.8M) grant in January, are buying in.

Though still in its infancy, SpyBiotechmade a splashydebut earlier this year with a4M (4.7M)seed round backed by none other than Googles venture capital arm, GV.Itstechnology hinges on the bonds betweenstrep throat bacteria, Streptococcus pyogenes: the founding academics engineered the bacteria,nicknamedSpy, to make the connection without disrupting the antigen or virus-like protein (VLP)folding.

Vaccinesare tailored to a specific disease by tetheringa VLP to an antigen, but the existing method ofgenetic fusionis costly and unreliable.SpyBiotechs method opens the door to a new generation of more robust vaccines spanning a broad range of diseases that the legendary Greg Winter says we so desperately need.

OxStem is developing cell programming therapies that could treat a range of usually age-related conditions, including dementia, heart failure, macular degeneration, diabetes and cancer, based on the research of spin-off sultansKay Davies, Angela Russell and Steve Davies. In May 2016, the company claimed the title of Largest Fundraising for Academic Spin-Out in a 21.4M roundto which Craig Venters Human Longevity fund contributed.

Oxstems strategy uses a new class of small molecules that can modulate or stimulate endogenouscellsto awakendormant cellular processes. These includerepairand stem cell functions. Since the range of applications is so broad, OxStem has had plans to spin out a number of daughter companies,OxStem Cardio, OxStem Neuro, OxStem Ocular andOxStem Oncology, which is most advanced.

Since we first met KarusTherapeuticsin 2015 to talk about their small molecule therapies for cancer and inflammatory disease, the company has entered the immuno-oncology fray. Its now developing a PI3K-p110/ inhibitorto inhibit cancer cell growth and metastasis: KA2237begana Phase I clinical trial last fall in partnership with MD Anderson Cancer Center, and this lead candidate could be a first-in-class small molecule to fight tumor growth and cancer metastasis.

Since it was founded in 2005, Karus has raised nearly 11M, excludingthe yet undisclosed remainder ofits Series B. That might not seem like a lot, but the company has established itself as solid enough to grow its headcount to at least a dozenemployees to inch its programs towards the clinic.

Oxford BioMedicais one of those companies that has been around for ages, having apparently reached a sustainable equilibrium.It was founded in 1995 to developlentiviral vectors for gene and cell therapy applications, anditwent public in 2008; its market cap now clocks in at164M (186M). Most recently, Orchard Therapeutics signed on as a partner to use Oxford BioMedicas vectors in its ex-vivo stem cell gene therapies for rare diseases.

While itsmodus operandiis to out-license its technology, Oxford Biomedica is receiving its fair share of glory. The companys technology is an important component of Novartis stellarCAR-T therapy, CTL-019. The drug from this Swiss pharma wowed ASH attendees last winter with its 82% response rate in a Phase II trial for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and may very well winthe race to be first to market in CAR-T.

Sometimes referred to as the sister company to Immunocore, Adaptimmune deserves its own attention as a potential immuno-oncology success story. This biotech uses whole adaptive T cells from patients rather than biological molecules derived from them. Notably, while Immunocore remains private, Adaptimmune went publicin 2015 with an huge IPO of $191M (157M) on NASDAQ, when it was listed as one of the most volatile of the notoriously volatile biotech stocks.

Though its stock is now less than a third of its original value after some procedural hiccups that led to a partial hold, the company has thesupport of Big Pharma player GSK and one of the largest headcounts on theUK biotech scene. With its 312 employees and a respectablemarket cap of427M(488M), even if thats a third of what it once was, Adaptimmune is more than holding its own as one of the top biotechs not just in Oxford but the UK.

Images via Oleksandr Kostiuchenko, MR.Travel, CI Photos, Digital Photo, sumroeng chinnapan, isak55, Visuta, mspoint, bluebay, GiroScience, Maryna Olyak, Tonhom1009/shutterstock.com

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Advanced Potions: The Top 10 Biotechs Brewing at Oxford - Labiotech.eu (blog)

Whole genome sequencing could become part of routine medical care. Researchers sought to find out how primary care doctors and patients would handle the results. Cultura RM Exclusive/GIPhotoStock/Getty Images/Cultura Exclusive hide caption

Whole genome sequencing could become part of routine medical care. Researchers sought to find out how primary care doctors and patients would handle the results.

Advances in technology have made it much easier, faster and less expensive to do whole genome sequencing to spell out all three billion letters in a person's genetic code. Falling costs have given rise to speculation that it could soon become a routine part of medical care, perhaps as routine as checking your blood pressure.

But will such tests, which can be done for as little as $1,000, prove useful, or needlessly scary?

The first closely-controlled study aimed at answering that question suggests that doctors and their patients can handle the flood of information the tests would produce. The study was published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

"We can actually do genome sequencing in normal, healthy individuals without adverse consequences and actually with identification of some important findings," says Teri Manolio, director of the division of genomic medicine at the National Human Genome Institute, which funded the study. Manolio wrote an editorial accompanying the paper.

"There's a lot of excitement and a lot of hope about this new technology and how it's going to revolutionize medicine," says Jason Vassy, a researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System and the Brigham and Women's Hospital, who led the study. "But at the same time, there are a lot of fears and a lot of concerns."

Vassy acknowledges that routine genome sequencing could overwhelm doctors and patients with confusing and sometimes alarming information, leading to anxiety and stress, as well as expensive and sometimes dangerous follow-up testing.

So he and his colleagues sought to find out what routine testing would look like in a general medicine setting. They studied 100 healthy, middle-aged patients whose primary care physicians randomly asked them if they were interested in having their genomes sequenced.

Half of the volunteers had their DNA scanned for genetic variations that could cause nearly 5,000 rare genetic diseases as well as other genetic markers. The other half answered questions about diseases that ran in their families the traditional way of spotting inherited risks.

One of the volunteers was Renee Duchainey-Farkes, 63, who runs an elementary school in Boston.

"I'd always been kind of fascinated by genome studies," Duchainey-Farkes says. "So I was more than excited, but at the same time now nervous because it was like, 'Well, do I really want to know if things aren't great?'"

Among the 50 volunteers who got sequenced, the researchers found that about 1 in 5 had a variant in their genome that was associated with a rare, sometimes serious genetic disease.

"That was higher than we expected to find," Vassy says. "These were generally healthy middle-aged adults who had gone their entire life and didn't think they had any genetic diseases."

Most of them were fine, but what happened next surprised the researchers: Neither the volunteers nor their doctors overreacted.

"We were pleasantly surprised to see that primary care physicians were able to manage their patients' genetic results appropriately," Vassy says. "And patients are generally able to handle this information. It does not cause an increase in anxiety or an increase in depression."

Many of the patients also received useful information, the researchers reported.

Duchainey-Farkes says she discovered why she got odd rashes and bad sunburns. It turns out she's had what so far has been a very mild version of variegate porphyria, a rare skin disease. As a result, her doctor gave her a list of drugs to stay away from because they could aggravate the condition.

"So I feel that was a really positive outcome," Duchainey-Farkes says.

She also found out she may be prone to diabetes, so she's trying harder to watch her weight and eat better, she says.

Finance professor Irena Vodenska, 46, of Brookline, Mass., learned she was carrying a genetic variation that could put her at risk for heart problems. Follow-up tests found nothing wrong with her heart. But Vodenska is still glad she did it.

"It made me think," Vodenska says. "It satisfied my curiosity, and it made me change some things in my life." She walks instead of drives whenever she can now, and she tries to eat better.

Manolio says those in the study who learned they were carrying variations associated with rare diseases could potentially use that information when planning their families.

Still, others remain skeptical.

"There's a lot of, in my opinion, highly misplaced enthusiasm for doing genomic sequencing in the general population," says James Evans, a geneticist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "And this study shows that its routine provision, in that context, is vastly premature and likely lead to more mischief than benefit."

Others fear that people who get sequenced could be subject to discrimination.

"That information is accessible by third parties who can require access to it," says Mark Rothstein, who directs the University of Louisville's Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law. For example, he says, "applying for life insurance or disability insurance or long-term care or other things."

Vassy and Manolio acknowledged the patients in the study were more affluent and better educated than the general populace. The doctors also received extra training in interpreting genetic information. And they stressed more research is needed before sequencing becomes commonplace.

But some private companies have already are starting selling genome sequencing to people who are really curious about what secrets may be hiding in their DNA.

"We think that whole genome sequencing will be part of the foundation of medical practice much sooner than people are thinking," says Brad Perkins, the chief medical officer at Human Longevity, Inc., one of the companies selling the test.

"It's a completely new way of looking at things," agrees Mirza Cifric, CEO of Veritas Genetics. "By having your whole genome sequenced, you have an asset for life. You have a digitized version of yourself that you can go back to for a variety of reasons."

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Whole Genome Tests' Risks And Benefits : Shots - Health News : NPR - NPR

Okay, so seriously, imagine this.

In order to help cure cancer, researchers are working with microscopic 3D printers to make tiny little harnesses for sperm, like one little harness per sperm.(I presume one size fits all but I need to check.) And what do these sperm harness actually do? Well they help deliver the sperm, now soaked incancer-curingchemicals, far into the nether-regions of women who need the medical treatment.

The spermharnesses actually have tiny little micromotors Im telling you this is crazy but true stuff.

It all started because, as you may well know, the vagina, cervix and uterus are considered a harsh environments for medicine. Apparently, this environmentmakes drug delivery difficult and gynecological cancers notoriously hard to treat. So after years of study (and who even thought of this in the first place)researchers believe the answer to this may lie in sperm. I can hear men all over the world rejoice, high five each other and celebrate their contribution to cancer research.

Be that as it may gentlemen, this study isntjust the latest debate in the war of the sexes its actually an incredible breakthrough. Scientists at the Institute of Nanosciences in Germany realised that while the natural chemistryof our lady parts tends to dilute most forms of treatment before they can reach the site of the cancer, the human male naturally produces something which thrives in this environment.

This promising study suggests that sperm may be the future of gynecological cancer treatment. Awelcome developmentin an area where an estimated 275,000 women die every year from cervicalcancer, 287,000 from uterine cancer and 140,000 from ovarian cancer.

Just because you have access to a 3D printer doesnt mean you can make a sperm harness. Trust me. I know.

Mariana Medina-Snchez and her team in Germany led a study looking into the unique drug delivery benefits human sperm could provide. They found that when sperm is submerged in an active ingredient known to treat cancer, it absorbs large doses.

The sperm can then be assembled into microscopic, 3D printed, mechanical harnesses, forming sperm-hybrid micromotors (trying saying that 10 times fast) In something out of a science fiction movie the sperm is then directed towards the tumor through the use of external magnetic fields.

How fast can a sperm powered by a micromtor and an external magnetic field actually go? I have no idea.

Once the sperm reaches its destination the harnesses relinquish their grip and the sperm is free to swim towards its target. In theory, the sperm can then burrow deeper into the cancerous tissue and expose more cells to the treatment than ever before.

During experimentation the team noticed that the sperm-hybrid micromotor reduced cancerous cells by 87% in just 72 hours.

The sperm were found to not only protect the drug against dilution, but also not to trigger the immune system. Triggering of the immune systemhas been a challengein previous studies where, for example, treatment was delivered usingbacteria.

Further studies are needed to perfect this method of treatment no gentlemen, at this point, no further volunteers are currently needed to assist. But, the preliminary results hint at a better future one where you will be more equipped to fight gynecological cancer and perhaps other diseases as well (watch the below video for more details).

If you are interested in reading more about this amazing technology, click here for MarianaMedina-Snchezs study.

I still want to know who was first sitting around the lab and said, hey I know what we can do, lets get some sperm, a tiny microscopic 3D printer and then we will make harnesses for micromotors.

That person? They are a genius.

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Tiny Little Sperm Harnesses Are The Cutest Thing Ever. - Longevity LIVE

Democratising data - making information available to all staff at an organisation - takes power away from managers and risks exposing a misalignment of objectives.

That's the opinion of Paul Fitzpatrick, consultant at Human Longevity, speaking at a recent Computing IT Leaders Forum.

"The alignment of objectves is key to an organisation," said Fitzpatrick. "And where objectives aren't aligned, data can make that situation more transparent. Culturally it's a big leap if everyone has access to the same dashboards. With data comes control, so [democratising data is] putting control in hands of people not executives. If you do that, where there's misalignment of objectives, it will become more obvious," he argued.

Jason Nathan, group MD for data at data analysis firm Dunnhumby explained that people will interpret data in ways favourable to themselves and not necessarily the company, if their objectives aren't properly set.

He used the example of supermarkets, and the complexities inherent even in what seems to outsiders to be trivial data.

"It all boils down to the definition around the data," said Nathan. "It may sound like an extrordinary thing to say, but even something like knowing how much did this product sell by value over this week is really hard. How much time do you allow for returns? What about promotions? How much value do you ascribe to these products from multi-buy packs? People try to game the system in their favour if you allow free reign at a granular level.

"In any job, you see people who act at times in the company's best interests, and at times in their own. At a well managed company people always act in their best interests, which happens to align with the company's. But that's a nirvana which is usually unattainable."

Nathan continued, explaining that when fully democratising data at its most granular level, the interpretation placed upon that data causes a lot of friction.

"As soon as you place a layer of interpretation on top, you're not democratising that data, you're allowing someone else to game it, and you're not allowing unfettered access," he said.

"Around 1832 we had universal suffrage. We need the same thing for data," said Bob Tulloch, technical director at Walnut Medical.

Gopal Sharma, global practice head - strategy and architecture at Liaison explained that organisations need to create an enterprise data layer into which everyone has visibility.

"This will then deskill the roles themselves by establishing business rules and logic around data validation, that's the opportunity. Make that data available for anyone to use, analyse and create algorithms for. That requires a very visible and engaged leadership, and each organisation needs to look inwardly at the blockers they have."

Earlier the panel had argued that Google can sometimes lose interest in some aspects of its cloud offering and not keep them updated as much as they should.

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Democratisation of data can lead to organisational problems, says expert panel - http://www.computing.co.uk

Consolidation of power by the oil and coal barons began immediately after the election; president-elect Trumps transition advisors emerged as an oil industry dream team. Despite the initial antipathy between Trump and the Koch brothers, once he secured the nomination, Donald Trump extended the olive branch to the flat earth oligarchs from Kansas. His choice of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as running mate was the first ominous sign that the rift had healed. Governor Pence had financed his political career with a steady flow of Koch cash and had demonstrated his fealty to the Kochs by hiring Marc Short as his gubernatorial chief of staff. Short had previously been president of Freedom Partners, the Kochs political arm. As governor, Pence made Indiana a proving ground for the radical right-wing experiment in corporate domination devised by Koch-funded think-tanks.

Three days after the 2016 election, Pence displaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to become Trumps overseer of the various agency transition teams. By that time, the writing was on the wall, and the penmanship was that of David and Charles Koch. David Koch attended Trumps election night celebration. Trump soon appointed Marc Short as his director of legislative affairs, and stocked his transition team with Koch organization veterans, such as Tom Pyle, Darin Selnick, and Alan Cobb, and transition team executive committee members, Rebekah Mercer and Anthony Scaramucci. According to The Wall Street Journal, an astonishing 30 to 40 percent of Trumps advisors had Koch pedigrees. These were the men and women who would shape the new presidents agenda.

Trump appointed a notorious Koch toady, Myron Ebell, to supervise his EPA transition. Ive watched Ebells antics for decades. He is a professional deceiver. Ebell served as director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think-tank formerly funded by ExxonMobil and the Kochs, and staffed primarily by experts and operatives, lately employed by Koch Industries and the Kochs web of shadowy non-profit oil industry advocacy groups. Ebell, once a staunch global warming denier, has recently retrenched; Yes, we are causing climate change, he now admits, but its a good thing. Ebell preaches that the mild global warming that has occurred since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-nineteenth century has been largely beneficial for humanity and the biosphere. Earth is greening, food production has soared, and human longevity has increased dramatically.

Ebells seven-person team included David Schnare, a lawyer who spent thirty-three years at the EPA before matriculating to institutes funded by the Kochs. Schnare made his bones as a polluters shill by filing legal actions demanding to inspect the email inboxes of EPA administrators and climate scientists. In Trumps new era of alternative facts, there was no one better suited to purge the agency of credulous climate change believers.

Steve Groves led the State Departments landing team. Groves, a policy wonk at the Koch- and Exxon-funded Heritage Foundation, wrote a post-election article calling for the United States to pull out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a prelude to refuting the Paris Agreement.

The Department of Interior transition fell under the leadership of Doug Domenech, director of the Fueling Freedom Project for the Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation. That groups mission is to explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels. Domenech knows how to make the system work for industry; during George W. Bushs presidency, he served as White House liaison and deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, facilitating Bushs efforts to turn federal lands over to oil, gas, and mining interests and to timber barons.

President Trumps transition overseer at the Department of Energy was Michael Catanzaro, a registered Koch Industries lobbyist. His successor is Thomas Pyle, former president of the Institute for Energy Research, a think-tank founded by Charles Koch. Before joining that chamber for charlatans, Pyle was Koch Industries director of federal affairs. Pyle is also president of the American Energy Alliance, another fossil fuel front group that receives a pipeline of cash from Koch, ExxonMobil, and Peabody Energy. (Youll learn much more about the Peabody CEO in Chapter 7 of this book.)

Pyle mapped out a big change in an email to supporters in mid-November. He promised a 100-day plan and a 200-day plan to roll back Americas clean water and climate change protections. America, he promised, will pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and the EPA will jettison the dreaded social cost of carbon algorithm used to calculate the costs and benefits of climate change.

In December, eight hundred US scientists and energy experts sent a letter to president-elect Trump asking that he publicly identify global warming as a human caused, urgent threat. They went on: If not, you will become the only government leader in the world to deny climate science. Your position will be at odds with virtually all climate scientists, most economists, military experts, fossil fuel companies and other business leaders, and the two-thirds of Americans worried about this issue. Trump answered this urgent plea by the worlds most highly credentialed climate scientists during a Fox News interview in mid-December, assuring the audience that nobody really knows whether climate change is real. He said he was studying whether to pull America out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the hard-won treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that has been signed by 196 countries. There is little doubt about who is providing him crib-notes.

The ominous direction toward global catastrophe crystallized as Trump announced his cabinet and other key positions.

SECRETARY OF STATE: REX TILLERSON

And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Revelation, 6:8.

In a breathtaking act of supplication to Big Oil, the new president gave his first cabinet appointment to Russells first Horseman, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Tillerson has never been mistaken for an American patriot. As Exxon CEO, he often adopted company policies that were contrary to US interests, including a lucrative deal with Russia to drill in the Arctic. When a shareholder asked Tillersons predecessor and mentor, Lee Raymond, whether the company should be improving US refinery capacity as a matter of national security, Raymond dismissed patriotism as an absurd distraction from profits. He famously declared, Exxon is not a US company. Tillersons worldview is dictated by his forty years of service to the selfish ideologies of a corporation that is locked in a ruinous battle against humanity and American values.

Trumps critics wondered whether his peculiar choice to hand US foreign policy over to the worlds most visible and notorious oil man was a favor to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. As Exxon chief, Tillerson put aside scruples to align Exxon with the bloodthirsty tyrant, a choice that made Tillerson Putins favorite American businessman. In 2013, Vladimir Putin personally presented Tillerson with Russias ultimate honor to a foreigner, the Order of Friendship Award, after Tillerson signed controversial deals with the state-owned Russian oil company. In 2011, Tillerson flew to Russia to sign a $500-billion arrangement to jointly drill in the Arctic Shelf and the Black Sea and to develop shale oil in Siberia. Tillersons company allegedly lost around $1 billion dollars due to sanctions the Obama administration placed on Russia after Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Tillerson responded by directing ExxonMobils PAC to donate $1.8 million to oil-friendly federal politicians during the 2016 election cycle, with more than 90 percent going to the Republicans, who had dutifully shielded Exxon from carbon taxes and pollution regulations. During the six election cycles when he was CEO, nine of ten dollars donated by his companys PAC went to GOP candidates.

Exxons corporate culture is not an admirable template for American idealism. Exxon already is a petro-state, wealthier than most countries, with its own private armies and intelligence apparatus. Now the head of Exxon is running our foreign affairs, with access to the many intelligence services and the capacity to bully states who dont tow the oil line.

Waterkeeper Alliance is a clean water advocacy group, of which I serve as president. Waterkeeper, which works in thirty-eight countries, has submitted a fifty-four-page petition to the EPA calling for the agency to enforce bad corporate actor rules and end all its federal contracts with ExxonMobil. The petition addresses Exxons decades of deliberate liesthe companys campaign to deceive the public, politicians, and regulators about the danger of climate change. Recently-released documents prove that the sociopaths, including Tillerson, who ran Exxon knew for decades that its business activities would cause catastrophic climate change and mass death. Putting profits before people, Exxon kept its climate change science secret, while funding professional liars and nurturing the growth of a generation of climate change deniers. Under Rex Tillersons leadership, the company continued to push government policies that buck proven science, human welfare, national security, and fundamental moral, ethical, and religious tenets. Last year, Exxon claimed as assets $330 billion in underground oil reserves that include some of the dirtiest fuels on Earth. The Securities and Exchange Commission and several states attorneys general, led by New Yorks Eric Schneiderman, are currently investigating Exxons failure to disclose to its stockholders the risks it has long known are posed to company value by the reality of global warming. According to Schneiderman, unless we are willing to write off planet Earth, about two-thirds of those reserves can never leave the ground. Exxon is therefore exaggerating its market value by hundreds of billions.

Tillerson has never expressed concern or even the slightest self-awareness that Exxons business model threatens the future of humanity and life on Earth. Americas largest oil company has accounted for more than 3 percent of global climate pollution, dating back to the mid-1800s. After years of putting Exxons stock value ahead of humanity, will Tillerson now put America and the planet first? Tillersons company would be severely impacted by the Paris Climate Accord to limit the burning of fossil fuels. His thoughts on climate change? What good is it to save the planet if humanity [read Exxon] suffers.

And Tillerson didnt waste any time as head of the State Department to scrub the website of the Office of Global Change to reflect his stance. As noted by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, the revised website removed any mention of President Obamas Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, promote clean sources of energy that create jobs, protect communities from the impacts of climate change and work with partners to lead international climate change efforts.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: SCOTT PRUITT

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. . . . And men were scorched with great heat. . . . And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. Revelation, 11:6, 16:9,20

Trumps choice to run the EPA is an unctuous acolyte of Oklahomas factory meat and Big Oil barons. Scott Pruitt built his career as a patsy for polluters: Prior to Pruitts election in 2010, the Oklahoma attorney generals office had built a model environmental enforcement division under Kelly Hunter Foster, who is now a staff attorney for my organization, Waterkeeper Alliance. Foster had filed a dozen lawsuits against the poultry and industrial pork industries, which were polluting Oklahomas air and waterways, sickening its citizens with effluvia of factory meat production, and putting family farmers out of business. Pruitt was the chicken industrys handpicked attorney general. Oklahomas corporate meat barons financed Pruitts campaign to rid themselves of Fosters lawsuits. Once in office, Pruitt dutifully terminated Hunter Fosters unit and shelved her docket. As attorney general, he never filed another environmental action. Instead, Pruitt turned his offices big guns against the EPA, filing a battery of federal lawsuits against the agency to challenge the Obama administrations anti-pollution and climate safeguards. These included suing the EPA to block the Clean Power Plan and another suit aimed at gutting rules on methane emissions from the oil-and-gas sector. He let polluters off the hook and destroyed a decade of work, recalls Hunter Foster. He has no environmental experience and no conservation instincts. His only qualification for his new job was his fierce hatred for EPA. Since his ascension to the administrators post, Pruitt has frozen all new permits and scientific studies and put the agency in lockdown. He has promised to lay off 3,000 of the 15,000 EPA workers and cut the agencys already anemic budget by 31 percent, more than any other agency.

And the merchants of the earth are waxed rich . . . for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. Revelation, 18:3,23

Calvin Coolidge famously remarked that the chief business of the American people is business. Trump has made it clear that business is to be the EPAs business as well. Pruitt burnished his resume for the EPA post with a major push by his mentor, Carl Icahn, a billionaire Wall Street hedge fund titan and generous Trump campaign donor. Icahns holding company does business with the Koch brothers and TransCanadas Keystone pipeline system. A noisome EPA had accused Icahns Oklahoma-based oil company of violating environmental laws. Based on these qualifications, Trump appointed Icahn to vet the contenders for the top-level EPA jobs.

Pruitt also received a boost from another of the Horsemen featured in this bookOklahoma billionaire Harold Hamm (see Chapter 6). Hamm chaired Pruitts 2013 reelection campaign. During the 2016 presidential election, Hamm had served as candidate Trumps energy advisor, but declined the president-elects offer to head the Department of Energy.

Pruitt also boasts a direct Koch connection; as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt was simultaneously a director of the nonprofit Rule of Law Defense Fund, which received $175,000 in 2014 from a dark money umbrella group called Freedom Partners, the Koch networks political arm.

President Trump evidently shares Pruitts antipathy toward the environmental agency. Upon announcing Pruitts appointment, Trump added, For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs. In mid-March, the president announced that hed ordered Pruitt to revise one of President Obamas primary climate change policiesthe EPAs strict standards on tailpipe pollution from motor vehicles. As to climate change, Trumps director of the Office of Management and Budget said at a White House briefing, I think the president was fairly straightforward; Were not spending money on that anymore.

On March 2, Pruitt told CNBC News with his characteristic dumb as I wanna be glee that humans were not responsible for global warming. Pruitt was proudly jockeying the EPA into position as the flagship of the new administrations anti-science crusade. The Bush administration had regarded science as a vanity of the despised liberal elite. One anonymous White House official, speaking to investigative journalist Ron Suskind, famously disparaged the liberal obsession with science-based inconvenient truths like climate change as fact-based reality. But the Trump clown team has immediately achieved a new dimension of unhinged, by appointing a science-hating flat-earther as head of the worlds premier environmental agency.

Even Christie Todd Whitman, who presided over the gutting of the EPA under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, was sickened by Pruitts appointment. I dont recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does.

Pruitt will have help from above as he plows under the rubble of his despised agency. In late December, Trump named Carl Icahn to a new administration position created by the president: Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform. While the administration proceeded to freeze adopting other new regulations, Icahn quickly succeeded in obtaining a special IRS rule that gives a tax break to his oil-refining company, CVR Energy. Icahn is simultaneously pushing for a regulatory fix that would revamp an EPA rule (the Renewable Fuel Standard), which currently makes refiners responsible for ensuring corn-based ethanol is properly mixed into gasoline. Eliminating that requirement would have saved his company more than $200 million last year. Icahn, whose $16.6 billion is a fortune larger than all the other cabinet members combined, claims immunity from such conflict-of-interest problems because hes simply an unpaid adviser to the administration.

SECRETARY OF INTERIOR: RYAN ZINKE

And there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. . . . And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died. . . . And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. Revelation, 8:7,8, 9:2

My friend, Leonardo DiCaprio, a leading climate activist, gave a presentation to Trump soon after the election. He and DiCaprio Foundation president Terry Tamminen, the former Santa Monica BayKeeper and chief of California EPA under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled a plan for creating millions of jobs by encouraging the growth of clean, renewable energy. Looking at the plan approvingly, president-elect Trump told Leo that he wanted to be the twenty-first-century Teddy Roosevelt. Leo gave him a copy of his new documentary Before the Flood describing the perils of climate change, and the president-elect promised to watch it. Afterward, Leo learned that Trumps team had announced the appointment of Scott Pruitt, while they were still in the meeting. Trump had warned Leo, There are going to be some you will consider bad appointments. But, he promised the actor, Youre really gonna like who we put in for Interior.

That environmental superhero turned out to be Ryan Zinke, a first-term congressman from Montana who also describes himself as a Teddy Roosevelt guy. But while Roosevelt dismantled Standard Oil, Zinke has spent his career suckling at the industry teat, gagging down $345,136 of oily money from petro interests. In the House, Zinke represented the Powder River Basin, a once edenic wilderness, transformed into a moonscape by federal coal-leasing policies, championed by Zinke. In fact, in recognition of his enthusiasm as a cheerleader for coal extraction, the League of Conservation Voters awarded Zinke a 3 percent score. In 2008, Zinke said he believed in climate change, but has since dutifully recanted, in goose-step with the Republican Party leadership. It isnt proven science, he now insists.

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Meet the horsemen of our environmental apocalypse - Salon.com - Salon

Misao Okawa of Japan, who died April 1, 2015, was the world's oldest woman at 117.

The world's oldest person, a 117-year-old woman in Japan named Misao Okawa, died today. Okawa was born on March 5, 1898, and died of heart failure just a few weeks after celebrating her birthday.

Okawa was named the world's oldest person in 2013, when she was 114, according to Guinness World Records. Now, the world's oldest living person is Gertrude Weaver, a 116-year-old woman in Arkansas, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps track of supercentenarians, or people older than 110.

Sakari Momoi of Japan became the world's oldest living man at 111, according to the Geronotology Research Group, since the death of Dr. Alexander Imich of New York City in June 2014. The oldest person ever known was Jeanne Louise Calment of France, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old, and died in 1997, according to Guinness World Records. [The World's 7 Weirdest World Records]

Okawa previously told The Japan Times that the key to her longevity was "eating delicious things," such as ramen noodles, beef stew, hashed beef and rice.

In studies, a wide array of factors have been linked to living longer, including being vegetarian, eating lots of fiber, not sitting too much, jogging and volunteering. Women who drink moderate amounts of alcohol (about five drinks per week) and those who have kids when they're older may also live longer, some studies suggest. Even winning a Nobel Prizehas been linked to having a longer life.

The average human life span has increased by almost 30 years over the past century, thanks to lower infant mortality rates and medical advances ranging from vaccines to heart treatments, Live Science reported in 2006.

Life extension is a ripe field of research, and experiments in animals have shown promise in tacking more years on to people's lives.

One approach to living longer is calorie restriction, which has been studied since the 1930s, when researchers found that rats on severely restricted diets lived up to 40 percent longer than rats that ate normally. Restricting calories also has been shown to extend the lives of other animals, including fish and dogs, but it's not clear whether the benefits extend to humans.

Chemicals such as resveratrol, found in red wine, also have been reported to have anti-aging effects, but the findings on whether they actually help people live longer have been somewhat conflicting.

Meanwhile, other research is focused on developing tissue-engineered organs to replace faulty ones, or repairing the body through nanotechnology.

More speculative ideas include the notion of cryonics, or freezing a dead body in hopes that future medical technologies can bring it back to life, or uploading the mind to a computer to achieve a kind of digital immortality.

But for now, you're probably better off sticking with a healthy diet and exercise, most experts say.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

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World's Oldest Woman Revealed Her Secret to Long Life

Its the holy grail for biofuel developers hoping to coax energy out of algae: Keep the organism fat enough to produce oil but spry enough to grow quickly.

J. Craig Venter, the scientist who mapped the human genome, just helped Exxon Mobil Corp. strike that balance, with a breakthrough that could enable widespread commercialization of algae-based biofuels.

Exxon and Venters Synthetic Genomics Inc. announced the development at a conference in San Diego last Monday.

They used advanced cell engineering to more than double the fatty lipids insidea strain of algae. The technique may be replicated to boost numbers on other species, too.

Tackling the inner workings of algae cells has not been trivial, Venter said. Nobodys really ever been there before; theres no guideline to go by.

Venter, who cofounded Synthetic Genomics and sequenced the human genome in the 1990s, added thedevelopment is a significant advancement in the quest to make algae a renewable-energy source.The discovery is being published in the July issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Its taken eight years of what Venter called tedious research to reach this point.

When ExxonMobil announced its $600-million collaboration with Synthetic Genomics in 2009, the oil company predicted it might yield algae-based biofuels within a decade. Four years later, Exxon executives conceded a better estimate might be within a generation.

Developing strains that reproduce and generate enough of the raw material to supply a refinery meant the venture might not succeed for at least another 25 years, former chief executive and current US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at the time.

Even with this newest discovery, commercialization of this kind of modified algae is decades away.

Venter said the effort has been a real slog.

Its to the teams creditits to Exxons creditthat they believed the steps in the learning were actually leading some place, he said. And they have.

The companies forged onrenewing their joint research agreement in January amid promising laboratory results.

Exxon declined to disclose how much the Irving, Texas-based company has invested in the endeavor so far. Vijay Swarup, a vice president at Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering Co., said the collaboration is part of the companys broad pursuit of more efficient ways to produce the energy and chemicals the world needs and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Carbon consumer

Where Exxons chief productsoil and natural gasgenerate carbon-dioxide emissions that drive the phenomenon, algae is a CO2 consumer, Swarup said.

Most renewable fuels today are made from plant material, including corn, corn waste and soybean oil.

Algae has long been considered a potentially more sustainable option; unlike those traditional biofuels, it can grow in salt water and thrive under harsh environmental conditions.And the oil contained in algae potentially could be processed in conventional refineries.

The Exxon and Synthetic Genomics team found a way to regulate the expression of genes controlling the accumulation of lipids, or fats, in the algaeand then use it to double the strains lipid productivity while retaining its ability to grow.

To my knowledge, no other group has achieved this level of lipid production by modifying algae, and theres no algae in production that has anything like this level, Venter said in a telephone interview. Its our first super-strong indication that there is a path to getting to where we need to go.

Nitrogen starved

They searched for the needed genetic regulators after observing what happened when cells were starved of nitrogena tactic that generally drives more oil accumulation. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique, the researchers were able to winnow a list of about 20 candidates to a single regulatorthey call it ZnCysand then to modulate its expression.

Test strains were grown under conditions mimicking an average spring day in southern California.

Rob Brown, PhD, senior director of genome engineering at Synthetic Genomics, likened the tactic to forcing an agile algae athlete to sit on the bench.

We basically take an athlete and make them sit on a couch and get fat, Brown said. Thats the switchyou grab this guy off the track and you put him on a couch and he turns into a couch potato. So everything he had in his body that was muscle, sinew, carbohydrateswe basically turn that into a butterball. Thats what were basically doing with this system.

Without the change, most algae growing in this environment would produce about 10 percent to 15 percent oil. The Exxon and Synthetic Genomics collaboration yielded a strain with more than 40 percent.

Venter, who is also working on human longevity research, views the development as a significant step toward the sustainable energy he believes humans need as they live longer, healthier lives. The study also is proof, he said, that persistence pays.

You have to believe in what youre doing and that where youre headed really is the right direction, he added, and sometimes, like this, it takes a long time to really prove it.

Image Credits: Bloomberg

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Fatty algae is biofuel breakthrough for Exxon - Business Mirror

She may be out of commission for a bit, but that doesnt mean shes not sharpening her knives. Former bantamweight title challenger Cat Zingano is still recovering from an undisclosed injury. But, despite not having fought since her decision loss to Julianna Pena at UFC 200, she been staying in the gym at Alliance MMA in San Diego and paying close attention to the rest of the division.

After Holly Holms sensational knockout win over Bethe Correia at UFC Singapore last weekend, Zingano had some thoughts about what she wants upon her return. Not only does she want a fight against Holm, but shes more than willing to take on the winner of the upcoming fight between Cristiane Justino vs Megan Anderson at UFC 214, if given the opportunity.

She discussed her intentions with Ariel Helwani over at MMAFighting.

Recently, I was asked about fighting her and for it to be in contention of possibly fighting the winner of Cyborg (Justino) vs. (Megan) Anderson. My answer is hell yes. As soon as my body is ready to safely go back in there, the heads will be rolling once again. The results and trials of the treatments Im focusing on are responding and that makes me happy to hear as an athlete, as well as a normal human. Longevity in health and sport are both my top priorities, as well as in the interest of the UFC, who is providing me huge support at this time.

Again, there are no details as to Zinganos condition or potential recovery time, so theres no way to predict how soon she can be back in action. She remains 9-2 in her professional career. Her UFC record currently stands at 2-2, however, after back to back losses to former champion Ronda Rousey and Julianna Pea. But, given the state of both the featherweight and bantamweight divisions right now, shes likely still in consideration as a top contender for match-ups with the divisional elite.

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Cat Zingano says 'hell yes' to fighting winner of Cris Cyborg vs ... - Bloody Elbow

Google tends to lose interest in certain of its cloud products and use cases, meaning some areas grow neglected and miss out on important features.

That's the opinon of a panellist at Computing's recent IT Leaders Forum event 'Data Strategy: Building a framework for success'.

"Some of the research Google is doing in Genomics is incedible, but they tend to lose interest and drop things, which the other two don't," said Paul Fitzpatrick, a consultant at Human Longevity."So we put mission critical things on Azure and AWS," he added.

Fitzpatrick added that his firm is a big user of AWS, but that it's so expensive, and the pricing so complex, that it uses machine learning tools to work out the costs.

"If you want to go fast it's in the cloud, and Human Longevity is all in AWS. We have around four petabytes of data in AWS, and all of the data processing is done there. A big chunk of our money goes to AWS every month, it's a considerable cost. We actually use machine learning to understand how much we're using, and how they charge us.

"We also work with the Cancer Research Institute, and everything we do for them is in Azure, and it is a little tricky moving between the two," he added.

Jason Nathan, group MD for data at analytics firm Dunnhumby explained that he feels the cloud can be as secure as any other system, and added that his clients, who are largely retail organisations, refuse to use AWS because they view it as a competitor.

"Some organisations are reticent to use cloud, but when it comes to security you have to face up to the question as to whether it's really less secure than what you do today?" said Nathan, who earlier stated that firms who aren't moving towards being data-driven are either sinking, or already sunk. "The answer is mostly no. The second thing for us is, 50 per cent of our clients won't touch AWS as it's a competitor, so we use Azure. If Google extend into the world of retailing that would make an impact," he added.

Gopal Sharma, practice head (global) - strategy and architecture, at Liaison explained that questions around the security and viability of cloud strategies will diminish over time.

"AWS is becoming industrialised, and it's now compliant with so many regulations," said Sharma. "They're investing really heavily in product upkeep. Why do you put money in the bank? It's because of the trust, you have for them, because it's become industrialised. In two years cloud will be the same, we'll see fewer questions like 'is it secure?'"

Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management Summit 2017 will be held on 23rd November in central London.

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'Google tends to lose interest and drop things' says expert panel - http://www.computing.co.uk