Page 38 - SAMENA Trends - May 2020

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

commitment of the students, as well as
the dedication of all the teachers and the
members from our control room.” “We had
a clear vision for digital transformation at
the Ministry of Education, and this helped
us to a great extent by setting our path and
accelerating the remote learning program.”
Said Nawal Ebrahim Al Khater, Assistant
Undersecretary for Planning, Information
at the Ministry of Education. “We worked
with Microsoft to create centralized
virtual classrooms by assigning access
for students to Microsoft 365. This also
enabled them to use applications such as
Word and PowerPoint from any device.”
To ensure consistent support, the Ministry
has also setup a quality assurance system
that assists teachers and students from efforts of the team at the Ministry, as well parents for their willingness in adopting
training to tracking attendance, and from as teachers and other supporting staff in the remote learning model, to ensure
technical support to helping them leverage their readiness to implement the distance continuity in education.
new features in Microsoft Teams. Dr. learning program. He also extended
Mohammed Mubarak Juma lauded the appreciation to the students and their

Microsoft and Adaptive Biotechnologies Launch Virtual ImmuneRACE Study

Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. announced known exposures or symptoms combined capabilities to COVID-19. “We
on Tuesday it has begun enrolling a virtual • Ability to triage patients and inform are dedicated to being part of the solution
clinical study, ImmuneRACE, as part of treatment strategies based on risk against COVID-19,” said Peter Lee,
a broader effort it has undertaken with • Ongoing immunity surveillance testing corporate vice president, AI and Research,
Microsoft Corp. to rapidly map and measure of the population to inform decisions on Microsoft. “Immune response data may
the immune response to the COVID-19 restrictions augment what we have been learning to
virus to inform improved diagnostics to “We’ve spent the past decade learning date to help determine who is at greater
fulfill the need for more reliable testing. how the adaptive immune system risk of developing more severe symptoms
The study calls for 1,000 participants in naturally detects and treats all disease, and may help with future containment
select U.S. metropolitan areas impacted by and we are well-positioned to apply our efforts. Anyone who has been affected by
COVID-19. De-identified data will be made immune medicine platform specifically COVID-19 holds key information that can
freely available to public health officials, to COVID-19. We’re hopeful that we can help contain and manage the virus.”
academia and industry to help accelerate contribute important information that will In March, the companies announced an
solutions to the pandemic. LabCorp, become part of an immune scan to help expansion of their existing partnership to
through its Covance drug development reopen society,” said Chad Robins, CEO and use machine learning to map the immune
business, will manage the collection of co-founder of Adaptive Biotechnologies. system response to many different
blood samples and nose/throat swabs “As many are sheltering in place wondering diseases, including infectious diseases,
from participants in the comfort and safety how they can help, we wanted to launch autoimmune disorders and cancer, at
of their own homes. There are currently ImmuneRACE with Microsoft and give scale to study COVID-19. The information
two types of tests for COVID-19. PCR people an opportunity to participate. obtained from study participants, including
tests indicate the presence of live virus These efforts are complementary to how the immune system identifies the
from a nose or throat swab, and serology many global initiatives underway to study virus and how people are responding to the
tests indicate exposure to and potential the virus itself.” As part of the study, the virus, will be integrated with data obtained
immunity against the virus by measuring partners will measure the presence of from samples provided by hospitals
the presence of antibodies in the blood. specialized cells of the immune system and other institutions across the globe.
Adaptive and Microsoft believe a third type in the blood, called T cells that identify The accuracy of the immune response
of test can potentially help address current the disease early on and proliferate to signature will be continually improved and
challenges with testing, resulting in the combat the infection. Together, Adaptive updated online in real time as more study
following scenarios: and Microsoft are mapping and measuring samples are sequenced and by using
• Complementary or alternative the immune response of T cells specific to Microsoft’s hyperscale machine learning
diagnostic testing for individuals with many diseases and are now applying their capabilities and the Azure cloud platform.

38 MAY 2020