Dangote, Okonjo-Iweala on Time’s 100 most influential list

Dangote
| credits: File copy

Africa’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote, and the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, have been named among the 100 most influential persons on earth by theTime Magazine.

Microsoft Founder and Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, Mr. Bill Gate, wrote a tribute in honour of Dangote in commemoration of his listing by the magazine.

While Gate was lavish in his praises of timely response of Dangote to the need for a health alliance by the private sector, Buno, a lead singer of U2 and co-founder of One and (RED) wrote Okonjo-Iweala’s tribute.

Gate dwelled extensively on the philanthropic gestures of the President of the Dangote Group in the areas of health, especially polio eradication and job creation.

Gates wrote about Dangote, “His business activities drive economic growth across the continent. That’s impressive, but I know him best as a leader constantly in search of ways to bridge the gap between private business and public health. It’s for that reason he helped create the Nigeria Private Sector Health Alliance. And it’s for that reason he is an advocate for agricultural research and malaria control.”

Dangote was classified in the Titans category, which boasts of eminent world personalities such as the former United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; Jeff Bezoz, Tony Fadell and Janet Yellen.

Those in the Pioneers category are Jason Collins, Natalie Massenet, Mary Jo White and Edward Snowden, among others.

Barbara Brown Taylor, Robin Wright, John Green and Kerry Washington were in the Artists category; while Jerry Brown, Okonjo-Iweala, John Kerry and Angela Merkel were listed in the Leaders category.

In the Icons category were Pope Francis, Alice Waters, Marina Abramovic, Cristiano Ronaldo and Carl Icahn, among others.

The Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world assembled by the American news magazine.

First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians and journalists, the list is now an annual event.

A soviet-born scientist’s work shakes up the field of genetics

Rhesus monkeys at the Oregon Health and Science University’s National Primate Research Center in Beaverton
| credits: New York Times Service

To most people, the word “mitochondria” is only dimly familiar, the answer to a test question in some bygone high-school biology class. But to Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the mysterious power producers inside every human cell are a lifelong obsession.

“My colleagues, they say I’m a ‘mitochondriac,’ that I only see this one thing,” he said recently in his modest, clutter-free office at Oregon Health and Science University. He smiled.

“Maybe they are right.”
With a name that most Americans can’t pronounce (it is Shoe-KHRAHT Mee-tuhl-EE-pov) and an accent that sounds like the villain’s in a James Bond film, Mitalipov, 52, has shaken the field of genetics by perfecting a version of the world’s tiniest surgery: removing the nucleus from a human egg and placing it into another.

In doing so, this Soviet-born scientist has drawn the ire of bioethicists and the scrutiny of federal regulators.