According to new phase 1 clinical trial data, a new plasmid DNA-based vaccine that is able to target a receptor in breast cancer appears safe.
The non-randomized study showed an increased immune response after vaccination in people with advanced-stage ERBB2-positive breast cancer.
According to the World Health Organization, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, and there were over 7.8 million women alive who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the previous 5 years.
“Breast cancer is not a single disease, which makes it more difficult to treat. There are many types of breast cancer and treatments that work well for some people, may not work as well for others. That’s why we need to undertake further research into the disease, develop [k]inder and smarter treatments.”
Now, new research led by Dr. Mary (Nora) L. Disis, at the University of Washington Medicine Cancer Vaccine Institute on an experimental vaccine against breast cancer has shown it generates a strong immune response to ERBB2—formerly called HER2—a key tumor protein.
The completed study was a single-armphase 1 clinical trial that followed 66 people ages 34 – 77 years who had advanced-stage ERBB2-positive breast cancer. Researchers analyzed the data twice—from January 2012 to March 2013 and from July 2021 to August 2022.
Participants were vaccinated with either 10ug, 100ug, or 500ug doses of the plasmid DNA vaccine every month for three months. The researchers measured blood immunity and vaccine toxicity at set time points and assessed the DNA persistence of the vaccine via biopsy samples taken from the vaccine site at 16 and 36 weeks.
The researchers noted the most common side effects associated with the injection, 33{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} recorded flu-like symptoms, and 36{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} fatigue.
Participants who received the higher vaccine doses of 100 μg and 500 μg demonstrated a stronger immune response than those who received the 10ug dose, but there was no significant difference between the immune responses to the 100ug and 500ug doses.
The research team also found DNA persistence at the injection site was greatest with the highest vaccine dose and that this DNA persistence was associated with more rapidly waning immunity.
The study’s lead author Dr. Disis explained that the problem with current breast cancer treatments is “disease recurrence after optimal treatment.” She said the disease recurred because a small amount of cancer remained undetected.
“Vaccines will stimulate T-cells which can be programmed to hunt down these last remaining cells in the body and kill them. Stimulating effective immunity is the only way I know we can sterilize the body from all breast cancer cells.” — Dr. Mary (Nora) L. Disis
“Ideally, it would be great to prevent all cancers before treatment is needed. We have already made way with some vaccines in cancer prevention such as the hepatitis B vaccines against hepatocellular carcinoma and HPV against cervical cancer,” said Dr. Bhavana Pathak, board certified hematologist and medical oncologist at MemorialCare Cancer Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center, California, who was not involved in the study.
Exciting potential
Dr. Temcinaite believes a vaccine has “exciting potential” for treating breast cancer. However, she said that “Scientists must investigate what to include in a vaccine, to trigger the right immune response.”
Breast Cancer Now is currently funding research to design a new cancer vaccine, specifically targeting the protein p53.
Dr. Parvin Peddi, medical oncologist and director of Breast Medical Oncology at Providence Saint John’s Health Center and associate professor of medical oncology at Saint John’s Cancer Institute, California further explained to MNT:
“[T]his is the first study in my knowledge to examine a HER2 specific vaccine for patients with HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer who are in remission. Although it’s an early study and it was not compared directly to patients not receiving the vaccine, the survival of patients seen in this study is much more than expected with observation.”
Dr. Disis said she believes there is a “good chance” breast cancer vaccines will be in use in clinics in about 5 years.
“Clinical trials of breast cancer vaccines given alone or with other treatments have increased by about 25{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the last several years. There are many groups working on ‘next-gen’ vaccines with very effective delivery technologies and adjuvants,” she told MNT.
Dr. Pathak echoed similar thoughts. She called the current study a “building block showing an increase[d] immune response against specific targets for patients with cancer.”
“Once later phase trials are completed showing efficacy in addition to tolerability, we can potentially anticipate seeing vaccines in clinic,” she said.
But could similar vaccines be developed to treat other types of cancer? Dr. Disis said she believes that is where cancer treatment’s future is headed.
“[Yes.] At the UW Medicine Cancer Vaccine Institute we have programs in breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer vaccines and ideas for others,” she elaborated.
However, experts have also expressed caution about the trial’s early results.
Dr. Temcinaite said it was “too early to tell whether treatment vaccines for cancer could replace other existing treatments.”
“If [vaccines] are proven to be successful, at first they are most likely to be used alongside existing treatments, until we have enough data to understand who can safely skip any particular step in breast cancer treatment.” — Dr. Kotryna Temcinaite
Dr. Pathak also raised caution that this study has only been completed in people with breast cancer. “[M]ore studies will be needed to address the possibility of primary prevention,” she pointed out.
“In general, if the protein that is targeted by the vaccine is also found in [healthy] cells, it would be important to watch for autoimmune side effects. For example, heart muscle also has HER2 expression. Although no excess cardiac side effects were reported in this study, it would be important to watch that in larger studies,” Dr. Peddi added.
It is also important to understand how long the benefits of these vaccines may last. The immune response wanes after vaccination so, it would be interesting to understand if booster vaccines might be needed for some patients.
When asked about the next steps Dr. Disis told MNT that the remarkable results they got from the Phase I trial for the HER2 vaccine lays the ground for future studies.
“The next step is to formally test that observation. In the Phase II study, we will randomize HER2-low patients to receive the vaccine or an immune-stimulating agent. The endpoint will be whether we do prevent disease recurrence,” she said.
Dr. Temcinaite advised that these new vaccines might not work for everyone who receives a breast cancer diagnosis.
“[M]ore research to discover new ways to treat breast cancer and build our understanding of who will and who won’t benefit from particular treatments and why,” she said.
Meta is laying off 13{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of its employees, or more than 11,000 personnel, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a letter to employees Wednesday.
“Currently I am sharing some of the most tough variations we have manufactured in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg stated in the letter. “I have resolved to cut down the dimension of our group by about 13{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} and allow more than 11,000 of our gifted workers go. We are also having a selection of more methods to turn into a leaner and much more effective organization by reducing discretionary paying and extending our selecting freeze by way of Q1.”
Shares of Meta had been up about 7.7{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} Wednesday morning.
The layoffs occur amid a rough time for Facebook mother or father organization Meta, which presented lukewarm steering in late Oct for its forthcoming fourth-quarter earnings that spooked traders and induced its shares to sink approximately 20{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.
Investors have been concerned about Meta’s rising prices and expenses, which jumped 19{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} calendar year over 12 months in the 3rd quarter to $22.1 billion. The company’s overall gross sales declined 4{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to $27.71 billion in the quarter whilst its running money dropped 46{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} from the prior calendar year to $5.66 billion.
“I want to acquire accountability for these decisions and for how we received here. I know this is rough for anyone, and I’m particularly sorry to individuals impacted.” Zuckerberg said.
He claimed Meta is earning reductions in each organization but that recruiting will be disproportionately influenced considering that the corporation programs to employ the service of fewer individuals in 2023. The business prolonged its choosing freeze as a result of the initial quarter with a couple exceptions, Zuckerberg stated.
“This is a unfortunate instant, and there is certainly no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you yet again for every thing you have set into this spot,” he added.
Impacted staff will acquire 16 weeks of pay back plus two added weeks for every single yr of assistance, Zuckerberg claimed. Meta will address health and fitness insurance plan for 6 months.
Meta is greatly investing in the metaverse, which normally refers to a yet-to-be made digital earth that can be accessed by virtual truth and augmented fact headsets. This significant wager has expense Meta $9.4 billion so significantly in 2022, and the company anticipates that losses “will increase significantly calendar year-more than-year.”
Zuckerberg claimed in the course of a call with analysts as aspect of its third-quarter earnings report that Meta designs to “aim our investments on a smaller variety of high priority advancement spots” for the duration of the following calendar year.
“That signifies some teams will improve meaningfully, but most other groups will stay flat or shrink more than the up coming 12 months,” Zuckerberg mentioned. “In aggregate, we anticipate to end 2023 as either approximately the very same measurement, or even a a little more compact corporation than we are nowadays.”
Meta counts extra than 87,000 personnel as of the finish of September.
This is Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to employees:
“Right now I am sharing some of the most tricky changes we have built in Meta’s historical past. I’ve made the decision to cut down the size of our staff by about 13{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} and allow additional than 11,000 of our gifted workforce go. We are also having a quantity of further measures to grow to be a leaner and much more productive corporation by chopping discretionary expending and extending our selecting freeze by way of Q1.
I want to choose accountability for these choices and for how we received in this article. I know this is rough for anyone, and I am specially sorry to individuals impacted.
How did we get below?
At the start of Covid, the environment rapidly moved on-line and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized income progress. Quite a few people today predicted this would be a long-lasting acceleration that would go on even following the pandemic finished. I did too, so I made the final decision to significantly improve our investments. Regretably, this did not enjoy out the way I expected. Not only has on-line commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competitiveness, and adverts signal decline have triggered our profits to be much decreased than I’d predicted. I bought this mistaken, and I get responsibility for that.
In this new environment, we will need to grow to be extra money successful. We’ve shifted more of our sources on to a smaller selection of large priority advancement parts — like our AI discovery motor, our advertisements and enterprise platforms, and our very long-phrase vision for the metaverse. We have slash fees throughout our business, which include scaling back budgets, lessening perks, and shrinking our true estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to maximize our efficiency. But these steps alone will not provide our costs in line with our income growth, so I have also produced the hard decision to allow persons go.
How will this operate?
There is no fantastic way to do a layoff, but we hope to get all the suitable information to you as immediately as probable and then do what ever we can to assist you by this.
Anyone will get an electronic mail before long letting you know what this layoff suggests for you. After that, each and every affected staff will have the prospect to communicate with a person to get their questions answered and sign up for details sessions.
Some of the facts in the US contain:
Severance. We will pay out 16 months of foundation fork out additionally two extra months for each individual 12 months of company, with no cap.
PTO. We are going to spend for all remaining PTO time.
RSU vesting. Absolutely everyone impacted will acquire their November 15, 2022 vesting.
Wellbeing coverage. We will include the value of healthcare for folks and their family members for six months.
Career companies. We’ll present 3 months of occupation guidance with an external vendor, together with early obtain to unpublished work prospects.
Immigration help. I know this is specially difficult if you are listed here on a visa. You can find a notice period prior to termination and some visa grace durations, which suggests all people will have time to make ideas and perform via their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to assist guideline you dependent on what you and your family will need.
Exterior the US, guidance will be equivalent, and we will follow up quickly with independent processes that acquire into account regional employment regulations.
We manufactured the choice to remove entry to most Meta devices for persons leaving these days offered the total of obtain to sensitive details. But we are holding electronic mail addresses active in the course of the working day so all people can say farewell.
Although we’re generating reductions in every single organization across both Spouse and children of Applications and Truth Labs, some teams will be impacted more than many others. Recruiting will be disproportionately afflicted considering the fact that we are scheduling to seek the services of much less persons up coming year. We’re also restructuring our business groups a lot more considerably. This is not a reflection of the fantastic function these teams have performed, but what we have to have likely ahead. The leaders of each individual group will routine time to examine what this implies for your crew over the following few of times.
The teammates who will be leaving us are proficient and passionate, and have built an vital impact on our organization and community. Each individual of you have served make Meta a results, and I am grateful for it. I’m positive you are going to go on to do terrific operate at other locations.
What other alterations are we creating?
I perspective layoffs as a final resort, so we decided to rein in other resources of charge just before permitting teammates go. All round, this will insert up to a significant cultural shift in how we function. For case in point, as we shrink our true estate footprint, we are transitioning to desk sharing for folks who now spend most of their time outside the office. We’ll roll out much more cost-reducing changes like this in the coming months.
We’re also extending our using the services of freeze by means of Q1 with a small amount of exceptions. I’m going to view our enterprise efficiency, operational performance, and other macroeconomic things to identify regardless of whether and how substantially we ought to resume hiring at that level. This will give us the skill to control our charge composition in the event of a continued economic downturn. It will also set us on a route to obtain a much more productive expense composition than we outlined to traders a short while ago.
I am now in the middle of a thorough evaluation of our infrastructure expending. As we construct our AI infrastructure, we are focused on turning into even much more efficient with our ability. Our infrastructure will keep on to be an critical benefit for Meta, and I believe that we can achieve this although spending fewer.
Essentially, we are building all these changes for two reasons: our income outlook is lessen than we predicted at the starting of this yr, and we want to make absolutely sure we are functioning efficiently across both Spouse and children of Apps and Truth Labs.
How do we go forward?
This is a unhappy moment, and you can find no way all over that. To individuals who are leaving, I want to thank you all over again for anything you’ve got set into this position. We would not be in which we are right now devoid of your difficult perform, and I’m grateful for your contributions.
To those who are staying, I know this is a hard time for you way too. Not only are we expressing goodbye to people we’ve labored closely with, but many of you also really feel uncertainty about the foreseeable future. I want you to know that we are generating these decisions to make sure our future is robust.
I believe that we are deeply underestimated as a corporation now. Billions of men and women use our expert services to join, and our communities retain expanding. Our main small business is amid the most successful ever built with substantial possible ahead. And we are primary in creating the technologies to determine the foreseeable future of social link and the following computing system. We do traditionally critical do the job. I’m self-confident that if we do the job successfully, we are going to arrive out of this downturn stronger and additional resilient than at any time.
We will share much more on how we will work as a streamlined organization to realize our priorities in the months forward. For now, I am going to say just one more time how grateful I am to those of you who are leaving for every thing you have carried out to advance our mission.
Mark”
Check out: Meta has to go back again to their core advertising and marketing enterprise and double down.
What is cultural competency, and how does it fit in with healthcare? A recent survey among physicians in the United States shows that cultural competency is a key issue both for healthcare practitioners and their patients, so what are the obstacles to efficient cross-cultural communication in a healthcare setting?
Share on PinterestWhy is cultural competency so important in healthcare? Design by MNT; Photography by PER Images/Stocksy & FS Productions/Getty Images.
Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, medical professionals have sworn the Hippocratic Oath, through which they commit to providing their patients with the best care possible. This includes patients of all different ethnic groups, religions, sexual orientations, and cultures.
But not all people feel the medical community understands their unique needs. For example, a study from Stanford University found that Black men were more likely to talk about their health concerns with a Black doctor. Another study found that Hispanic people in the United States delay going to the doctor because they do not understand the healthcare system.
And not all doctors may believe they are capable of serving patients of all backgrounds. Past research shows that doctors from minority backgrounds, as well as female doctors, are more likely to serve minority, financially precarious, and Medicaid-eligible populations.
Furthermore, a study from 2015 found that physicians and medical students felt underprepared when seeing patients who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. These are some of the reasons why cultural competency plays a large role in patient care.
A new survey conducted by Healthgrades — an online resource offering comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals — found that 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of responding physicians agreed that their level of cultural competency affected their ability to provide the best possible care for their patients either somewhat or a lot.
Additionally, the survey found a generational difference when it comes to a doctor’s willingness to improve their cultural competency. Younger doctors, with fewer years of practice experience, appeared more interested in additional cultural competency training when compared to older doctors.
Cultural competency is the ability to understand and respect the beliefs, values, and histories of individuals of all cultural backgrounds.
“For medical professionals, cultural competency is essential in providing effective quality care to patients of diverse backgrounds, particularly people from historically marginalized communities,” said Dr. Luz Maria Garcini, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Rice University, faculty scholar for the Center of the United States and Mexico, Baker Institute for Public Policy, and affiliate faculty at the Center for Research to Advance Community Health at UT Health San Antonio.
“Cultural competence improves interpersonal interactions, helps to build trust, conveys respect, reduces biases that may lead to inaccurate diagnoses and treatments, and increases the chances that patients may be more compliant with the medical recommendations given,” she told Medical News Today.
Dr. Arlette Herry, assistant dean of multicultural affairs at St. George’s University, agreed that cultural competence is of paramount importance in the healthcare system.
“We know that it leads to improved patient outcomes, reduced care disparities and inefficiencies, and ultimately, decreased costs,” she explained. “The social determinants of health are not the same for everyone, so health inequities create a serious challenge for patients and healthcare workers alike.”
“Cultural competence, in combination with cultural humility, is a powerful tool in addressing these disparities that people from diverse backgrounds experience, whether that diversity is culture, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, gender, disability — invisible or visible — to name a few,” Dr. Herry added.
Additionally, Dr. Herry pointed out that cultural humility acknowledges the historical realities — such as the Tuskegee study and the Stanford Prison experiment — that have given rise to a lack of trust in the healthcare system among vulnerable populations.
“It also requires healthcare professionals to develop an awareness of their implicit biases and how they affect patient care as well as interactions with their colleagues,” she continued. “This can only happen with a continuous process of introspection, reflection, and self-evaluation.”
In the Healthgrades survey, 831 United States doctors were asked if a person’s personal identity traits — including language, race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion — had ever stopped them from providing the best possible care to them.
More than half — 54{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} — of responding physicians said none of these had affected their ability to provide care. Of the individual traits, language was the largest reason at 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.
Healthgrades reportedly conducted a separate survey with the public at large. When asked if any of their personal identity traits prevented them from receiving proper care from their doctor, 10{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the participants who identified as people of color stated “yes.”
When doctors were asked to rate their readiness to care for people of different cultural or racial backgrounds, 87{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} rated themselves as “excellent” or “very good.”
However, only 68{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of individuals who identified as people of color rated their doctor’s rate of readiness care as either “excellent” or “very good” in the parallel survey.
A combined 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of responding doctors agreed their level of cultural competency impacts their ability to provide medical treatment either “a lot” or “somewhat.”
Responses to this question also showed a generational difference as younger doctors — in practice for less than 10 years — made up more of that 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} than older doctors who have been in practice for over 20 years.
And when asked if additional training would help a doctor improve the care they provide to people with different cultural backgrounds, a generational difference emerged yet again.
A combined 55{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of younger doctors in practice for 10 years or less said more training would help them care for people from different cultural and racial backgrounds, and people of a different gender or sexual orientation.
And 63{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of doctors in practice for 20 or more years said they did not need any additional training.
According to Dr. Herry, the process to ensure healthcare workers are sufficiently culturally literate when treating patients of different cultural backgrounds has begun, but we are not there yet.
“But we are not there yet because cultural competence is a dynamic, life-long process,” Dr. Herry noted.
“Dimensions of diversity are fluid so to provide equitable and inclusive care means that healthcare workers, organizations, and health systems have to continuously explore relevant content.”
– Dr. Arlette Herry
And Dr. Garcini added that the shortage of providers from historically marginalized backgrounds makes it particularly challenging for patients who want to see providers that understand their background, life experiences, and culture.
In the U.S., more than half of all active physicians in 2018 identified as white. However, census population projections estimate that combined so-called minority groups will become the dominant population in 2045.
“Cultural competence is not something that can be learned overnight,” Dr. Garcini emphasized.
“[Cultural competency] requires time, self-awareness, and systemic change within our organizations. Also, [it] is an ongoing and continuous process that all of us need to be constantly working on. It requires humility and a willingness to listen and to learn from diverse perspectives, including learning from patients and community members.”
– Dr. Luz Maria Garcini
What can medical schools do to help ensure new doctors are entering the medical field with cultural competence?
Dr. Herry said creating culturally competent and humble medical care workers starts from the recruitment process.
“Universities and medical schools should create mechanisms to hire diverse faculty and recruit a diverse student body,” she detailed. “Students should ‘see’ themselves reflected in their faculty. These practices foster a sense of [belonging] and allow for learning and sharing ideas in a safe, inclusive space.”
“Curricular strategies for cultural competency training must move beyond the lecture modality,” Dr. Herry continued. “The use of small group discussions and simulated patients where the nuances of diverse identities, such as disabilities, rurality, spirituality and end of life, gender and sexual minorities, and age, can be explored is a powerful learning and teaching tool.”
And for both new and current doctors, Dr. Garcini said the best way to build cultural competence is through exposure to diverse environments and communities.
“This is why systemic change to diversify our organizations and institutions is key,” she explained. “We need to learn, listen, and consult with each other [in] our everyday lives.”
“An important way to do this is for providers to immerse themselves into the communities that they serve,” Dr. Garcini added. “Providers need to engage in community activities, serve on community boards, talk to people in the community, collaborate with community leaders, and listen to what is important and what matters to the community. Then change may slowly begin to take place.”
Ahmad Abu Daher repairing mining equipment in the basement of a home in Zaarouriyeh.
Ahmad Abu Daher
It takes a lot to keep a grassroots cryptocurrency mining business up and running in Lebanon. Ahmad Abu Daher says he and his team of more than 40 Lebanese and Syrian employees are working around the clock to man thousands of machines across the country.
“We can’t sleep. We can’t have any break,” the 22-year-old Abu Daher told CNBC at 2:36 A.M. Lebanon time. “All of my team are still awake. They don’t sleep. Our shift is working 16 hours per day, and sometimes, up to 18 or 19 hours.”
Abu Daher’s voice competes with the sound of machines whirring in the background, each crunching thousands of complicated math equations to produce a mix of crypto tokens – now a vital source of income in a country where money has stopped making sense.
Lebanon once boasted a thriving and resilient banking sector that attracted the world’s elite. But after decades of war, bad spending decisions by the government, and financial policies that the World Bank has compared to a Ponzi scheme, the country’s economy is in ruin.
See also: In bankrupt Lebanon, locals mine bitcoin and buy groceries with tether, as $1 is now worth 15 cents
Mining equipment at one of Ahmad Abu Daher’s crypto farms in Lebanon.
Ahmad Abu Daher
The local currency has lost more than 95{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of its value since 2019, the minimum wage has plunged to $17 a month, pensions are virtually worthless, and bank account balances are just numbers on paper. Banks close without warning and ATMs are often either out of cash or entirely offline from nationwide blackouts. When locals are able to gain access to their accounts, many tell CNBC that they have grown accustomed to withdrawing money at 15{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of its original worth.
Against this backdrop, Abu Daher jumped into the crypto mining business a little over two years ago. He and a friend began with three machines running on hydroelectric power in Zaarouriyeh, a town 30 miles south of Beirut in the Chouf Mountains.
“When we started, it was our great idea to make money while sleeping or eating,” said Abu Daher. Nowadays, Abu Daher says he is online 20 hours a day.
An architect by training, Abu Daher saw several other university students unable to find work after graduation, so he realized he had to be proactive, teaching himself various technical tasks by watching YouTube videos.
Ahmad Abu Daher repairing mining equipment in the basement of a home in Zaarouriyeh.
Ahmad Abu Daher
It has been 26 months since Abu Daher first set up shop, and he says that business is thriving.
He now has about 400 crypto farms with between 5 and 100 machines each, in 42 villages across the country running on a mix of hydropower, solar power, and fuel. Abu Daher says that he pulls in about $20,000 a month, and typically, half of those proceeds come from mining and the other half from selling machines and trading in crypto.
When CNBC asked for crypto exchange statements and copies of bank balances to corroborate the estimate, Abu Daher said that the figure was pieced together from trading, mining, and selling machines, in a mix of transactions involving cash, checks, and tether, as well as multiple crypto wallets.
Abu Daher certainly has the trappings of a mining baron.
“When Ahmad pulled up in a white Range Rover to greet us and take us for a tour of the town, I was kind of impressed,” said Mohamad El Chamaa, a journalist at L’Orient Today who previously reported on Abu Daher’s crypto mines. “I had known him before Covid when he was a college student at the architecture department and I was his TA. It looked like the crypto business was treating him well.”
Building a bitcoin mining business
Abu Daher had a few black swan events on his side soon after he broke into crypto mining.
As geopolitics permanently reshaped the landscape of the crypto mining industry, Abu Daher and his team began to build out their own farms across Lebanon with rigs acquired at fire sale prices from miners in China. Paying for those machines was not always straightforward.
“Due to sanctions controls, difficulty with using cash, and specifically in Lebanon, the banking system and the inability to use dollars or wire money, USD tether is essentially a key intermediary currency between people in the Chinese hardware market to Lebanese purchasers,” said Nicholas Shafer, a University of Oxford academic studying Lebanon’s crypto mining industry.
Detailed administrative and political vector map of Lebanon.
Getty Images
Abu Daher’s farms span the country, with roughly half of his equipment in the hydro-rich Chouf range, and the remaining 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} scattered throughout Lebanon, including in the Beqaa Valley, which is close to the Syrian border, and offers solar power as an alternative electricity source. (Though, as Shafer notes, the problem with solar is capacity — solar typically does not produce enough megawatts to mine at scale.)
Abu Daher also started to host rigs for people living across Lebanon, who needed stable money but lacked technical expertise and access to cheap and steady electricity, as the nation often experiences blackouts.
The mining boss does appear to be sharing those profits with his team. Shafer, who conducted field research at some of Abu Daher’s mining sites, says that of Abu Daher’s 40 employees, all receive a formal salary ranging from $800 to $4,000 per month in U.S. dollars or in tether. The blacksmith, who makes the least of any of Abu Daher’s staff, earns more than 26 times the minimum wage in Lebanon, according to Shafer.
Abu Daher mines for a mix of cryptocurrencies, including litecoin, dogecoin, bitcoin, and ethereum classic — and in some cases, he has programmed the machines to switch to mine whichever is the most profitable coin that day. He uses software called TeamViewer to remotely monitor and keep track of all this hardware.
“Each machine can mine many coins, and each coin has their specific equations,” explained Abu Daher. “Maybe today the best coin to mine is bitcoin, tomorrow it’s litecoin, and the day after that, it’s ethereum. We are always moving to have the most profit that we can.”
Around two-thirds of his customers are Lebanese, including some mining for bitcoin, dogecoin, or litecoin as a way to get spending money for daily expenses like fuel and food. One-quarter are Syrian, and the remaining 8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} are a mix of people living in Egypt, Turkey, France, and the United Kingdom.
With some of his clients, Abu Daher is merely a custodian of the machines — housing them, cooling them, and providing steady electrical power and strong internet access. He charges a fee and in exchange, he gives them a cut of the mining proceeds in crypto. Others just ask him to broker the equipment sale and install it.
Ahmad Abu Daher and his friend began mining ether with three machines running on hydroelectric power in Zaarouriyeh, a town 30 miles south of Beirut in the Chouf Mountains. Abu Daher has since scaled his business to thousands of machines spread across Lebanon.
Ahmad Abu Daher
Unlike the massive mining farms of Texas that stack hundreds of thousands of machines into buildings the size of multiple football stadiums, Abu Daher prefers to spread out his electrical footprint, divvying up his thousands of miners in places like stores, basements, and apartments, each with 10 to 20 machines, unless it’s a house where he can split up groupings of miners into different rooms. In exchange for the space, Abu Daher pays rent in cash. In what was once a barbershop, for instance, Abu Daher runs 15 ASICs.
“At first glance, the town does not look like much of what you would think a ‘mining’ town would look like, but then you look inside the storefronts that are replacing traditional businesses, and you get a better feeling. For example, one of Ahmad’s farms used to be a barbershop – there’s still a mirror inside and ads for beauty products – but make no mistake that it is a fully fledged mining farm,” said El Chamaa of some of the mines in the Chouf range.
He added that, “The mining farms themselves were not as impressive as the ones I’ve seen on TikTok, but my keen observation was that they get the job done either way.”
Now, Abu Daher is trying to educate the locals about mining, mainly because he needs the extra manpower to keep the business going.
“We are trying to let someone in each village learn about mining in the purpose to help us. We can’t cover all the machines we have by my team, because we have a huge amount of machines, and we are selling a huge amount of machines,” he said.
AntMiner L3++ miners running at one of Ahmad Abu Daher’s crypto farms in Mghayriyeh in the Chouf Mountains.
In Oct. 2019, money stopped making sense in Lebanon. After a season of unrest triggered by an ill-fated taxation scheme and years of economic mismanagement, banks first limited withdrawals and then shut their doors entirely as much of the world descended into Covid lockdowns.
Hyperinflation took root. The local currency, which had a peg of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to $1 for 25 years, began to rapidly depreciate. The street rate is now around 40,000 pounds to $1. After re-opening, the banks refused to keep up with this extreme depreciation, and offered much lower exchange rates for U.S. dollars than they were worth on the open market.
Anti-government protesters take part in a demonstration against the political elites and the government, in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 8, 2020 after the massive explosion at the Port of Beirut.
STR | NurPhoto via Getty Images
Today, withdrawals of U.S. dollars deposited into the Lebanese banking system before 2019 are capped, and each so-called “lollar” is paid out at a rate worth about 15{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of its actual value, according to estimates from multiple locals and experts living across Lebanon.
Meanwhile, banks still offer the full market-rate exchange rate for U.S. dollars deposited after 2019. These are now known colloquially as “fresh dollars.”
Cryptocurrencies are volatile — the price of bitcoin has dropped about 70{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} from its peak a year ago — but the power of earning fresh dollars is a massive incentive for Lebanese to enter mining.
Rawad El Hajj, a 27-year-old with a marketing degree, tells CNBC that his 11 machines mine for litecoin and dogecoin.
Rawad El Hajj
Rawad El Hajj, a 27-year-old with a marketing degree, found out about Abu Daher’s mining operation three years ago through his brother.
“We started because there is not enough work in Lebanon,” El Hajj said.
El Hajj, who lives south of the capital in a city called Barja, started small, purchasing two miners to start.
“Then every month, we started to go bigger and bigger,” he said.
Because of the distance to Abu Daher’s farms, El Hajj pays to outsource the work of hosting and maintaining the rigs. He tells CNBC that his 11 machines mine for litecoin and dogecoin, which collectively bring in the equivalent of about .02 bitcoin a month, or $360.
It’s a similar story for Salah Al Zaatare, an architect living 20 minutes south of El Hajj in the coastal city of Sidon. Al Zaatare tells CNBC that he began mining dogecoin and litecoin in March of this year to augment his income. He now has 10 machines that he keeps with Abu Daher. Al Zaatare’s machines are newer models so he pulls in more than El Hajj — about $7,200 a month.
“I got into it because I think it will become a good investment for the future,” Al Zaatare told CNBC.
Al Zaatare pulled all of his money out of the bank before the crisis hit in 2019, and he held onto that cash until deciding to invest his life savings into mining equipment last year.
“I don’t have any problem now living in Lebanon since I am getting fresh dollars from mining,” said Myriam Harfoush, a 32-year-old French teacher living in Baakleen — about a 45-minute drive south of Beirut.
Harfoush, who trades in crypto on the side, told CNBC in a WhatsApp message that she took all of her money out of the bank at the start of the crisis and now has mining machines in Zaarouriyeh. (Harfoush only spoke to CNBC in written messages on WhatsApp, citing concerns over speaking by phone.)
“If you can get the machine, and you get the power, you get the money,” said Shafer. “Crypto is something that with the right type of expertise, you can produce in your local context.”
Overhead power lines transmit hydroelectricity to the surrounding towns.
Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, dogecoin, and litecoin are created through a process known as proof-of-work, in which miners around the world run high-powered computers that collectively validate transactions and simultaneously create new tokens. The process requires a lot of electricity, and because this is the only variable cost in a low-margin industry, miners tend to seek out the cheapest sources of power.
More often than not, renewables offer the most competitive pricing on electricity.
“It’s a way to convert a locally stranded resource (electricity) into a global commodity,” explained Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, which focuses on blockchain investments. “Hydro, especially run on the river, is one of those classic resources which tends to have a supply-demand mismatch.”
Dammed hydro can better accommodate fluctuations in demand and grid needs, whereas run-of-the-river hydro produces constantly, Carter tells CNBC.
Helium machine mounted on top of a house in Lebanon.
Mohamad El Chamaa
“So you often see these stranded or underutilized hydro resources being monetized part of the time with bitcoin mining, as we saw infamously in Sichuan and Yunnan in China,” continued Carter.
Abu Daher taps into a hydropower project which harnesses electricity from the 90-mile Litani River that cuts across southern Lebanon. He says he is getting 20 hours a day of electricity at old pre-inflationary rates.
“So basically, we are paying very cheap electricity, and we are getting fresh dollars through mining,” continued Abu Daher.
But the government, facing electrical shortages, is starting to crack down.
In January, police raided a small crypto mining farm in the hydro-powered town of Jezzine, seizing and dismantling mining rigs in the process. Soon after, the Litani River Authority, which oversees the country’s hydroelectric sites, reportedly said that “energy intensive cryptomining” was “straining its resources and draining electricity.”
“We had some meetings with the police, and we don’t have any problems with them, because we are taking legal electricity, and we are not affecting the infrastructure,” he said.
Whereas Abu Daher says that he has set up a meter that officially tracks how much energy his machines have consumed, other miners have allegedly hitched their rigs to the grid illegally and are not paying for power.
Electricity harnessed from the Litani River transmits electricity to the Charles Helou power station, which provides enough electricity to power the mining farms in the area.
Mohamad El Chamaa
“Basically, a lot of other persons are having some issues, because they are not paying for electricity, and they are affecting the infrastructure,” he said.
Abu Daher, who has a knack for building creative designs to solve real-world problems, says that his next goal is creating a closed energy loop for his mining farms. He envisions a system in which the heat produced by the machines is harnessed and that geothermal energy is repurposed to power the miners, as well as to heat homes and hospitals in the villages where these mines are located.
“Instead of buying fuel to heat up our homes, we would buy mining machines. We produce heat to heat up our building, and at the same time, we produce money,” Abu Daher explained of his grand vision for the future of crypto mining in Lebanon.
Ahmad Abu Daher repairing mining equipment in the basement of a home in Zaarouriyeh.
Rail and transport are organic fits for hydrogen fuel cells, gurus say. Where hydrogen matches in floor transportation is much less specified.
Long-haul trucking holds opportunity. Medium- and weighty-responsibility vehicles take in 26 p.c of U.S. transportation gasoline, in accordance to the EPA. Fuel cells confirm useful in the strength density hydrogen provides. They have speedy refueling moments and a more compact weight penalty than battery electrical cars.
Sucking up payload potential with large batteries offers a dilemma for extensive-haul trucking simply because it minimizes income. For the reason that of fat variances, a gas-mobile truck on a 350-mile run can carry about 38,000 lbs of cargo when compared with 33,000 pounds for a battery electric truck, in accordance to Michael Roeth, govt director of the North American Council for Freight Effectiveness. Whilst it really is heavier than a standard inner combustion tractor, a 2,000-pound federal payload allowance for zero-emission vans puts a gasoline-mobile truck’s cargo potential at par with its diesel counterpart, he mentioned.
In terms of full price of ownership, fuel mobile supplier Ballard estimates battery electric powered vans would price $434,381 in regional-haul situations a equivalent gasoline cell truck would cost $414,367, a rate that’s on a par with diesel, the organization mentioned.
A September 2021 assessment from the Nationwide Renewable Strength Laboratory presents far more mixed effects,whichassistance the notion there is certainly place for both of those technologies. It implies each powertrain may perhaps maintain expense-of-possession rewards in unique business enterprise eventualities and route distances. Gas prices are a significant variable.
In general, the lab’s researchers say electric powertrains may be finest in shorter-selection apps or when dwell time is not a problem. The report said both equally technologies could be price aggressive with diesel vans as early as 2025. “A fantastic rule of thumb is that you will see hydrogen fuel cells the place you see diesel these days and battery electric where by you see gasoline,” mentioned Tom Stephenson, co-founder of Pajarito Powder, a New Mexico hydrogen components startup backed by Hyundai Motor Group.
Not anyone is persuaded. When John Henry Harris co-launched medium-duty truck startup Harbinger in July 2021, he opted to start from scratch with a reason-designed auto. He immediately soured on hydrogen as a probable solution.
“When we essentially glance at the maturity of the two methods, we see an purchase of magnitude separation,” he explained. “We arrived at the level in the earlier two decades that we can develop an electrical system without having compromise. If we want to do that with a hydrogen motor vehicle, we are not even shut still.”
NEW YORK – There aren’t lots of rooms that can be part of collectively the likes of Cher, Kim Kardashian, Martha Stewart and Lenny Kravitz. Then all over again, the CFDA MannerAwards aren’t just any home.
Best names in fashion and amusement flooded downtown Manhattan at Cipriani South Road to reunite and fete every other at the 2022 Council of Trend Designers of America’s once-a-year event Monday evening, honoring the organization’s 60th anniversary.
Style is oft a mirror, both equally displaying us the place we are now and providing a glimpse back at wherever we’ve been, and attendees cheered for a combine of both as they celebrated sartorial icons and rookie visionaries.
“What I have uncovered along the way is currently being yourself is the most important point you can do,” said Kravitz, who earned the night’s vogue icon award. “And that you might be going to make issues. I surely have experienced my fair share of style fails, but that’s component of evolving.”
Champagne flowed and attendees combined and mingled all through an hourslong cocktail hour and evening meal reception, the place Gigi Hadid and Trevor Noah chatted concerning courses, and Katie Homes shared a table with “Providing Sunset” star Christine Quinn.
Just about every superstar conceivable floated as a result of the place: Jaden Smith, Jesse Williams, Bernadette Peters, Halle Bailey, Amanda Seyfried, Mariska Hargitay, Bowen Yang, Trevor Noah, Tinashe, Christina Ricci, Bradley Cooper, Janelle Monáe and Vanessa Hudgens.
Kim Kardashian honored with Amazon Innovation Award
The Kardashian-Jenner clan, such as Khloé Kardashian and Kris, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, clapped for Kim Kardashian as she accepted the Amazon Innovation Award alongside her Skims co-founder and CEO Jens Grede and founding husband or wife Emma Grede for their perform on the shapewear model.
The family dynamic played into Kardashian’s speech:
“Mom, change your mobile phone off,” Kardashian explained to laughs as a mobile phone in the group commenced to ring.
Joking aside, Kardashian, 42, received critical in a rallying contact for inclusion.
“We are so happy of Skims’ capability to not only innovate with our products, but also with our mission of inclusivity,” said Kardashian, who obtained the award from “Skims supporter” Martha Stewart. “We have put a solid emphasis because our launch on continuing to shape the industry to embrace dimension, equality and range as a fixture not just a trend.”
“Russian Doll” actress Natasha Lyonne served as emcee for the festivities, garnering some uncertainlaughs with jokes on voting and fashion’s lack of diversity.
“I like any market that brings together utter eccentricity with short tempers, chain smoking indoors, imprecise exclusivity, impeccable aesthetics, fleeting taste and a fat decline software sponsored by the Sackler family members,” Lyonne stated.
Joseph Altuzarra, Gabriela Hearst, Aurora James, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough served as co-hosts for the awards, offered in partnership with Amazon.
Zendaya stylist Legislation Roach says ‘anything is possible’
Kerry Washington, who was on hand to current stylist and self-proclaimed graphic architect Regulation Roach with the inaugural stylist award, recounted Roach’s ascent from his humble Chicago roots to inventively getting ways to costume then-up-and-coming actress Zendaya, with whom he’s crafted some of the crimson carpet’s most memorable seems to be.
“In 2016, I was invited with Michael Kors to occur to the CFDA Awards at Hammerstein Ballroom, and I sat in the kitchen area and I viewed from the kitchen area as the waiters served your food items and served your beverages and I just mentioned to myself, ‘One day, I’m going to be on that stage,'” said an overcome Roach. “I am the example that everything is possible.”
Lenny Kravitz, much more honored at CFDA Awards
Whilst accepting his award, introduced to him by Bradley Cooper, Kravitz said he was “exceptionally grateful” that “we can occur with each other tonight and celebrate our trend and expression.”
Other winners of the night time bundled Luar’s Raul Lopez for accessory designer Elena Velez for emerging designer Bode’s Emily Bode Aujla for menswear designer and Khaite’s Catherine Holstein for womenswear designer.
For the council’s milestone 60th 12 months, the firm made a one-time special anniversary award, specified to longtime member Jeffrey Banking institutions. Virgil Abloh gained a posthumous honor, The Board of Trustee’s award, accepted by his wife, Shannon Abloh. Slaysians from the The House of Slay, featuring Prabal Gurung, Laura Kim, Phillip Lim, Tina Leung and Ezra William, earned the optimistic social affect award for their do the job combatting Asian detest, even though the United Nations gained the environmental sustainability award.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton took house the founder’s award, even though groundbreakingstylist Patti Wilson thanked collaborator Cher and the nuns from her childhood Catholic school for inspiring her while accepting the media award. Laurie Lynn Stark and Richard Stark of Chrome Hearts received the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award.
