New Genome Studies Reveal Divergences among Great Apes

With an entrepreneurial career spanning decades, Luis Miguel Chong Chong leads the Mexican company Disruptiva Works Technology- and innovation-focused, Luis Miguel Chong Chong leverages his healthcare and pharmaceutical industry experience in following advances in areas such as human genomics and health care.

As reported in Inverse, recent breakthroughs in the study of great ape genomes are providing new insights into the course of human evolution. Alongside gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees, humans are a type of ape that diverged from a common ancestor some six to eight million years ago.

The recently completed project involved assembling and sequencing an orangutan and chimpanzee genome employing high depth, real-time sequence data at the single molecule level. In total, more than half a million full-length genes were sequenced for each species.

Through high resolution comparative analysis, genetic variation that separates humans from the other great apes can be studied in depth. This allows scientists to understand the radical restructuring of genome regions that have influenced our unique human lineage. Of intense scientific interest is pinpointing those genetic mutation hotspots that alter how critical genes are expressed during brain development.

Report Points to Cognitive Computing Market Expansion

A respected Mexican entrepreneurial presence, Luis Miguel Chong Chong’s leadership experience extends to areas such as infrastructure, health sciences, and communication. Among Luis Miguel Chong Chong’s current areas of focus is big data and cognitive computing.

A recently released report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) brought attention to a global market dynamic in which cognitive computing industry competition is still relatively low. Major players such as IBM, Google, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft Corporation leverage economies of scale and past innovations to take advantage of burgeoning machine learning and artificial intelligence markets. 

Health care can be found at the forefront of industries in which such technologies are deployed, along with energy, telecom, manufacturing, media, and business verticals. With North America leading the way in terms of cognitive computing penetration, deployments by small-to-medium-sized companies and educational institutions are driving the largest regional gains. In tandem with this, the IT paradigm is rapidly shifting to cloud-based applications, with cyber security apps that have cognitive computing functions meeting a major market need.