~Week 8 in BeST Programme~

Assalamualaikum wbt.

This week, we continued our last week session on clinical research organized by the Clinical Research Skills Training & Events (CReST EvendZ).

17 January 2011

- Today, we had an interactive session with Mdm. Anne John Michael, discussing on good writing for effective communication. It's important for those who interested to involved in medical writing as medical communication media. The examples are journal articles, magazine, medical article for mainstream media and posters or brochures. Then, we proceeded with publication ethics and types of scientific publications. Last but not least, we learned about writing styles and preparing a paper for a scientific journal.

18 January 2011

- We continued the session with Dr. Lim Tech Onn, a consultant, discussing in introduction to healthcare biotechnology therapeutic products and the discovery and development of new drug. But the most interesting part of the session for me was during the presentation on career opportunities in healthcare biotechnology industry as I'm able to see the opportunities which I may overlooked before, thinking that it's not my field and I'm not suitable for it.  

19 January 2011

- The session on clinical research with CReST EvendZ ended today with discussion on contract research in Malaysia with Mdm. Loh Choon Shane. Then, we proceed with contract research organization (CRO) and development and challenges in contract research. We ended the session with a short discussion and Q&A session on the career opportunities in clinical research.

The session with CReST EvendZ was so informative. I learned a lot and discovered so many new thing especially in healthcare biotechnology. It's not necessarily means that we must be in healthcare mainstream if we want to join this so-called sexy industry. But the most important thing is the passion that highly demanded if you intended to join this field as the research will not only improve on the life quality but also may help saving more life in the future. 

Wallahu a'lam..  

~Week 7 in BeST Programme~

Assalamualaikum wbt.

From 10 to 14th January 2011, we had a long session on clinical research, conducted by Clinical Research Skills Training & Events (CReST EvendZ)

10 January 2011

- We start the session on Intellectual Property Protection in Malaysia, delivered by Assoc. Prof. Rohazar Wati Zuallcobley. What so important about patent? Well, analogically it's like getting a birth certificate for a newborn baby. In clinical research especially, patent is so important as it protect the product or in this case known as intellectual properties from being copied by other parties. In Malaysia, the patent is administered by Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO). We've told about the patent, trade mark and confidential information and trade secret.

11 January 2011

- Today, we discussed on Introduction of Clinical Research and Ethics, presented by Dr. Sia Koon Ket. Simply, clinical research is a research involving human being. Clinical trial need to be done first to ensure its safety and it can be classified into 5 phases ; 

Phase 0 -- treatment on animals to collect data of safety

Phase I -- testing on healthy human being (evaluate safety, safe dosage range, and side effects identification

Phase II -- test on patient (determine effectiveness, short-term effects and risks.

Phase III -- test on larger group of patient (confirmation of side effects and safety, comparison with commonly used treatment)

Phase IV -- after drug has been marketed (post marketing)

12 January 2011

- We continued with Sponsor's Role in Clinical Research  by Miss Adeline Kwok. We discussed on the role and importance of ICH GCP, IRB/EC and also adverse event surveillance.

13 January 2011

- We proceed with Regulatory Practices in Malaysia and GXP, presented by Dr. Kamaruzaman Saleh and Dr Tajuddin Akasah. We've been discussing on Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which mainly function to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being. Then, we proceeded with their guidelines on Good Laboratory Practices (GLP). Next, we discussed on application for Clinical Trial Import License (CTIL) and Clinical Trial Exemption (CTX) in Malaysia and also the concept of quality assurance, control and audit in Good Clinical Practices (GCP). We ended the day with discussion on quality and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

14 January 2011
- We continued the session on clinical research today discussing on clinical data management and the role of biostatistician in IIT clinical trial. The speakers were Ms. Teo Jau Shya and Ms. Lena Yeap Lay Ling. First, we learned on the characteristics of good clinical data management and data ethics. Next, we proceeded with the Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) and also the importance of biostatistic in performing clinical research.

Trump to-be!!

Assalamualaikum wbt

6 January 2011. Today we start a session on creativity and innovation with Dr Roland Xavier. Innovation, the ability to convert ideas become reality in our daily life and this is where entrepreneur was born. Knowing the secret weapon to market a so-called good product make me thought, "Hey, it wasn't that difficult" but believe me, it also won't be as easy as we hope. And these are the secrets!!

Important vs Interesting 

- Firstly, determine whether the product you want to market is either important or interesting from costumer    point of view. If it is only interesting, it might not be in the market for a long term. But if it important, it has potential to rule the market.

NABC

- Create the value of the product by determine the Need, Approach, Benefit, and Competition of the product.

Elevator pitch analogy

- Imagine that one lucky day where you happened to meet Mr. Donald Trump while riding the elevator. And you had in mind, a great business idea to propose to him. How you want to talk to him and grab his interest and maybe a chance to talk more about it with him later within a time less than 2 minutes?

Today, we had a great day and hopefully, tomorrow will be even exciting. Amin...

Wassalam..

Journey to the Stellagen

Assalamualaikum wbt.

Chicken Dance!!

5 January 2011. Today, we had a visit to the Stellagen Sdn. Bhd., a company that was set up in 2002 and main in poultry feeding and production. The factory is located in Batu Caves Industrial Park. We departed at 9.40 am and it takes about half an hour to reach there. Reaching there, we had been welcomed by the stafts. We had to wear special blue 'plastic shoes' before entering the factory to ensure the hygiene. Later, we had been divided into 3 groups an each group was guided by one staft walking around the factory. And for my group, we had been guided by Mr Hilmy. At the same time, another group was also having a trip to Inno Bio Ventures Sdn. Bhd. in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan and they departed at 7.30 am.

The factory is not so big looking from the outside but after entering it, I was quite shocked to discovered they managed to had a lab, fermentation, centrifuge, freeze drying, mixer and packaging corners inside. My group start the tour starting from the fermentation room followed by centrifuge, freeze drying, mixing and packaging and ended at the laboratory room. The tour took about an hour. We went back at 12.30 am.

Looking how the factory was managed by only 5 passionate employees, it make me think again that nothing is impossible in this world. Really. Nothing. What we need is only a gut to walk steps ahead from others and just a little bit of creative thinking. We don't have to be someone special to be creative right. So just keep thinking and improving yourself. and of course, we must be passion in whatever we do. Insyaallah in the future, I wish to have my own company just like them so that I can bring something benefit to the world. Amin.

Wassalam.

Cooking class!!

Assalamualaikum wbt.

3 January 2011. I think it's still not too late for me to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! May this year bring happiness and joy to all of us and may Allah bless us all the time. And may all the wishes come true. Amin. Today in BeST programme, we continued our session with Mr Barjoyai on creativity and innovation. The first thing we've done today was learned about the force relationship technique in innovation. what is force relationship technique? Well, it is actually a technique where we force a relationship between seemingly unrelated ideas to improve the product. In this case, we try to relate our product with the random words chose from a dictionary. Our group, Pecah Mental's product is the ARTIFICIAL PETROLEUM from agricultural wastes and guess what we got as our random word? HOUSE MOUSE! So how we force related these two elements?

First, we listed down all the components and  also features that we can think of for both elements. Such as the components of artificial petroleum are agricultural wastes, ferum, viscous and oil while the components of house mouse are sprinter, blood, grip and receptor. These how we force related the house mouse's components into our product :

Viscous à Spinter   = increase the production rate of the product

Ferum   à Blood    = the ferum contained in the mouse blood can be used as catalyst in producing the artificial petroleum

Oil  à Grip   = the fuel produced from the petroleum can act to grip or coating the stroke in the engine thus reduce friction 

Oil  à Receptor = the fuel can act double action as fuel and cooler

Next, we learned about the product values. There are 4 of them which are aesthetic, egronomics, technical and economics. We also learned about 4 action frameworks which are reduce, create, raise and eliminate. Both the products value and action framework analysis can be used to reduce the production cost and increase value to the product. And last but not least, we learned about strategic canvas. In this strategy, we need to list the features required for the product and compared ours to the competitors, identifying which factors they invest in strategically. 

But the best part in our class today, we had a cooking session with Mr Barjoyai. He taught us how to cook nasi briyani with less than 30 minutes using the microwave and baking a bread within 1 and a half hours. Maybe later on, I can try it at home whenever I feel like eating them without spending lots of my time in the kitchen. Today went smoothly and inspirationally and Allah, I pray that tomorrow will be even better. Amin.

Wassalam..

Juice of the Brain!!

Assalamualaikum wbt.

30 December 2010.. Today in BeST programme, we continued on yesterday topic, creativity and innovation. Today, we discussed on the functions of the brain. Just like we all already know, our brains consist of 2 parts, left and right. The left brain mainly controlled the logical meanwhile the right brain handles the the creative thinking and believe it or not, most people are left brainers. How can we 'activate' the right brain? One of the methods is by remembering our dreams. According to Mr Barjoyai, every night we'll dreamed and there are about 8 dreams per night. However, we usually only remembered the last chapter before we wake up. Then, what if we can't even remember even one episode of the dream? Sorry to say but we might have lost control of our right brain (I also have that problem). So how can we cure it? Easy! Everyday before you went to sleep, wish to yourself that you want to remember the dreams for the night and the next day, right when you wake up, try to remember the dreams. Insyaallah, we can improve the ability of our right brain.

Other than that, we also learned on the Seven Hat Thinking, an approach to the balanced thinking. The seven hats are white (facts), red (emotions), black (negative), yellow (positive), green (creative), blue (solution) and grey (religious) hats. These seven hats can help us to get right away from argument in order to get more productive discussions.

Today is the last day for two of our BeST family, Sabrina and Ezwan as they already been called for jobs starting this January. We wish them best of lucks in their career and hope they won't forget us here. We're gonna miss both of you.

This morning, the prime minister had announced that Friday, 31 December 2010 had been declared as public holiday after the victory of Malaysia's team in winning the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010. So I decided to went back to my hometown. We had a great day today and I pray for tomorrow will be even better. Insyallah..

Wassalam..

The start of something new..

Assalamualaikum wbt.

29 December 2010.. Today in BeST programme, we start with the new module on creativity and innovation. The speaker was Mr. Barjoyai. We started the session with getting familiar with creativity and innovation and also how to activate the unconscious mind. Do you know that the unconscious mind can determine ones successful? This is because the unconscious mind work only by realizing anything that the conscious mind think of. So all we have to do is to think about what we're gonna be or do and leave the rest to the unconscious mind but the most important is that we must believe in ourselves. How can we 'activate' the unconscious mind? The easiest exercise that we can do is trying to penetrate a straw through a potato. Sounds impossible right, but believe me, if you believe you can do it, then you can do it. At first, I also failed to do so, but after some practices I managed to do it, although it doesn't completely penetrate the potato.

Presenting, Mr Potato stabbed by me..hehe

During the class, we've been exposed with some innovation that can be found from other countries, showed by Mr. Barjoyai from his magic backpack. Some of the innovations were so creative but sadly, it doesn't penetrate the market in Malaysia as we might not believe on the potential of the product. One of my favorite innovation is the spectacle with MP3 and camera controlled by a remote control. Cool doesn't it. Wish I could have one someday. Looking all these gadgets, build my spirit that one day I'm gonna design and innovate something useful that can help in making human life easier and better in the future. Amin..

Tonight, there going to be the second final of AFF Suzuki Cup between Malaysia and Indonesia. And Alhamdulillah, the luck was in our side as we won against Indonesia with aggregate 4-2. Congratulations to team Harimau Malaya. Today went smoothly and hopefully tomorrow will be even better. Insyaallah..

Wassalam..

Team Harimau Malaya after winning the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010