Okay, welcome to the session on economic outlook for Latin America. This will be a bilingual session. The panelists and myself will be speaking in whatever language we feel are comfortable in, so I will continue in English, but panelists will be replying either in English or Spanish. Historic is an overused word, especially by journalists, but truly this is a historic juncture for Latin America. The Chinese-driven commodity cycle was historically one of the largest ever, if not the largest, and that's drawn to a close. Interest rates globally are at historic lows. Trade is, patterns of trade or at least the rhetoric surrounding patterns of trade is changing. After at least a couple of decades going in the other direction, protectionism in Latin America is receding and possibly growing in the states and Europe. We've had a water anti-corruption drive in Brazil, which has spread around the rest of the country, and I'd argue that's a potentially historic change. And we also have some major elections in 2018 in Brazil, Mexico, hopefully in Venezuela, also in Colombia, and potentially even Raul Castro will step down. So all of these elections are important in their own right, and usually in runs-up to elections in Latin America, decisionally there's been an important economic effect. I've got a very distinguished panel here, and we're going to do a tour of the world and of the region and of several countries. And here on my right, Nicholas Jovnik, economy minister of Argentina, and formerly had a large role in the private sector. Guillermo Ortiz, former central bank governor of Mexico, former finance minister of Mexico, and currently chairman for BTG Pactual outside of Latin America, although it's a Brazilian bank, Guillermo is always going to offer to talk about Brazil, as we're missing economically half the continent on this panel. David Lipton, first managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and I think the first time a senior IMF official has been in Argentina since 2007. So welcome back and another sign of how Argentina has changed. Alicia Barsena, who is executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean for 10 years, and Lucido de la Guardia, economy minister of Panama, finance minister of Panama with extensive experience in capital markets and finance and banking. So David, perhaps we could start with you, and just in a few short words, if that's possible, give your view of how you see Latin America in 2017, after a fairly miserable year last year, and how you see it fitting into the rest of the world. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. We see global growth momentum picking up, and it's not something that just started in the last month or two, but really for about six or seven months, industrial production has been picking up around the world very broadly. So we have been projecting higher growth this year than last, higher growth next year than this. The region, of course, had a very bad year in 2016, but it's pulling out of recession. And I think that this gives the region a chance to make important strides with the global economy more vibrant and with a turnaround in most countries in Latin America. There's its time, in essence, to try to make the most of an opportunity. Now, it's a situation in the world, but also for Latin America that's quite risky. We see upside and downside risks still. Obviously the uncertainties around the policies of the new U.S. administration remain very large uncertainties, very pertinent for this continent. Surely everyone in the continent will have to deal with whatever policy decisions are made in Washington. But I think in the face of that uncertainty, what's most important for Latin America is that it do all the things that countries do what they can domestically to get their economies moving and to strengthen growth over the long term. While there's short-run recovery, we see potential growth for the region really quite modest, maybe 2.5 to 2.7 percent or so. So countries improving their own investment environments, trying to find ways to boost potential growth, but also countries working together in essence to hedge against whatever might happen in the world economy to build greater links between countries, more intraragional trade. Our analysis shows that if the region has trade links that are more like those in other regions among emerging market countries, that there could be a substantial boost to growth. Okay, so we're really into the sort of hard-scrabble micro-structural reforms Alicia, I want to turn to you. The region sailed basically through the global financial crisis. It had some fiscal space, accelerated spending. That fiscal space is now constrained. So what can a government do in terms of pulling financial levers, be it monetary or fiscal, to propel growth? What ammunition is left? I will speak in Spanish, and I would like to say that first of all, I believe expectations for this year are much more positive than for last year. At least the region is going back to positive growth rates after two years worth of contraction. Our expectation is 1.3 percent, and I believe the region has faced cautiously what I believe is a very uncertain international context. So when you ask what can governments do, first of all, I believe they can make a good assessment of what's going on internationally to understand how things are going. And I would like to reflect on how the region stands facing this and certain international contexts. First of all, we have relatively curbed inflation in the region around 8.3 percent on average, of course, Mexico and Central America with much lower inflation levels than South America and, of course, excluding Venezuela from the average. A current account deficit that's also in curb of 2.2 percent on average, I would say, international reserves that have soared or gone up curiously and sovereign risk has improved as well, I believe, which opens up options for foreign funding, which has been one of the exits our region has found. Obviously, public spending has also increased and precisely what I think the region hasn't been able to underpin enough and needs to refocus on is investments. It's been 11 consecutive quarters of falling investments and perhaps it was investments that have hitched some of the economies in the region, such as in the case of Colombia. So structural gaps persist that are very complex and diverse and very difficult to put in the same basket. This region is difficult to analyze as a whole because we have different realities. Now, I think it's most important to note that today's uncertainty is especially in connection to trade. Actually, there is great uncertainty and some truths we know that TTP is not working, TTIP is not working either, that there will be a revision of free trade agreements coupled with the fact that trade was doing very badly already in our region in 2016 exports fell to minus 5% or by minus 5% and they completed a four-year term of consecutive contraction in 2015. They fell by 14% roughly. So speaking about intra-regional trade in our region, we haven't been able to leverage intra-regional trade. Notice that three or four years ago, intra-regional trade was around 19% whereas now it's 16%. We've fallen by three percentage points. Why? Mercosur, why? Central America because Chinese products got their minister. So that Central America integration, which was the most powerful one, the most significant one collapsed because China became a player. Now, the new approval of the TTP benefits Central America to a degree in a way because Vietnam was one of the economies that was going to compete strongly against some Central American economies. So to your questions, what can countries do now? I believe on the one hand assess their fiscal space. Carefully, I believe there is reduced fiscal space but I need to say something that's quite important. Namely, more than 14 countries in the region have undergone tax reforms. Mexico, Chile, so these tax reforms have been very important. I know the private sector doesn't like to hear about tax reforms or raising taxes but actually they have offset part or the in part the drop of non-tax revenue and that has been important for some countries. So this year we expect there will be a rebound in raw materials especially hydrocarbons and minerals and we expect better times ahead. But there's another interesting point. We need to have this higher tax burden be used appropriately and an interesting point the minister will be telling us about is tax evasion. We have assessed tax evasion in Latin America and got to the point where tax evasion now or in 2015 which is our last accurate measurement and in 2016 we confirmed the figure represents 6.7% of the GDP some $340 billion only worth of evasion of income tax and VAT in addition to illicit flows. The whitewashing of $110 billion in Argentina the regularization is very important and recovering 15% in terms of tax revenues I don't know the minister will tell us in your time but these are very specific measures to increase the tax space. So many times before and it would be ungenerous to say nothing has changed in Latin America but there's still a long way to go and this is a very familiar list of less tax evasion more structural reforms and more inter-regional trade and as a Brazilian trade minister was saying earlier exports from the region fell to the rest of the world but exports within the region fell almost three times as much and a lot of that which is to do with Brazil's recession one can only assume. Guillermo one has a sense of Latin America after two very difficult years sort of lying on the bed gets up in 2016 this year only to find oh my god now we've got more international uncertainty than we could ever imagine and that's particularly true in Mexico and I wondered if you could give us your view of how you see Mexico in particular and the uncertainty with the United States and perhaps your view about how you see Brazil going ahead for the next year. Following Alicia I will also speak in Spanish. As you well pointed out and I think the word that best describes the economic environment not only in the region but globally is uncertainty and in the particular case of Mexico we need to remember that it took one generation to Mexico to go from a closed economy to an open one one that is integrated in world trade vertically with North America in the industrial sector but also the evolution of the bilateral relations with the US have been very important for this generation in the past 25 years going from a confrontational relationship with the US where we were members of the non-aligned group we never broke ties with Cuba we always voted against the US in the UN the relationship has evolved to become a trusted business partner with the US so the shock to Mexico from the American election and all the rhetoric prior to the election during the campaign regarding Mexico was a traumatic event our friends to the North weren't as good friends as we were that's right you never expected an ally a partner to turn their back on you the way they did so why was Mexico such an easy target for Mr. Trump because the narrative in very general terms is that the US is declining as a result of globalization trade migration which has stolen jobs and increased insecurity so Mexico check check check in all these boxes so it figures so the election was highly disruptive for Mexico the exchange rate depreciated significantly markets reacted very negatively and all economists lowered their expectations of growth significantly so where are we standing today three months afterwards three months after the election I believe we are at a much better than a stance why because those in charge of the bilateral agenda on matters of trade and regarding security migration drug trafficking weapons which is a dimension that is equally important to trade in bilateral relations there are experienced people who know the country very well and apparently those preliminary rounds are being dealt with appropriately for instance NAFTA at the end of the day the revision of the free trade agreement for North America may end up being reasonable and even better than before we could go into the details but that's how it looks today and on the security front the US finds it extremely important to have Mexico's cooperation there's a long lasting relationship between intelligence services of the United States and Mexico so that's doing well because those in charge in Mexico are two generals who know the issue very well this is also translated into a behavior of the economy in the first quarter being much better than expected the economy grew by 3% in January the quarterly growth must stand more or less at that rate in annualized terms so looking ahead over the next few months unless there are twitters and the mood changes I don't know we will probably witness a much more normal relationship a restored relationship towards the end in the case of Mexico although there's always the uncertainty in Brazil I think something very significant is happening first of all Brazil is exiting the worst recession in its history and this year the Brazilian economy or I'm sorry last year fell 3.6% roughly and for this year the forecast is of 0.7% growth it's modest but the swing from minus 3.6 to 3 is huge in Sao Paulo a very wise comment last year when Dilma Rousseff was impeached he said well in terms of the economy the downside now is capped the question is how big is the upside and at the moment it's looking to be quite small it's not to say it's insignificant do you think President Temer will deliver Brazil in 2018 with a stabilized economy and some progress on the fiscal branch I believe there is a high probability of this happening the most important topic from the medium term is to ensure sustainability of public finance and I think Mr. Temer is surrounded with a good team has performed an important adjustment has put a cap on total spending in real terms and is now reforming social security indexing pension system and Mr. Temer can move politically to get the votes that's the most important thing and if he does this the other very important aspect is that inflation is dropping significantly this year Brazil will have lower inflation than Mexico which hadn't happened in I don't know how many years CC yes I can't remember when the last time that happened was but inflation in Brazil must be close to 4.5 or 4.7% and in Mexico it will be over 5% so this gives the central bank the possibility of bringing down interest rates which have a fiscal impact and have an important impact on economic activity because the monetary stimulus coming from reducing or lowering interest rates will make the economy recover a little in 2017 but the stimulus for 2018 will be very strong so I think Brazil chose modest growth this year but next year if things, if it does reasonably well might surprise us with a far higher growth Nicolas our host thank you thank you for organizing this very important event space to spend money to raise government debt and push it into the economy and indeed it's still running a budget deficit and inflation is coming down give us your sense of how you see the next year well Argentina Argentina inherited an economy with enormous problems a stagnant economy with many regulations many exchange rates, capital controls, prohibitions of all kinds a very high fiscal deficit isolation from the world, default we had no official statistics and in the midst of that desert in terms of good news or good policies we received one single advantage which is to have a relatively low public debt if we take the debt with the private sector we will see a lot of great international organizations so if you use your zoom to look at Argentina in 20 years time what the beginnings of President Macri's administration was like you'll be able to see those two things enormous macroeconomic problems, lousy policies even institutionally speaking and a single advantage within that context a government with a parliamentary minority very clear the government controls a very small part of Congress five governors out of 24, 90 congressmen or MPs of 270 something in Senate the minority is even greater and that generated the conditions to encourage a gradual consolidation, fiscal policy taking into account the fact that Argentina was about to go under, go through a very, very serious crisis similar to the one in Venezuela but a change in administration prevented this from happening the possibility of taking debts, parliamentary minorities and the fact that society did not go through a crisis led to a fiscal policy of gradual consolidation gradual but consolidation anyway we have a non-negotiable commitment to the reduction in fiscal deficit our goal is to take the deficit from 5.4 which is the level that we received it at to 2.2 by 2019 if the economy grows by 3% annually which we think will happen that's one of the reforms that we are implementing we will stabilize the GDP debt ratio it will be lower than the emerging markets and it has done because very few countries have done such a turnaround in such a short space there are two countries I can think of and one of them is my one England but it's a story of disaster averted and gradual change including gradual fiscal consolidation although gradual fiscal consolidation is a phrase I've heard many years before in Argentina one day we'll close the fiscal deficit I don't think that's quite so Argentina has followed some gradual policies the fiscal policy it has advanced very fast institutionally speaking and in monetary terms we have a central bank implementing inflation goals that are very strict we have lifted controls on capital the first week of this administration's term which shows the government's commitment to economic reforms so fiscal gradualism is not a slogan to procrastinate in fiscal terms it's an economic strategy and within the framework of that economic strategy I would say that we can look at what we did in 2016, 2016 was the first year since the year 2002 in which the primary spending did not grow in real terms we came from 12 years where the real primary spending grew 10 percentage points a year and the tax pressure went up one point of the GDP every year last year we brought it down one and a half points so we're not talking about things we're going to do tomorrow we're also talking about things we did yesterday and to supplement this I would like to say that there are two fundamental components in our fiscal program one a fiscal responsibility law we have signed an agreement with the provinces two weeks ago to freeze primary spending not only of the national administration but provincial administrations from now on and that is where the provinces will also come to an agreement so as not to create or establish higher tax rates or create new taxes and we will be sending to congress a bill on tax reform after the midterm elections we are already ahead of time with our project but since we have elections this year and feel this project this bill will be accompanied by the opposition in a normal year and not a political year we decided to shield it from the political noise and then submit it after the elections but that tax reform will allow us to fight inflation, evasion because we will eliminate exemptions increase the tax base it is very optimistic that the combination of austerity on the side of spending and a far better tax administration will allow us to comply with our fiscal objectives it is clear that this administration has made a firm commitment with its goals indeed now Panama you're in a unique strategic space in a way that you see lots of flows of commerce and I'm wondering from the Panamanian point of view because we're just sticking with the region here for the moment how you're seeing global trade through the Panama Canal because I know trade of course is a leading indicator for so much else and dry good shipping as well how you see, if you see any reflection of these uncertainties in global trade through global trade flows through Panama thank you John Paul first, I think first and foremost we had a year 2015 where world trade flows declined and however by the last quarter of 2016 and the first two months of 2017 we have seen a two digit increase in world trade flows through the logistics platform in Panama obviously the trade benefits from the expansion or extension but we have also seen important increases in the management of cargo in Panama's ports and transshipment as well as for the first time in four years positive numbers in free zones which is linked to a recovery in Latin America because most of its customers are in Latin America so within this context the indication is that world trade is recovering in line with the expectations of better world growth and this will be highly beneficial particularly for Canada we will have according to a clock 5.9% growth we are projecting 5.8% growth and a very low inflation rate the main risks for Panama and the region are due to the lack of certainty in the policies of the US government although I agree with Guillermo that the rhetoric compared to what is really happening we have seen far more reasonable steps taken though what we heard of during and before or during the campaign, the political campaign which is good for world trade there will be changes regarding taxes in the US as well as immigration and trade but I don't think they will be as drastic as thought of originally before President Trump's inauguration Alicia which is one sign of recession and also uncertainty and David the IMF used to be a frequent visitor in the region but has barely been around for 15 years there are some small programs in the Caribbean and elsewhere there was a time last year when at least in Washington Brazil Brazil might need an IMF program and I wondered what countries you see now as being most vulnerable we will help countries that have a problem and feel that they need help I think obviously the country that is in the most disastrous circumstance right now is Venezuela and I hope that they find a way to change their orientation and start thinking about how to bring their problems under control fund program or no fund program they have an important stabilization to bring about that would be the only pathway forward to bringing some relief to their people I think that different countries in the region have different challenges most countries have passed through the recession passed through a period as a result of weakening currency where they had to have quite restrictive monetary policies and so now there is a chance for those policies to either be on hold or possibly to ease but there are still fiscal adjustments across the continent that are important for some in response to terms of trade deteriorations likely to be permanent and so there is the need to adjust for that on a permanent basis others have different challenges I do want to say though follow up to your questioning of Nicholas about perhaps your skeptical question about Argentina I think Argentina this government confronted a very difficult situation has taken the right approach to deal with it and is off to a good start and headed in the right direction the country must bring inflation down to much lower levels if there is going to be investment and prosperity in the long term and at the same time it must in the fiscal area there is both the need to control the deficit but also the need to make with spending to GDP that has risen very substantially in the last decade there is the need also to make space in the fiscal area for the kinds of spending that will actually be needed to drive the economy in the future for infrastructure and other needed spending so it is a complex task and I think it would have been there are some countries destabilized countries where there is a very quick disinflation from very very high levels but I think Argentina is a case where a steady approach to dealing with the monetary situation and the fiscal situation to try to also ensure recovery is probably the right way forward I think that is a ringing endorsement one topic that has continued to come up here in the forum has been corruption has significant microeconomic effects it can stall investment we have seen that in Brazil we have certainly seen that in Venezuela we have seen that in Argentina in the past and the point was raised earlier a sense it was a question from a Mexican saying has this corruption purge in Latin America gone too far in the sense that it is disincentivizing investment there is just too much uncertainty externally and now there is too much uncertainty internally Guillermo or anyone in fact does anyone feel like saying please I would say that it has not gone too far any level of corruption affects investment and credibility in the country in the last few years Latin America gave a step backwards in Argentina's case it was very visible the levels of corruption during the previous administration were extremely high and that also led to not only to a worse situation a lower level of foreign investment but also led to a worse appropriation projects were implemented where it was easier to generate illegally obtained money and all our program of spending on roads on routes on highways generated very high spending and we have tended the roads in Argentina and since this there have been savings of between 30 and 40 percent which are used for more public works so the effects are multiple and it's clear that to fight against, to fight corruption leads to not only a better institutional environment or climate it also improves the spending on infrastructure because you can get lower price levels and with the same amount of funds you can do far more than what is happening here today I agree with Nicolas because corruption is clearly a tax paid by the poor but you have to be very careful in ensuring that when cleaning your house you are not knocking it down and on behalf of he whom you are doing justice you have to protect people President of Panama has been subpoenaed by the Supreme Court Correct and Odebrecht had huge projects in Panama Yes and in line with that President Barilla's administration has made the biggest effort since we are a democratic country at attack corruption however you have to be very careful so that those steps don't generate greater instability in the country so that they don't generate unemployment and low economic growth or even recession and this balance should be handled very carefully because if not it will lead to instability and all the progress achieved in the fight against corruption might lead to step backwards This often takes place in steps rather than gradual evolutionary change so sometimes it's difficult to control the process once it's unleashed Guillermo The question of corruption will be the defining subject in elections in Mexico next year this is that important and we have to go beyond corruption and the rule of law these things obviously go hand in hand There are three very important points and I want to go over them very quickly first at a micro level in Mexico there are good statistics and academic surveys etc on the institutional state or the institutional strength in each of the states there is a ranking in terms of legal corruption or judicial corruption permits of ease of doing business it's very clear the properly governed states where there is less corruption greater institutional strength receive more investment and grow more even in one same region obviously there are two Mexico's the north of Mexico integrated to world trade and the southern part which has suffered a relative backwardness as a consequence of an after but this is interesting because it's a micro experiment and I agree with the minister who says that issues should not come to the point of stagnation in the case of Brazil the most commented and most important case in the region regarding prosecution or prosecution of corruption which has had costs in terms of paralysis in some sectors and a lack of decision making in others in the long run or in the short run this will be the best thing that could have happened to Brazil because this will force an institutional change a really important change and this bitter stage they have gone through will provide great benefits so the question of the rule of law in Latin America is essential I think Chile is the country with the greatest institutional strengths and has had them for many years but because of the question of social media corruption is in Instagram on Facebook and is clearly visible but this is a really important change because before you could see acts of corruption or acts of corruption were overlooked but now they are more evident in Brazil in the constitution of 1988 they created a very important series of investments in the judiciary and the judiciary became well paid it was meritocratic and it became a prestigious place to work and now you are seeing the dividend of that so it is not just social media it has to come out in the case of Brazil it is absolutely true what I wanted to say was the most serious thing in corruption is impunity and I think that is what has made the region fragile and there has been corruption not only in the political elite but also in the private sector and there is where that mesh is where the society has lost its confidence this is very serious because today with great frustration especially among the middle classes who are opposed who have installed a feeling of mistrust and disappointment and I believe this can really be serious and another problem I would like to approach is inequality in Latin America we cannot leave this panel without saying that it is the most unequal region of the world with the privileges we live in a culture unless we break with that culture of privileges and install a culture of shared prosperity we will not be able to go ahead and I would also like to refer to something you mentioned and Guillermo dealt with on Trump and the US government I think we should analyze things very coldly because on the one hand we have rhetoric but on the other hand there are three realities that are very clear one reassuring that is the call to showing that the United States is trying to bring back companies that will generate incentives bringing down corporate taxes there will start up measures we don't know which ones exactly but there will be measures second I think the question of migration and we have the figures there are 30 million Latin Americans living outside of their country of origin of which 20 million are in the USA of those 20 million 11 million have no documents so we have to see or look at the situation very clearly and third in your country in Great Britain, in Europe in the USA there is economic nationalism which is the topic we have to approach with that view Trump's measure to devote 54 million dollars to the military budget is a sign that he wants to go back to that time where the military was a synonym or equivalent to advancement and if the truth can be told Apple and many technology advanced technology companies arose during the military industry I just want to mention these points because I think there is a lot of rhetoric but there are also elements we have to assess many of that but it has to be put into context Ricardo Hausmann made a very good point earlier today about how 14% or so of businesses started in the United States or 14% was by foreign entrepreneurs and it's a similar statistic around Europe whereas in Mexico it was 0.4% and in Colombia it was 0.04% and in Chile it was even just 1% so penetration of other cultures these countries are coming from different places now let's have some questions from the floor if anyone has some questions yes this gentleman first please say your name and where you're from Jack Campbell, Marcia McLean in companies Ortiz a question to Mr. Ortiz about Mexico if Trump were to eliminate NAFTA which I think will happen we've just heard Mr. Sim said it might be good for Mexico in the sense that now they will have to diversify their export markets my question is do you think such a change would happen over a 20 year period or a 2 or 3 year period and secondly if we stay with NAFTA will this change happen anyway it's a good question I think speaking about diversification is easy now when you have a country like Mexico exporting 80% of its manufactured products 80% go to the US diversifying manufactured goods exports in the context of integrated production chains is not so easy it takes time so indeed exports of manufactured goods from Mexico to the rest of the world have grown in the past 10 or 12 years at a higher grade than the US however the base is small so it will take quite some time for Mexico to diversify its exports of manufactured goods it's much easier in the case of farming exports and agricultural imports Mexico is actively negotiating with Brazil and Argentina to offer similar treatment on the agriculture sector specifically in corn, soybeans etc. to Brazilian and Argentine farmers in case things go wrong in NAFTA because Mexico is the number one customer of the US on these products, on these commodities 38% almost 40% of all corn exports from the US purchased by Mexico so there are levers there and the second part I think regardless of what happens it's in Mexico's interest to diversify its trade I think Canada and Mexico are the only countries because even in the EU trade is more scattered but in the case of Canada some 80% of all Canadian exports are to the US so this trade concentration doesn't happen elsewhere in the world I insist even within zones like the European Union behind good afternoon everyone I'm a global shaper from Tegucigalpa Honduras my name is Carlos Algado in the context of the fourth industrial revolution which boils down to more technology to improve the people's standard of living much investment is needed in education, technology food manufactured goods and the different industries in the economy and to this end much public spending and investment is needed on people sometimes in getting to the fiscal deficit reduction targets expenditure investment is sacrificed on these factors I just mentioned if you were students of economics what would be the most friendly recipes so that people are not overlooked while you obtain the growth you expect in these areas thank you no you see I do I understood it perfectly how to achieve how to make public expenditure be spent in important sectors for young people such as education and I would say the capability to leverage technology breakthroughs to absorb technological advancement I think it is possible we have made important commitments on the education side the problem is quality I think government spending will continue to be important there are many countries which have further tied their government spending to certain industries even by their constitution it's even a state jacket in some cases but I think it's important for government spending not only for us to consider what is important not only coming from taxes but also to pay attention to government spending at ECLAC we are conducting a very deep analysis of which lines in government spending should be protected or avoided to avoid setbacks downturns especially in terms of poverty secondary education which we believe is vital and in this kind of guidelines I think countries are using important efforts not to compromise these aspects but if the region wants to catch the fourth industrial revolution and ride it and really benefit from it you not only have to have the right growth friendly spending which is what you were talking about but you've got to create more generally an environment where you need to have a stable economy you need to deal with corruption you need to deal with a range of social issues to make sure that the population is not responsive to populists and is willing to as president Makhry said this morning willing to see a period of sustained a sustained a sustained approach to economic policy that will create the basis for the kind of technological change and adaptation that can really bring about growth just one thing we need the private sector to invest in research and development this region invests very little in technology innovation in the public sector unlike in Europe where investment in research and development comes mostly from the private sector there is an issue there Alicia which has been quite underestimated I think because much of the training and improved quality in labor especially in the manufacturing industry comes from this themselves that's true the auto industry is one case aerospace automobile technology or ICTs etc so even if public policies in some countries like Mexico for instance do not favor expressly this additional training and this technological deepening so to speak companies are doing it themselves and this is an interesting topic two more questions if there are any takers a young global leader women are such an important contributor to this economy thank you but yet we are hardly represented in this room is it all rhetoric about closing the gender gap what are you actually doing to change this and have women contribute more that might be a question not a parody panel but yeah no this gives me the opportunity to mention something that's fundamental for us in Argentina and has to do with gender issues in Argentina we think the main gap today to overcome poverty is the number of school hours we have the gap of the hours in private schools versus public schools public schools have half the time in the classroom than private schools as an administration it is our desire in as much as we can consolidate public finances and minister Bolridge in education is doing some testing in some provinces to raise the number of hours in the classrooms in the public schools the most important program that would have the highest impact in Argentina the most shocking and type poverty program that could be in Argentina because in addition to reducing lower quality labor force it would include women in the labor force because when children can only attend school for four hours a day the mothers from low income households can only share of women in the labor force currently so in our mid and long term policies we have that on our agendas and we believe it tackles two of the major issues in Argentina for the long term namely poverty and women participation in the labor force very important that's very important my boss is a woman Christine Lagarde she runs and she supported a lot of work at our institution first to study the importance of gender inclusion and then through our work with countries to bring it about our studies show that gender equality and gender inclusion would actually matter a lot for growth pretty much around the world pretty much everywhere and I think that's an amazing conclusion in many countries it's not necessarily the case in Latin America but in many countries the principle obstacles are legal so the first thing to do is to look at laws and other institutional practices that limit the inclusion of women when we've done work in countries around the world there are some where educational opportunity and health is important there are others where labor force participation requires kinds of social programs to create child care and other institutions that will allow women to have the ability to have a family and also be in the workforce it's a subject that I think is going to gain in importance and in attention and that should happen because it has a huge potential Alicia, last word it is an economic issue not a social one because gender priority in the labor force in the labor market is essential women currently make 30% less than men in equivalent jobs despite the fact that they're better educated than men in part it is because of the care economy that is to find mechanisms to help women into the labor market but once they do enter they need to enter in equitable conditions and secondly we conducted a study if women today had the same jobs as men the same and were paid at the same rate poverty would go down from 1 to 10 percentage points in the region 1 point in Argentina and 10% in Bolivia we conducted this study and saw that women's income in the households might be essential for the economies I think the overall view is uncertainty, nothing new there Latin America is in quite a good space a lot of governments are doing the right things and ironically we came back to legal questions not only just corruption but also in terms of gender equality and regulations for education so thank you very much everybody


Welcome to the 2020 Minnesota Certified Seed Potato Report. This is the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's leadership team led by Commissioner Tom Peterson, Mark Abrahamson, and Nick Milanovsky. Our seed potato unit inspection staff consists of myself, Jackie Anderson, Jeff Miller, and Kimberly Nelson. Together we provide an inspection and certification service to the certified seed potato growers in the state of Minnesota under the rules and statutes of the seed potato certification law. Certified seed potato fields receive three field inspections evaluating stand, vigor, insect control, weed control, and pathogen virus detection, including bacterial ring rot. Shipping point inspections ensure the quality of the seed potatoes being sold. Good record keeping and documentation are vital for a successful trace back in the event of a critical disease outbreak. Detecting disease and pathogens helps to prevent the movement of disease and pathogens. Good inspection practices provide their growers with additional knowledge and confidence to help them make informed decisions about their crop. Minnesota certified seed potato growers entered 6,267 acres for the crop year 2020. Of those, 1,122 acres were rejected during the summer, mainly for mosaic in the certified class. We received 293 seed samples in the East Grand Forks Office through October 16th. Samples were then sorted by variety and numbered. They were palletized and loaded onto a trailer and shipped to North Dakota State Seed in Grafton, North Dakota. They were then gassed with bromoethane and transloaded onto a truck for shipment to Homestead, Florida. Our cooperative farm in Homestead, Florida is Elger Farms. They provided service for the post harvest winter test. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture cooperated with the North Dakota State Seed Department to do the planting in Homestead, Florida. Minnesota Department of Agriculture staff staggered their travel times to help plant both the North Dakota and the Minnesota seed potato plots. Kimberly arrived in Homestead on November 15th with Jeff arriving a few days later on November 17th. Samples were dipped in the morning of the 16th and planting began November 19th, finishing November 21st. The partnership with North Dakota State Seed was a success and we thank them for their help. This is what the seed potato plot looked like on January 5th, 49 days after planting. The top picture represents a very good example of a PBY positive plant. Field test kits were used to verify visual positive PBY plants in the field. The field test kits used also screened for PBYM. Leaves from visual positive plants along with a negative control from the lot were picked and sent to the Plant Diagnostic Lab at NDSU for confirmation. Percentage of virus is relevant to tuber count. Varieties found to be latent to PBY are also screened. Emergence of some variety specific seed lots and weeds created challenges in reading this year's post-harvest winter test. This is a chart representing the past fail lots by seed class. In order for a lot to pass the post-harvest winter test it must meet the tolerance of one half of 1% virus and other tolerances. As you can see 85% of the seed lots in Minnesota passed the post-harvest winter test this year compared to 67% in 2019. In addition this is the past fail acreage by seed class. As you can see 87% of the acreage passed compared to 2019 when only 69% passed. This is a chart of eligible seed lots by percent virus. Of the 221 eligible seed lots in Minnesota this year 182 or 82% are virus free. This is a picture of the seed plot on January 20th 64 days after planting. As you can see there were numerous weeds. We were happy to have Minnesota seed growers visit our winter test plot this year. Pictured are Brian from Black Gold, Justin from Dagen Farms and his daughter, Tyson from Swenson Farms, and Luke from Twin Rivers and his agronomist Chad. Thank you all for coming. In summary 85% of all Minnesota seed potato lots passed the post-harvest winter test this year. So the inoculum should be low which is good news for our seed producers. If you're planning to purchase seed potatoes you should always ask for a North American health certificate. This document provides a valuable information about the history of that seed lot including the winter test results and the emergence rate and it's also a requirement for documentation for certified seed programs. Due to the coronavirus we were unable to travel to Hawaii to conduct our post-harvest winter test this year. In August we reached out to North Dakota, Ken Birch and Ken Sather and they helped us to align with Alger Farms in Florida. We would really like to thank them for that and also give a thank you to Robert Souter and Ken Sather and also Mark Thompson for helping us plant the winter test plot this year. Thanks to all of you. I don't think we could have gotten it done without you. Thank you to Andy Robinson for helping us get this information out to the industry. If you have any questions or comments you can contact me directly at<PHONE_NUMBER> or you can email me at eric.byrie at state.mn.us. Again, thank you.


This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. And welcome to another episode of likeable science here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host Ethan Allen here in the Think Tech studios. And with me today is Nathan Kanawa-Sunata. Welcome, Nathan. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Nathan is a PhD candidate in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii over in Hilo and happened to be on our island today and was able to come in and talk with me here. Thank you for being here. Yeah, of course. And Nathan earlier, he's a graduate of command male schools and then went off to Miami to get a Bachelor of Science and now is back doing his doctoral work, finishing up in, I should say, his bachelor's. He was a bachelor's in health science and a minor's in mathematics and chemistry. Very impressive. 18 classes helped a lot with that. You're in pharmacy and you've sort of taken an interesting path to get into your current line of research. You sort of started out, I guess, in sort of wanting to look at native Hawaiian plants and use them in sort of pharmaceutical ways, in medicinal ways. But you've taken another different shift now. Right. And so originally coming back from Miami back to Hawaii and specifically to Hilo, what drew me to College of Pharmacy was that I could actually explore some of our native plants, right? There's a lot of unique things. A lot of challenges also about going to school and doing research in Hawaii, but one of the unique things is that we can use our Hawaiian plants, right? As a foundation for sort of this unknown source of drugs, for drug sources, for natural products, for lots of things like that. And so my initial plan was to study that sort of line of work, right? As a Hawaiian myself, this sort of research to me is very important, right? It's kind of this translation from tradition to this Western sort of like mainstream being able to use this sort of thing. And so I thought that was kind of a really cool thing to do, sort of perfect for what I wanted to do. But as I kind of came along this thing, doing research is more about relationships and about people such as life, I guess in general. More than data, more than like getting results. I think that sense of life is about relationships. And so for whatever reason, that relationship with my mentor didn't work. In academia, it's very important that you're properly mentored. Absolutely. And so to me, I didn't get what I needed from that particular advisor. And so it kind of came full circle. I came back to my current advisor, who's Dr. Donna Lin Koh-Moh-Ling, who's actually who I wanted to have at first. She's the only Hawaiian on staff at the Plaza of Pharmacy. She has a lot of Hawaiian culturally outreach and things like that. And so I initially wanted her, but she wasn't able to have me at the time. And so it kind of came full circle. So I came all the way back to her and now we do cancer biology, which is very different than my initial start. But in some ways, we're more rewarding. Yeah. In a sense. And very interesting what you say about the relationships of being very important in science. You do need to be mentored. You need to have good advisors who can support you and who understand who you are and what you're trying to do just beyond just, are you good in the lab? Yeah. There is much more to a successful career than that. And also, especially being a minority, it's ideal to have someone to look up to. And being a Hawaiian in this STEM field, it's very difficult to find people to look up to. Oh, yeah. Pacific Islanders are terrible. That idols or anyone, even a success story, in my personal life, I don't know of any that have kind of navigated the steps that I have. And so to me, getting Donna now has been amazing. Let's jump in a little bit about this research. So you work on this neuroblastoma. It's a cancer of the nervous system, basically. Right, right. And furthermore, and rather an ugly way, it's a cancer that only affects, or primarily affects babies and infants and young children, right? Right, right. So actually it could be still slides two. So neuroblastoma is a cancer of the nervous system. So neuro refers to nerves. And blastoma refers to a cancer, but specifically a cancer of immature, undifferentiated cells. So graph on the right says neuroblast, which is a type of nerve cells, right, but young ones. And so eventually the neuroblast must mature into all these different types of nerve cells, like neurons, ganglion, all types of things. And so neuroblastoma occurs in between this transition step. And so that's why it occurs only in infants and children because they're still developing all of their tissues. And the neurons don't develop properly. The astrocytes fall apart, whatever. Right, exactly, exactly. And so this is a very difficult to treat disease. Also very difficult to diagnose because it occurs in infants and children, right? I'm not good at telling you what's wrong. Exactly. So the main, I guess you could say, the main diagnostic factor is like tiredness or like a swollen abdomen. And that's very difficult to diagnose in an infant because they're asleep all the time. They cannot vocalize like he said, right? What's wrong? And that just makes it very, very difficult to first find it. And then once you do have it, this is one of the most recurrent cancers just in general of all cancers. And so about 90% of patients actually died not from the primary tumor, but from the relapse tumor. And so our lab tries to treat this disease instead of, I guess, trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to find all these new sort of cancer therapies. Really, we're trying to understand what neuroblastoma is. What goes wrong with these cells? Well, I understand it better so that we can use, I guess, technologies that we already have. And so what we focus on is why does this tumor, is it so, why does it relapse so often, right? Why is it more than half of the patients always have a relapse tumor, a more aggressive, more cancerous, drug-resistant tumor, right? It's very similar to antibiotics, where after a while, antibiotics just don't work because you develop resistance. So cancer is the exact same way. Only you're using much more lethal forms of therapy. And so the resistance that it accumulates is very drastic and very sudden. And of course, infants are developing a nervous system very rapidly. Yeah, exactly. And the nervous system is everywhere. It's everywhere. It innervates literally everything in the body. And does this have a curve typically in one spot or another in the nervous system? Yeah, so it occurs most commonly in the adrenal gland and the nervous tissue above the adrenal gland. But again, like, this cancer metastasizes very quickly. So what that means is the cancer starts in the abdomen, but it can travel into the bloodstream anywhere, into the bone marrow, into the liver, into the brain anywhere. And that's really what really harms the patients, right? Because it's easy to treat it when it's a tumor. When it's everywhere, it's very impossible to eradicate it completely. And so again, all the more reason you want to catch it early, so you want to have a good diagnostic tool, so a lot of patients will tell you about it even if it's wrong, which infants can't do. Exactly, exactly. So you aren't picking it up too late in its course anyhow. Right, right. And so all these factors kind of makes it this difficult disease to treat. And so what we look at is how does it become this normal, this original neuroblastoma tumor and become this drug-resistant tumor. And we look at lots of different cellular signaling pathways, right? Yeah. Specifically, we look at calcium, which is a sort of fundamental signaling molecule in every single cell in the body, regardless of its muscle, skin, your eyes, anything really mobilizes calcium for anything, for a regulation of its life. So it can also kill itself based on its calcium, all these sort of things. So if you try to understand cancer in general, right? Cancer is a dysregulation of all these factors, right? For one, the main one is growth, right? That's what cancer is, right? Grows uncontrollably. But also all of its biology is sort of very, very aberrant. Right, right. Most cancer cells have very abnormal appearance. Almost exactly, exactly. And so calcium is just one of those pathways that's... But it's a very important one. But because it's so fundamental, that's kind of what we're choosing to look at. Okay. So maybe go to that next year, slide three there? Yeah, yeah, sure. So this is a schematic that I've made just, this is any cell in the body. So every cell contains calcium in it and your cell stores calcium in the endopasic reticulum, which is that kind of squirrely thing with the dots in it. And it stores it in here so that when it needs it, it can release it. And then that's kind of what triggers all these different effects. So essentially what we look at is everything colored in here, we measure all these pumps and channels. Types of receptors there. All these receptors, right? All these things, there's a whole global calcium signaling pathway. Right. So our goal in our lab is to figure out what is altered as the neuroblastoma develops drug resistance. And once we have targeted these things that contribute to drug resistance, and we then knock them down and revert it back to this original state where we can then treat it again with the normal sort of chemotherapeutics that work very, very well. And you've got some dynamic old videos here, I think that. Yeah. So the way that we measure calcium is we stain cells. So these are live cells. So this is just examples of different organelles in the cell which are different compartments. So this is the lysosomes which are just storage compartments. They're stained red. The calcium is green. This is the endoplasmic reticulum. When we apply a certain stimulus, you can see them sort of burst, right? And so that correlates with calcium releasing specifically at the ER level. This next one is the mitochondria, which are red, right? And then they'll flash through. And so really calcium signaling is very global in the cell. It affects essentially everything. Right, things are trading. Things are trading. Right, there's a lot of crosstalk between all these sorts of things. And this last one is just the nucleus. Again, there's a lot, a lot going on. There's a lot to unpack. Sure, sure. In the signaling pathway. But the way that we sort of extrapolate data from this is we take these figures, right? These live cell images that we've stained with color, and we can extrapolate graphs from it in real time. And so we can say that as we apply a certain stimulus to the cell, it will release calcium in this sort of linear sort of way, and it will kind of fade out. And this depends on the cell type, right? And as the cell develops from regular to drug resistant, this signaling kind of changes. So can we see figure, or the video for? So these are the figures that I'm talking about, right? So black and white would be differences between normal and drug resistant, right? And this kind of pairs with the graphic on the right. And so from the top graph, it's very obvious that there's a big difference in the right-hand side, right? There's a huge jump. The bottom graph is not so easy to see. But this is the kind of data that we kind of extrapolate to get and see. All right, there are definitely differences. So if we could negate those differences, can we then treat them normally again? And you would negate them by going back and either blocking receptors, or open them up or something, right? Right, so a cool thing about calcium signaling is it's very well understood. It's fundamental to all cells, so it's very, very well understood. And so there's lots of tools that we can use to inhibit, block certain things. There's a lot of ways that we can manipulate. But our key really is identifying. It's finding what should we target? Like what can we do to kind of help in this thing? And that's kind of the challenge, but also like the exciting part in it. Sure, and it's a very interesting point you're trying to move in. It's not looking at what makes a normal cell become cancerous, but it's what makes it through the first stage of the cancerous cells become really nasty. Right, because neuroblastoma is classified by risk, right? There's low risk and high risk, and 60% of the cases are high risk. And the high risk, there's almost no survival from them, right? I think the general survival rate for neuroblastomas in general is like 60-something percent, right? It's one of the lowest out of all childhood cancers. And so drug resistance is a huge part of that, because you can treat them very well initially. But when it comes back, they're just intolerable to throwing tantrums and everything in the body. It's very, very difficult. Fascinating to see this and, of course, huge applications for this. Once you learn that, these mechanisms that probably will inform other people with other forms of cancer, too, which also go through that same transition being reasonably amenable to treatment early on. And then at some point, they change and become truly metastatic and want to go all over the body and behave in much more aggressive fashion. Yeah, 100%. So I think the biggest finding that we've found so far is that they tolerate their calcium internally differently. So I've said that every cell stores calcium in the ER. But the drug-resistant cells, it's like they can tolerate more calcium in their cytoplasm, and so they don't store as much. And so when they do release it, they release less. And so they turn things on differently, turn the proteins on, turn everything on just a little bit differently, which has this cascade of all these different downstream effects and all these things and so on. Yeah. It sounds like very exciting work. I think you've got your work cut out for me. I'd say so. John security. That looks great. But there's a whole other part to your work that is you've really gotten where you are as you come in briefly early on. There are not many Hawaiians, native Hawaiians. Or Pacific Islanders in science and STEM. It's not a... There are many cultural aspects why this is so and all. And when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about that. But right now, we need to take about a one-minute break. Nathan Sonata is here with me. I'm Ethan Allen, your host of Likeable Science. And we'll be back in one minute. Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate, and power and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. And we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. Welcome back here to Likeable Science on Think Tech, Hawaii. I'm your host, Ethan Allen. With me today is Nathan Sonata from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. He's finishing up his doctorate in the School of Pharmacy there. We were talking in the first part of the show about the cancer research that you do. Very exciting stuff on neuroblastoma, rather nasty childhood cancer, all the complexities that you just give. It's a very nice summary of why it's so hard to work with what strides you're making. But there's been beyond sort of the academic, cognitive challenges of working in this area. You faced some other challenges, right? We commented earlier when we were talking, you graduated from Kamehameha School in a class of 450 people, I think you said. And you think there's a handful that was gone into graduate school. Yeah, as far as I can tell, very few of my classmates pursued graduate school and, of course, even less pursued PhDs. I know of a few in med school, right? I know of one PhD who's in mathematics, I believe. But there's a lack of, I guess, research-based sort of pathways that are being taken. And I'm not exactly sure why that is. I mean, I think there's cut a lot of factors, honestly. Yeah, I mean, certainly, I know Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are grossly underrepresented in the whole STEM field, STEM education. At every step you look at all the higher levels. I mean, even bachelors and masters and doctors, the percentages keep dropping and dropping. And some of this, as we were talking before this show a little bit, may have to do with a whole cultural approach, right? Yeah, definitely there's a lot of cultural into that. I mean, especially just in Hawai'i, there's just that landlocked element, right? There's the family element, right? Your family depends on you for lots of things and so you can't leave in some senses, right? There's also the other aspect where you don't want to leave because this is so comfortable to you, right? There's also a part where it's not really pushed, where like, well, like I said earlier, we just don't have a lot of people to look up to, right? Right. We don't have a lot of people to say, oh, this is exactly how you can obtain this type of degree and this is exactly what's going to happen. And so without that, I mean, I think you have to use your imagination and if you're not comfortable doing that, then I think it's very difficult, right? So that's why I'm so lucky that I have someone like Donna who is done exactly what I did and she's a woman, right? Right. So she's a Hawaiian woman in hard STEM science and so that to me is very, very inspiring, right? And she's given me lots of great mentorship, but I think in general just for the kids, I think, you know, like, science should be pushed a little bit further maybe. Right, right. But part of it is, as you say, we've procured the islands, right? We don't have a thriving pharmaceutical or biotech industries right here very much in Hawaii. We're getting a little bit now, but it's been very slow coming. So it haven't been that many opportunities for anyone, much less Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders, to be in those positions, be STEM leaders, be STEM role models. As for the universities have been pretty slow when picking up Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders into the faculty positions. Right, right. They are underrepresented there. If you're going to be successful in this type of field, I think you kind of have to go away.  You have to gain some experience. Like you said, there's just not that much opportunity here for at least research-based sort of programs. And there are wonderful efforts now to contract that trend. I do some external evaluation for the EPSCOR, the National Science and Education EPSCOR project, I keep eyeing with Hawaii's groundwater and one of their goals is to get more Native Hawaiian students involved in doing this fundamental water research. And that has enough for interesting and sort of culturally appropriate pull. The water has been very central to Hawaii and so studying the water makes some sense to a lot more students and it's actually interesting to see. So I think that's a good point you made though where it's about interest. And how do you generate interest in the Trojan? Because I mean, at least when I was growing up, it wasn't cool to be a nerd. It wasn't cool to like science and like math like I did. I like picking rocks and looking for bugs and stuff like that. And I love science and I love that sort of thing. And it's not as... I think it's more accepted now, right? This generation is so much more up with technology, with being able to do all these different sorts of things that my generation didn't have. But again, how do you sort of channel that into careers, right? Not just like, oh, I'm good with my phone. I'm good with social media. I'm good with my computer. How do you channel that into, oh, I'm good with tech. I'm good with coding. I'm good with like doing some sort of like real science. So I think that's become the issue, right? Where like everything's at the tip of everyone's fingertips now. Right. But it's integrating that into like a way that's like motivating, I guess, for the younger generations. Yeah. As you say, it sort of does open up some doors and windows. I mean, for instance, this program that we're producing now will allow you to sort of be an image or role model at least on some superficial level to a gazillion people, right? And that wasn't around 10 years ago, 20 years ago at all. So these channels have opened up but still, even if children grow up and see sort of one video or whatever some role models when they get to an actual university, they're still going to find... Right, they're still going to be minorities. They're still going to not have as much support as the rest, but I think to your other point, I think isolation too is a big factor. Right. Just being in Hawaii in general. Right, it's just very isolated from everything else. It's broken up into a, you know, small islands that are separated from each other. I mean, education is hard. There's a lot of travel in the hall, which is expensive and difficult. Right, so just from what I've seen on the research side, it's difficult to be out here by ourselves, right? Especially when we have the pharmacy school in Hilo and we have the medical school and the rest of the facilities on Oahu, it's very difficult to sort of collaborate and share. And also when we collaborate with other PIs, like for example on the mainland, right? When we have to exchange information back and forth, that gets hard just by the hourly, but you can work through that. But when you have to ship goods, like sometimes we ship cancer cells, sometimes we ship drugs, treatments, like that has to go overseas and has to be on ice, right? It has to be all these sort of things to make sure that it lands okay. And so that creates its own set of challenges too. Yeah, but they're, you know, again, we have technologies now that are overcoming them. I've been interested to see this, the so-called cyber-accountability now, how it connects Hilo and Manoa here, campus is very neat with these big, huge, multi-screen events so you can really get people, essentially almost in the same room, even if they're separated, you know? As that continues to grow and develop, presumably that's going to help address some of these issues. Yeah, absolutely. We're going in the right direction, absolutely. I mean, it's just a matter of time where, I mean, I think, as a whole, kids are more excited about science than they used to be, I think just as a general rule of thumb. But again, it's not where it needs to be, especially in specifically the Hawaiian community. It's just not that... Again, there's no role models. Right, right. So they would rather, I think, better role models in the Hawaiian community are other types of leaders, not necessarily academic leaders, right? I think they look to lots of other figures about scholarship. If we had a good representative of our field, I think that would make a big difference. But again, being a Hawaiian and being a minority is not strictly negative. I think it depends a lot on how you look at it, right? So it's all some of the benefits and advantages. So very easily the biggest benefit is scholarships, right? Being a Hawaiian has afforded me so much opportunity just by being Hawaiian, right? Just by going to community schools and having some of this culture like it, it's very beneficial, right? And it makes me very attractive as an applicant. So as I... Since I'm applying for research grants and all this sort of thing, incorporating minorities into your grants and stuff is very powerful. And so I'm able to get funding based on, I guess, just my ethnicity, just that sort of thing. And so if you look at it from that perspective, then being a minority is really cool. It's really unique. And really, in some ways, it's the first thing that separates me and then it's my merit, right? Because on a sheet of paper, everyone looks the same except that sort of thing. And so, yeah, I've never really viewed it as that much of a crutch. It's just like another barrier you have to pass through. Right? It's like, if I was going to quit, I would have quit a long time ago, right? Just being that is not really enough of a factor, I think. You can't spin anything to be positive as long as you want to. Right. Your attitude is going to determine that. Again, this gets us back to earlier discussion about why you need good mentoring and good support from an advisor because that helps sort of put the whole attitude around you and the attitude of the lab that you're in is very important. I always knew that fact, but I think being in this program has really solidified that for me it's very independent my whole life. I can always do things by myself. I could always figure it out, but there was a point in this program where I couldn't. And that was very humbling for me because there's a point where I need help. And I'm not very good at accepting help or asking for help. I think a lot of people aren't like that. And so that was very humbling for me and once I kind of opened it up it's like this sort of relationship kind of evolved through it but amazing. Yeah, science particularly now is becoming increasingly collaborative and it's got the very clear to you in the cancer research. You've got to have all kinds of different people from clinicians to basic bench scientists and everyone's sort of in between and electronics wizards and chemists working with you and all these different kinds of groups helping out and putting their expertise together in a coordinated fashion to make this all work. We look at one ion in the cell right, calcium. And so it's very easy for us to get tunnel vision and kind of forget about the big picture. Sure. The old saying is that's what graduate school teaches you to look more and more about less and less until you know everything there is to know about nothing at all. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The programs are trying to get around that now. They are actually making efforts to broaden out and help in broader perspective. But that's why it's always good to... students of Hawaii advanced research program has afforded me a lot of opportunity to go to conferences once a year. And so at these conferences I've interacted with lots of different types of health professionals. So not only researchers like me, but medical doctors and nurses and parents of patients. You kind of get this total perspective on everything and that's very important when you're... because the bottom line is about patients. This disease not like publishing papers or getting recognition. The point is the patients. Without understanding all of the factors you're only doing... You slice that but it's a big pie. There's no point in finding a novel drug when you have to apply this... You have to give the patient a lethal dose There's no point. You have to look at it Absolutely. This has been fascinating but we have come to the end of our time here. Nathan Sonata, PhD candidate at University of Hawaii in Hilo School of Pharmacy there. Thank you very much for being here. I hope you'll come back and join us on another episode of a likeable science next week.