The government of Odisha has approved the Biotechnology Policy 2024 to create a flourishing ecosystem for the biotech industry. This will further promote higher education, research & infrastructure development in the sector and strengthen the supportive ecosystem for innovation, incubation, investment, income & impact to build enterprises. Association of Biotechnology …
On the importance of the Biosafety Protocol to the developing countries: The protocol is a legal mechanism being hammered out by the nations who have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (cbd). It seeks to ensure safe transfer, handling and the use of living modified organism resulting from modern biotechnology …
a number of European countries have refused to support an attempt by the European Commission to prohibit national import bans on genetically engineered maize by Novartis, the multinational agrochemical company. Maize imported by Novartis ge contains a bt toxin which is designed to ward off pests. "Wherever genetically-engineered organisms and …
canadian researchers have developed potatoes that may be used to prevent diabetes. The special potato has been successfully tried on mice, to prevent one type of diabetes called type i . The researchers say plants can also be used for treating diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis by …
genetic tinkering can produce plants that can be made to bloom as and when required. Doused with the correct chemical trigger, they spring into bloom within days. George Coupland and his colleagues at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, say that if plants could be persuaded to flower as and when …
a genetically engineered rice that can produce human proteins and can be harvested just like any other crop, has been developed by California-based Applied Phytologics. This technique could make it cheaper to produce many bioengineered proteins such as those found in detergents ( New Scientist , Vol 155, No 2090). …
a method has been developed by a group of Japanese research scientists that uses blue-green algae to remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce large amounts of a type of biodegradable plastic. The findings can go a long way in cutting down the emission of carbon dioxide, the main …
ppl therapeutics, the Scottish firm that last year helped Edinburgh's Roslin Institute clone Dolly the sheep, is developing a chemical technology to alter the plasma (the pale yellow protein-rich liquid in which the cells of the blood are suspended) genes of sheep and cows, replacing them with the human equivalent. …
At a recent conference on bio-ethics and-issues relating to new technologies, scientists and legal eagles of the country expressed concern about the recent experiment of the cloning of sheep and the future of genetic engineering. Participants at the meet said that there is a need to "guard diligently against the …
a new biotechnology device - bioluminescense - is now being exploited worldwide to detect microbial contamination in industries ranging from cosmetics to foodstuffs and to pharmaceuticals. About 2.5 billion such tests were globally performed last year, costing about us $4.14 billion, says Forest and Sullivan, the market research organisation in …
in its latest report, Animal to Human Transplant: The Ethics of Transplantation , Nuffield council, an influential bioethics advisory group and independent watchdog in the uk, concluded that the risk associated with the possible transmission of infectious diseases as a consequence of xenotransplantation (transplanting organs of one species to another) …
the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), Hyderabad, has finally emerged from the state of limbo regarding its future. An expert committee has recently ruled that the research body has a "definite continuing role' to play, calling for a
the garden city of India, Bangalore, is fast earning another name, that of being the biotechnology capital of south Asia. At the sixth international exposition and conference on biotechnology held here recently, C S Prakash, professor and director of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology Research at the University of Alabama, …
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has developed a bioreactor technology that would help increase output in gold mines. Metallurgy involving bioabsorption and bioremediation is a cheaper and an environment -friendly technology as it does not leave behind huge residues of arsenic and cyanide. The bio-reactor uses a genetically engineered …
PLANTS can be cultivated in test-tubes that contain the appropriate nutrient medium. Any part of the plant can be inoculated into the medium to produce a large number of plants. This system is far more efficient and cost-effective as compared to conventional methods of multiplication. Tissue culture, to begin with, …
On the mandate for setting up a separate DBT: Realising its immense potential, both developed and developing countries are looking towards biotechnology to provide eco- friendly and environmentally- safe technologies for sustainable development of the agricultural, industrial and health care sectors. The department of biotechnology (DBT)was set up in 1986 …
The archaeon M jannaschii was originally isolated in 1983 by John Leigh (then at the University of Illinois; now at the University of Washington) from a sample collected from the hydrothermal vent 2,600 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, approximately 100 miles south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. …
TOUTED to be the best if not the only option for cures against major diseases, biotechnology had seemed to falter midway. Now, however, it is poised for a major breakthrough in treating cancer. A monoclonal antibody - a product of medical innovation - will soon have a go at treating …
Johnson Wax, a US based company, has come up with a microbe-based insecticide that, it claims, will be able to put off the most persistent of cockroaches. Two varieties of the microbe, Bacillus thuringiensis, have been identified that can give cockroaches lethal cases of indigestion, Different strains of the microbe …
HOUSING lower- and middle-class blacks, certain South African townships are seriously threatened by contamination caused by human wastes. With no sewage disposal system, the residents of these poor localities use buckets to excrete and once these are full to the brim, the waste is either dumped into streams or on …
