Bangladesh Ag Minister Urged Biotechnologists to Develop Crops and Technologies for Environmental Stresses

Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Ms. Matia Chowdhury MP during the inauguration of 7th International Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology Conference held on 1-3 March 2014 made the appeal to the biotech scientists from home and abroad to work together to develop crops and technologies to combat environmental stresses such as salinity, drought, submergence, cold and others for crop production. She declared that the Bangladesh government is always in favor of adopting modern crop technologies for crop improvement and yield and at the same time keeping health and environment into prime consideration.

Prof. Dr. A. S. M. Arefin Siddiqui, Vice Chancellor and Prof. Dr. Tazmery Rahman, Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Dhaka, have also appreciated the biotechnologists working globally for their untiring efforts to develop biotech crops suitable for the specific need of different parts of the world for food and nutritional security, poverty reduction, enriching biodiversity and keeping the environment intact. Under the theme "Biotechnology and Biosafety for Human Welfare" 61 papers were presented on In vitro techniques for crop improvement, environmental biotechnology, molecular markers in crop improvement, biosafety and public acceptance of genetically modified crops, application of biotechnology for biodiversity conservation, functional genomics, proteomics and plant genetic transformation by Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Jacobsen, Dr. F.J. Zapata-Aries, Dr. Yasuzo Sakai, Dr.Narendra Tuteja, Dr. Andrew F.Roberts, Prof. Dr. Lian-Ming Gao and others among around 300 participants.

For details of the conference and for biotechnology news from Bangladesh, contact Prof. Khondoker Nasiruddin of Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Center at nasirbiotech@yahoo.com.