Egypt Hosts BioVision 2016

New Life Sciences Egypt hosted the 8th biennial international conference, Bio Vision Alexandria 2016 (BVA 2016), at the Library of Alexandria on April 12-14, 2016. The event was organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in partnership with the World Life Sciences Forum. BioVision Alexandria brings together distinguished speakers from different countries to discuss the finest achievements of the human intellect in the realms of science, policy-making, media, industry, together with the civil society. The theme of BVA 2016 was "New Life Sciences: The Road Ahead", which focused on three major categories: health, food and agriculture, and environment. A total of 1,852 individuals participated in the event.

In the session entitled "Feeding Billions: Policy and Practices", H. E. Adel Elbeltagy, former Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Egypt, said that Egypt has approved biotech maize with resistance to pink stem borer (Sesamia cretica), which is highly affecting the yield of maize in Egypt. He stressed the importance of guidelines to control the technology. "We accommodated a law for the biosafety committee that was established in 1995 in Egypt to control the usage of GM materials." He also added the expected role of GM crops in the new agricultural strategy for Egypt till 2050. "We are for using the latest in science in the field of agriculture. We cannot modernize agriculture in Egypt unless we depend on new innovations not only in genomics and nanotechnology, but in all fields."

For more details, contact Dr. Naglaa Abdallah at naglaa_a@hotmail.com.