Bangladesh Academic Calls for Establishment of Biotech Institute

Vice Chancellor of Jahangirnagar University Shariff Enamul Kabir instructed senior teachers including Dean of Biological Science M. A. Jabbar Mondal to take urgent necessary action to pool biotechnology- related teachers and to establish a Department/Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. The Vice Chancellor made this call as Chief Guest of the seminar on the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops 2009 held March 13, 2010 at the Senate House of the University where around 150 teachers, research students and journalists attended. The event was organized by the Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Center of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

The Vice Chancellor and senior teachers agreed that "we should use modern biotech science to combat biotic and abiotic stresses to alleviate chronic food shortage in the country." Dr. Kabir paid tribute to Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Laureate and father of the Green Revolution, noting that Bangladesh made him an Honorary Fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences in his visit to Bangladesh in 1999.

Dr Randy A Hautea, Global Coordinator of ISAAA, presented the keynote speech elaborating on 14 years of global biotech crop cultivation. An executive summary and highlights of the Annual Review are available at http://www.isaaa.org.

For more details of the seminar contact Dr. Khondoker Nasiruddin of the Biotechnology Information Center at nasirbiotech@yahoo.com