Global participation up for B'lore Bio '06

The sixth edition of the Bangalore-Bio2006 which commences on June 7 will witness country delegations from nine countries and good participation from 10 Indian states.

Addressing a pre-event press conference here on Monday, Anup K Pujari, principal secretary IT & biotech department, said that with this development, the event has truly become global in size.

"The bio event promoted by Karnataka government and vision group on biotech has also emerged as the undisputed platform in the country for the biotech fraternity to leverage partnering opportunities and forge new alliances in the biotech industry globally," he added.

The event this year includes a strong international participation from the European Union, the Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Bavaria, Pennsylvania and Singapore. And domestic participation from various state governments including Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chaththisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland and Andhra Pradesh.

The event is also set to have multi-track international conference focussing on: Clinical Development in India: A Gap Analysis, Creating an Investment Landscape for Indian Biotech, New Opportunities for EU-India Research Collaboration: Health, Food, Agriculture, Biotech, Translational Research: The Way Forward For Drug Discovery, Information Technology: A Powerful Value Proposition for Indian Biotech, Opportunities and experience in medical sciences research, HRD: Shaping India's Talent Pool Through Specialisation, Opportunities and experience in food, agriculture and biotechnology research, Nutigenomics and Nutraceuticals, Vaccines: An R&D Focus for the Developing World, Frontier Technologies: Sowing the Seeds for Tomorrow, Global Networks in Biotech, Intellectual Property: A Time For Self Regulation During The Debate.

But the main attraction at the event this year is giving importance to agri-biotech and to showcase developments in biotechnology.

An entire day has been dedicated to discussions and deliberations on issues and progress of agri-biotech. Stalwarts from the industry will discuss strengthening transnational partnerships and the recent advances in molecular genetics, informatics and genomics research. The objective is to understand and apply the advancements in biotech to improve efficiency and productivity in agricultural sector.

"We are making rapid strides in agri biotech; efforts are on to promote biotech applications in agriculture. Agri Biotech Day" is to create many new possibilities for applying biotech in agriculture with discussions centering on vital topics," said Pujari.

The one-day session will bring to light pertinent agri bio issues such as the transgenic crops and agri biotechnology; functional foods and nutraceuticals; bio-energy and bio-fuels; bio-fertiliser and bio-pesticides; IPR, safety and regulatory issues.

"Partnership is the key strategy to cover more ground in the agri-biotech space. The industry can benefit from technologies that are being made available to improve the quality of agricultural produce. The agri-biotech session will create a platform to debate emerging issues and foster new relationships to accelerate the adoption of biotechnology by the agricultural sector," said K K Narayanan, president ABLE & managing director, Metahelix.

Prominent speakers at the meet include C S Prakash, director, Centre for Plant Biotechnology Research college of Agriculture Tuskegee University, USA, Bhagirath Choudary, National Co-ordinator ISAAA, S K Raina, chief advisor of Nath Seeds, P S Dravid, president, JK Seeds, M Ramasamy, MD, Rasi Seeds, Usha Barwale, joint director of Research, Mahyco.

They will debate the promise of agri-biotechnology, commercialisation of transgenic crops in India, biotech crops: increasing adoption; new opportunities and challenges.