30 Oct 2017|Noida | Amity Campus, Sector-125, Noida
Sir Richard Roberts Centre for Genetically Modified Organisms, Amity University along with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Biotech Consortium India Ltd. (BCIL) start “Indo-African Training Programme”
Sir Richard Roberts Centre for Genetically Modified Organisms, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, in association with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Biotech Consortium India Ltd. (BCIL) started prestigious “Indo- African Training Programme” on ‘Virus Indexing and Genetic Fidelity Testing of Tissue culture Plants for African Candidates’ at Amity University Campus,Sector-125, Noida.
15 delegates from 9 African countries are attending the Training Programme. The Training Programme aims at apprising African delegates with the effectiveness of virus indexing and genetic fidelity testing as important parameters for the Tissue Culture Plants and to provide hands on training, enabling them to replicate the success of Indian Plant Tissue Culture Industry in African Countries
Dr Shiv Kant Shukla, DGM, Biotech Consortium India Ltd and Principal Investigator of Indo African Project, Dr W.Selvamurthy, President, Amity Science Technology and Innovation Foundation and Dr Sunil Saran, Chairman, Amity International Centre for Post Harvest Technology inaugurated the Training programme.
Addressing the gathering, Dr W. Selvamurthy,President, Amity Science Technology and Innovation Foundation stated that in current era, it is important to have knowledge exchange with other countries and to foster mutually beneficial relationship. He expressed that Indo- African relationship is on upswing and Indian Government is promoting Indo- African strategic partnership. He expressed that Amity is looking forward to work closely with the participant of the training programme and nurture people to people connectivity. Dwelling on the topic of the Training Programme, Dr.Selvamurthy stated that for tissue culture, DNA Isolation and other applications, it is important that a healthy plant is propagated right from seed whether its cereals, pulses or horticulture produce and GMOs could help in ensuring the same. He stressed that GMOs are very important, their efficacy has been proven scientifically and they have remarkable applications. He shared with the gathering the research and technological prowess of Amity and highlighted that during last 10 years, Amity has filed over 874 patents.
Dr Shiv Kant Shukla, DGM, Biotech Consortium India Ltd and Principal Investigator of Indo African Project stated that the participants will undergo Module II of their Training in Amity which will focus on commercial plant tissue culture and help them to train employable man power to address the needs of African Micro- propagation Industry. Heshared that every day, the participants would have lectures by eminent Scientists and Researchers including Dr. Virendra Kumar Baranwal, IARI, VG:Dr.Vidya Gupta, NCL, Pune, Dr. Amol Solanki, NRCPB and others. Sharing the current research in the area of Tissue Culture, he stated that Scientists in India are trying to implement “Virus Indexing” to ensure that no virus is present in the culture and they are trying to develop QR code labelled on each plant. He remarked that the programme aims at replicating the success of Tissue culture in African countries. He shared that Government of India has a plan to train over 270 African candidates in 2 years through the Training Programme. He expressed his joy in partnering with Amity University and stressed that BCIL is looking forward to a long term relationship with Amity.
Dwelling on Sir Richard Roberts Centre for Genetically Modified Organisms, Amity University, Dr. Abha Agnihotri- Amity stated that Centre was launched at Amity when the great Molecular Biologist visited Amity in January 2017 and was conferred Honorary Doctorate Degree. Sharing the vision of the Centre, she stressed that the Centre aims at ensuring food and nutrition security through promotion of GMOs in India and abroad and reducing detrimental effects of agriculture using GM Technologies which is based on Tissue culture. She stressed that people are not aware of the benefits of GMOs and in reality, GMOs need to be promoted along with conventional agriculture to meet the growing demands of agriculture.
The Inauguration was followed by Technical Sessions on topics such as “Recent advancement in Virus Indexing of tissue culture plants(VKB)”, “PCR based virus indexing: SRK” and “DNA isolation, Purification and Quantification: VC& AS”