Speakers at a workshop stressed the need for developing strong and effective communication skills by the scientists and researchers to clear the misconception about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which is generally believed as a product of unnatural genetic engineering techniques.
In fact, genetic transformation process is composed of several bacteria and enzymes found in nature.
In changing world scientists are working for improving food security, saving environment and biodiversity, and curing diseases in easier, faster and with more precision through biotechnology.
Major threats to biodiversity are climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, invasive species and economic pressures; scientists are working to mitigate these issues with new technologies. The speakers felt that there is a strong need for an effective communication to remove misconceptions about new technologies.
This was the crux of the deliberations at the workshop, "Asian Short Course on Agri biotechnology, Biosafety Regulations and Communication", held at Kuala Lumpur recently.
Some 70 biotech players from 15 countries in Asia took part in the workshop to discuss current and emerging topics under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Protocols. The aim of the workshop was to enable the stakeholders to better understand the entire value chain related to: research, development, commercialization and trade of Living Modified Organisms (LMOs); national and international legal instruments related to LMOs; and effective communication of agri-biotechnology and biosafety regulation.
This workshop was a joint effort of ISAAA, Global Asia in the 21st Century (GA21) platform of Monash University Malaysia, the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC) and Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI), with the support of other international partners. It was attended by biotechnology scientists, farmers, regulators, science communicators, journalists, and representatives from public and private sectors.
Prof Piet van der Meer, a biologist and lawyer from Ghent University, led the discussions on the international agreements, as well as key topics, such as national regulatory systems for biosafety, socio-economic considerations, synthetic biology, gene drives, risk assessment, and unintended trans-boundary movements. The resource persons for the workshop were Dr. Lucia de Souza from PRRI, Dr Ranjini Warrier, former adviser of Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change of India, Prof Kazuo Watanabe from Tsukuba University, Japan, Dr Samantha O'loughlin from Target Malaria and Prof Selim Cetiner from Sabanci University Turkey.
Dr Craig Cormick from Australian National University, and Dr Mahaletchumy Arujanan, Executive Director of MABIC led the session on communicating Agri-biotech and biotech regulations. From Pakistan, Farzana Altaf Shah, Director General Pakistan Environment Protection Agency participated in the programme.
Different topics, including conventional breeding and modern agri-biotechnology, communicating agri-biotech and biotech regulations, synthetic biology, gene drives and their potential application in vector control, risk assessment of LMOs and socio-economic considerations in decision making, were discussed.
Deliberations and discussions were also aimed to prepare the scientists and researchers for the Conference of Parties (COP) being held in November this year in Egypt, which will discuss issues, risks and developments in plant sciences in the light of Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and Cartagena Protocol and Nagoya Protocol.
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