Message from the Director

Dear Valued Members

Greetings from MABIC! Excitement is in the air with the preparation to celebrate MABIC’s 10th anniversary. The National Science Centre has agreed to host a “Biotech Carnival” from 18-16 Sept 2010. The carnival will feature commercial aspects of biotechnology through exhibitions; engage scientists, academia, members of the media, industry, and policy makers in seminars; expose students, teachers and the public to various aspects of biotechnology through fun-filled activities such as drawing, colouring, and writing competition, debates, quizzes, games, and demonstration of simple experiments; and career talks for those aspiring biotech graduates and students. The highlight of the event is a fashion show and fashion design competition which will be based on biotech motifs. The carnival meets the objectives of both MABIC and National Science Centre as agencies that create awareness on biotechnology. We hope to have the carnival launched by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. Check out our website for more details!

ISAAA has just launched the “Global Status of Commercialized Biotech Crops: 2009” in Beijing and the figures show that the global GM crop adoption continues to climb. With 25 countries growing GM crops on 134 million hectares of land. This is an 80-fold increase between 1996 and 2009. The number of farmers growing GM crops increased to 14 million. China has issued biosafety certificates for its home-grown insect-resistant Bt rice and phytase corn which may see commercialization in the next three years. For detailed information, please visit http://www.isaaa.org/

Last month, I had an opportunity to participate in a seminar organized for EU parliamentarians in Brussels on “The impact of EU GMO-regulations on biotechnology research for the public good”, organized by Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel of the European Parliament (STOA) and the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI). The seminar provided a balanced, neutral, and science-based input on GMOs. Change is in the air! Check out my brief report here.

Best wishes from MABIC. 

Sincerely

Mahaletchumy Arujanan
Executive Director

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