Tuesday, September 26, 2006

From news archives

As Bt takes centrestage in what often is percieved as media created pseudo-hype, her's what our news organisations are reporting wrt Bt. These are a few articles that I found interesting.
Read on:

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Sept 23 2006, Indian Express

SC stays field trials of genetically modified products


The order came from a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal. The order will not apply to field trials of GM products already underway, implying that trials on BT brinjal and BT cotton can proceed. But their approval by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) will not happen till court orders.

The petitioner said the move to allow large-scale field trials of BT brinjal by biotech company Mahyco, an Indian collaborative and partner company of Monsanto, if not checked would lead to untold hardships to the farmers and large-scale destruction of crops. The matter will come up for hearing on October 13.

  • SC stay on field trials


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    Sept 15 2006, Indian Express.

    Bt cotton gives Punjab a record yield

    Punjab is all set to witness the highest cotton production in last 16 years, with 27.5 lakh bales of cotton expected this year. The highest production last recorded was in 1989-90, when the state produced 26.5 lakh bales of cotton.

    The record production is being attributed to the use of Bt or other hybrid varieties of cotton across 90 per cent fo the Punjab cotton belt. Besides higher yield, the improvised cotton varieties have lowered costs due to negligible use of pesticide.

  • Full report


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    Sept 2 2006, The Washington Post (IE)

    Target cancer

    For the first time, genetically engineered cells have suceesfully wiped out cancer cells, in two patients. It is too early to say whether they have been cured but researchers say it is a step in the right direction.

  • Target Cancer


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    Sept 6 2006, The Times of India

    Unborn Designs (Editorial)

    Ian Wilmut, the man who created Dolly the sheep in 1996 and caused worldwide biotech angst, has written a book called: After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning.

    In it he says: "Like most people I disapprove strongly of the idea of an embryo coaxed to life for shallow reasons of status, preference, or style.

    Any such work is unsavoury because it reduces children to consumer objects that can be 'accessorised' according to the parents' whims.

    As many ethicists have argued, love for offspring should not be contingent upon the characteristics they possess".

  • TOI


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    Friday, September 22, 2006

    PG biotech course on hold...why?

    Here's a write-up in today's Indian Express highlighting every BT graduate's bane of existence. As students we have often wondered, agonised and eventually submitted to the fact there are just not enough seats for evryone for an academic progression to a PG course. It is time we demand our fair share in the education system. We are a part of a so called booming industry, once we choose this course, but are ignored time and again. Speak up now or wallow in pittance.

    Excerpts from the news report:
    Indian Express, 22/09/2006, Mumbai Newsline.

    Even as a government-appointed committee had given a go-ahead to some of the state colleges’ request for starting MSc course in biotechnology in July the state government is yet to sanction the approval.

    Stating that the delay is likely to affect the future of over 90 per cent undergraduate biotech students, SIES College Vice-Principal M R Bhatia said: ‘‘Though there are around 1,000 undergraduate biotech students in Mumbai, there are only about 40 seats for MSc. What will the other 960 students do?’’

    Joint Director of Technical Education Department M S Andhale, who had inspected the colleges in July, said: ‘‘I feel they can be given the go-ahead. But I can’t take any policy decision and have submitted my findings, so it’s up to the government now.’’ Minister of State Higher and Technical Education Dilip Walse-Patil said: ‘‘Certain infrastructural issues are under consideration.’’

    These unnecessary delays have led some of the colleges to believe that vested interests within the department and government were delaying matters.

    SEE RELATED LINKS:

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    Mumbai Newsline article
  • IE article


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    Indian BT programme lacks focus
  • Financial express - PTI release


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    The promise and challenges of BT - 2005 article
    Compare how far we have actually come from the primary vision.
  • FE article
  • Wednesday, September 20, 2006

    An article on Biotech policy

    Biotech policy: Secretive and hasty.
    The government's stance towards biotechnology shows such disregard for the public interest that even its own Expert Committee is not privy to the proposed new policy. Suman Sahai protests the reckless endorsement of vested interests while many other stakeholders are kept in the dark.

    Excerpts from the write up which appears at Indiatogether.org on 29 April 2006.
    Dr. Suman Sahai is President of Gene Campaign, based in Delhi.

    India has been conducting research in biotechnology without having a national policy in place. A Public Interest Litigation filed by Gene Campaign in the Supreme Court created sufficient pressure for the government to set up an Expert Committee to frame a national biotechnology policy. The Expert Committee was stacked with members from the industry and government; I was the solitary NGO member. Protests by Gene Campaign that the Committee should be expanded to include concerned stakeholders were not heeded.

    The Department of Biotechnology and its Secretary seem to be in a terrible rush to get a policy in place with as little public intervention as possible. There is an informed rumor that the draft Biotechnology Policy is going to be in Parliament in the coming session. That is far too premature since it has not been adequately discussed by stakeholders, and even the Expert Committee that was established to frame the policy has not been informed of the content of the draft to be presented to Parliament. This is not how policy should be made.

    The recent report of the Monsanto study on the organ damage and compromised immune system of rats fed with GM corn, should be an eye opener.
    Why this rush and secrecy? The usual reason is that vested interests - biotech corporations in India as well as foreign ones - are being favoured. Throwing caution to the winds, India has scripted a Biotechnology Policy to cater to the wishes of the Biotechnology industry, rather than think of safeguards and a precautionary approach.

    The Policy must take a clear position on crops and traits that are permissible and those that are not. GM crops that could have harmful social or economic impacts for farmers and consumers, those that are frivolous and those that will displace labor and impact rural livelihoods must be banned in this country. Herbicide tolerance should not be used in this country for it brings no significant advantages but would destroy sources of supplementary nutrition and underutilized food sources, it would destroy vegetation that is used as supplementary fodder for livestock and it would destroy flora used as medicinal plants, in addition to taking away a significant source of wages, especially for rural women.

    For the full article see:
  • Full article
  • Monday, September 11, 2006

    Reccomended reading

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    1. The perils of cloning - Time.com (from Science magazine)

    .....A decade later, scientists are starting to come to grips with just how different Dolly was. Dozens of animals have been cloned since that first little lamb--mice, cats, cows, pigs, horses and, most recently, a dog--and it's becoming increasingly clear that they are all, in one way or another, defective.....

    Full article:
  • Perils of cloning


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    2. Focus on transhumanisation - Merging of man and machine
    .... in the near future this feedback process will cross a threshold where the technology becomes, in a sense, independent of its creators. Human designers will no longer need to play a role in the process, and computers (or more precisely, transhumans) will be able to continue their evolution on their own. This will free them (us) from the limits set by the fixed capacity of human nature.....

    Full article:
  • transhumanisation


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    3. Pharmacoinformatics - Expanding horizons

    ..... The work in pharmacoinformatics can be broadly divided into two categories - scientific aspects and service aspects. The scientific component deals with the drug discovery and development activities whereas the service oriented aspects are more patient centric.

    Pharmacoinformatics subject feeds on many emerging information technologies like neuroinformatics, immunoinformatics, biosystem informatics, metabolomics, chemical reaction informatics, toxicoinformatics, cancer informatics, genome informatics, proteome informatics, biomedical informatics, etc.....

    Full article:
  • Pharmacoinformatics



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    Also See Weekly Synopsis of your comments at TBI talk back
  • Weekly Synopsis 4 - 10 Sept 2006



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    Wednesday, September 06, 2006

    Bio Mutiny


    Bio mutiny
    Voice of the voiceless



    I am angry. My rage directed at the establishment, at every person involved in this business of biotech, the students for being mute spectators and the teachers who encourage mediocrity. A mass production of generic individuals subservient to acknowledged authority where deflection from the norm is vehemently chastised.

    The hackneyed and obsolete education system undermines latent potential of an individual and seldom encourages oblique thinking. The inherent structure of the system suppresses independent view point while rewarding compliance with defined notions. So, a novel idea becomes secondary to the so called primary objective of “achieving merit”.

    The gulf between industry and academia is widening by the day. It is an accepted fact that a person has to unlearn his concepts when he or she enters the industry. So why are we investing in infrastructure and machinery when its eventual utility is void? The UGC had advised not to initiate a under-graduate course in Biotech due to the lack of infrastructure and discontinuity in terms of academic progression.In its fifth year now (in Mumbai) there is very little that this course can claim to have accomplished.

    A biotechnology graduate ignorant of practical applications is severely restricted in his opportunities. In effect we are educating people to be unemployed as the skill set required for absorption in the industry is absent. Through an initiative of public-private partnership this can be corrected. By linking academia with the industry we can nurture competent and productive work force which will sustain long-term growth.

    The government with its policies has virtually incapacitated entrepreneurs and set the biotech industry in retrograde. Although the cautious nature of our policies considers broader arguments with regards to implication of technology, its structure constricts expansion and rapid growth. As a result, India is trailing almost a decade behind countries like the US and China in spite of having equivalent resources.

    As practitioners of biotech the manufactured foot soldiers of ignominy aspire to extend a pre fabricated agenda without contemplation. Hence, we have researchers quick to eschew responsibility when a product of their design causes harm to people. Under the veiled accusation of “an incompetent administration”, which to a large extent may be true, they transfer their liability.

    Also, corporate policies with a linear objective of amassing wealth dilute the prospect of actual benefit to the masses. An erosion of moral fabric or sensitivity towards the common interests of people and the environment alike which may be linked to the lack of holistic education. A case in point would be the American MNC Monsanto and its unabashed persistence via contemptuous marketing and directed media, of introducing a harmful rBST vaccine ‘posilac’ to increase milk production in cows, which caused grave damage not only to the animals but also humans who consumed the milk. Closer home, the BT cotton debacle where farmers committed suicide due to the failure of crop or the imported Japanese encephalitis vaccine, a prophylactic measure taken without proper trials, killed many in North India. Accountability has become a flaccid value, a fleeting thought which does not inspire compassion or remorse.

    In what is touted as the century of biological sciences, a majority of the population is ignorant of the impact that this field has on their every day existence. The growth of the industry is solely reliant on developing a knowledgeable consumer base. But, the initiative in generating an informed consent is seen as a faltering strategy because this would lead to deliberations on issues which now are considered a prerogative of industry. This abject alienation further hinders societal responsibility.By ignoring the demands of sustainable industry, the current paradigm will lead to a subsequent degeneration of intellect and enterprise.

    The state of biotech can be likened to the early attempts of man to fly. A person would stand on a very high cliff, flapping his wings. In a moment of faith he would leap in order to test his theory. Initially the air rushes at him creating an illusion of overcoming gravity, but the ground inches closer eventually to break his fall. In actuality he is just free falling. We are governed by certain laws of nature and our momentary perception does not alter the reality.



    Monday, September 04, 2006

    Interesting Sciam articles

    Here are a few articles from Sciam which are a must read.

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    September 2006 issue

    ROLE FOR FISSION
    The Nuclear Option
    A threefold expansion of nuclear power could contribute significantly to staving off climate change by avoiding one billion to two billion tons of carbon emissions annually

  • Energy beyond carbon


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    Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity Genes
    A handful of genes that control the body's defenses during hard times can also dramatically improve health and prolong life in diverse organisms. Understanding how they work may reveal the keys to extending human life span while banishing diseases of old age

  • Can DNA beat time?


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    Stem Cells: The Real Culprits in Cancer?
    A dark side of stem cells--their potential to turn malignant--is at the root of a handful of cancers and may be the cause of many more. Eliminating the disease could depend on tracking down and destroying these elusive killer cells


  • Stem Cells responsible for cancer?


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    Also see weekly synopsis of your comments
  • Aug 27 to Sept 3 2006


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