HYDERABAD: Speakers at a training course said that field of biotechnology protected humans from epidemics by developing vaccines and was the only way to improve quality of human life as it helped lessen problems caused by genetic deficiencies.

They were speaking at three-day training course titled “Recent trends and techniques in biotechnology” that got under way at the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in University of Sindh, Jamshoro, on Monday.

SU’s vice chancellor Dr Mohammad Siddique Kalhoro said that diseases caused by genetic deficiency and other problems could be diminished or eliminated through modern biotechnology, which was a wide field based on technologies of chemical, biological and computational sciences.

He said that biotechnology included diverse and new sciences which were recombinant genes technology, genomics, immunology, pharmaceutical therapies development and various diagnostic tests. “It has simply provided both breakthroughs and advances in medical sciences in combating various diseases,” he said. Biotechnology could heal the world, fuel the world and feed the world, he added.

He said that doctors transplanted a pig’s heart into a patient in last-ditch effort to save his life in Maryland hospital with the help of biotechnology. Covid-19 posed threat to humans around the globe but scientists and researchers of biotechnology prepared its vaccines to save human lives, he said.

Faculty of Natural Sciences dean Prof Dr Wazir Ali Baloch said that biotechnology aimed at maintaining healthy life and protecting it from epidemics and viruses. Medicine sector was an important area in biotechnology which had seen most research and breakthroughs, he said.

The institute’s director Prof Dr Rafique Ahmed said that biotechnology was a rapidly growing technology. It could be used to ameliorate agriculture, basic sciences, engineering, manufacturing, genetic engineering, medicines and human health.

He said that biotechnology was basically a biological based technology which utilized numerous cellular and bio-molecular procedures for development of products and technologies which played a very crucial role in improving human lives.

He said that due to application and tools it utilized, biotechnology often overlapped with fields like bio-medical engineering, bio-engineering, molecular engineering, bio-manufacturing etc. It was one of safest, cleaner and most effective form of engineering, he said.

He said that biotechnology introduced Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Recombinant DNA technology, ELISA, Immuno-fluorescence used as quick means of diagnosis.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2022