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BIO-EARN
Capacity Building and Training Components
The
Programme has four different capacity building and
training components:
-
Ph.D.
and MSc training through the well established
"sandwich model".
-
Postgraduate
training and research visits by faculty staff.
-
Short
term training and "hands on training" on
various biotechnology policy issues, including
biosafety capacity building (e.g. training courses,
workshops, internships etc.).
-
Regional
workshops on biotechnology policy issues.
Swedish
research institutions host Ph.D. students through a
'sandwich model', which means that students share their
time between East African and Swedish institutions. In
the area of biopolicy capacity building, a number of
reputable international organisations provide support in
the area of biosafety capacity building and
biotechnology policy development. The Programme involves
more than 60 researchers and some 70 policy-makers in
Ethiopia
,
Kenya
,
Tanzania
,
Uganda
and
Sweden
.
BIO-EARN
Research and Capacity
Building Areas
Agricultural
Biotechnology
The
activities in this field are focussed on two themes:1. Molecular
markers related to breeding. DNA marker assisted
breeding is becoming an increasingly important tool for
breeders and agricultural scientists. The use of the DNA
marker technology helps to identify genetic linkages to
qualitative and quantitative traits, which simplifies
and facilitates conventional breeding efforts. This
theme includes projects on disease diagnostics and
resistance markers for plant virus and fungi (sweet
potato, maize, banana) and genotype variation in coffee
and banana.
2.
Plant transformation. This theme involves the
screening, isolation and cloning of useful crop genes.
Tissue culture and transformation protocols are also
developed in parallel with the long-term (3-5 years) aim
of producing genetically modified cassava, sorghum and
sesame with altered starch and oil composition.
Industrial and
Environmental Biotechnology
The
main themes within this field of research are:
1.
Biocatalysis for conversion of renewable raw
materials. This includes a project aimed at
purifying enzymes from extremophile organisms for
production of valuable secondary metabolites and of
robust systems for biocatalysis.
2.
Waste treatment (industrial and municipal). This
includes projects on production of biogas (bioenergy)
from organic waste, isolation of extremophiles for
bioremediation and wastewater treatment from various
processing industries.
Biosafety Research and
Capacity
Building
Biosafety
Research and Capacity Building
are at the heart of the Programme and activities in this
field concentrate on:
Ecological
Impact Assessment of Transgenic Crops. Research on:
-
survival,
dispersal and establishment of GMOs;
-
transgene
hybridisation and geneflow;
-
ecological
impact assessment of exotic organisms and transgenic
crops in
East Africa.
Capacity
Building in Biosafety
Implementation
-
Training
in biosafety assessment and field evaluation of
transgenic crops including "hands on"
training of members of National Biosafety
Committees;
-
Development
of a Biosafety Manual for regional competent
authorities;
-
Biosafety
guideline drafting and harmonisation of biosafety
guidelines.
Capacity
Building in Biotechnology Policy Development. Activities
in this part of the programme aim at generating
knowledge and information for formulating national
biotechnology priorities and policies in the BIO-EARN
countries. The Programme also seeks to stimulate
awareness of policy issues related to biotechnology
among policy-makers, practitioners and the public.
Finally, the activities are aimed at strengthening the
capacities of a core group of people in the BIO-EARN
countries to analyse, formulate and implement
biotechnology policies.
The
Programme has a focus on biotechnology related
intellectual property protection (IPP) issues, access to
and transfer of biotechnology, technology assessment,
private-public partnerships and innovative financing
mechanism for biotechnology R&D.
More
about BIO-EARN Phase III Research/Policy
Projects |
