Biotechnology in India

In most of the developing countries, the recombinant DNA technology has become the major thrusts. In 1982, Government of India set up an official agency, 'the National Biotechnology Board' (NBTB) which started functioning under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). In 1986, NBTB was replaced by a full fledged department, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), in the Ministry of Science and Technology for planning, promotion and coordination of various biotechnological programmes.

Table: Area of biotechnology.
The DBT is making effort in promoting post graduate education and research. Special M.Sc. courses in Biotechnology in selected group of institution with scholarship is provided by the DBT. The selection of students is done via National Test. In addition, it also provides trained manpower for the rapidly growing biotech industry. It has also raised the level of biology education in certain areas of biotechnology in the country. Moreover, a considerable amount of basic biochemical and molecular biology is impaired in these courses.
International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB).

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) recognized the potential of genetic engineering and biotechnology for promoting the economic progress of the developing countries. The initiation taken by UNIDO has led to the foundation of ICGEB. In 1981, in a meeting convened by UNIDO it was proposed to establish an international center of excellence to foster biotechnology in the developing world. In 1982, this concept was approved by a high level conference of developed and developing nations in Belgrade. The statutes of the center were signed by 26 countries with the entry into force of statutes on February 3, 1994. The ICGEB has become a fully autonomous international organization composed of at present 33 member states. The ICGEB has two centers, one located in Trieste (Italy), and the other in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India). The Trieste component is currently occupying about 5,700m² area, whereas the New Delhi component is occupying about 10,000m² area. This center is functioning in a proper way since 1982.

The organs of ICGEB are the Secretariat, the Board of Governors and the Council of Scientific Advisors. The secretariat component is the Director, two Heads of the components and the scientific and administrative staff operating with the framework of the ICGEB programme. The Board of Governors consists of a representative of each Member State. The Council of Scientific Advisors is composed of eminent scientists and overseas scientific excellence of ICGEB. Funds are provided by the government of Italy and India. From 1999, all Member States have started to finance ICGEB through a scale of assessment adopted by the Board of Governors.

The activities of ICGEB are aimed specifically at strengthening the R & D capability of its member States by:
(i) providing the developing countries with a necessary 'critical mass' environment to pursue and advance the research in biotechnology; host research facilities that are technology and capital demanding and, therefore, inaccessible to the great majority of developing countries,

(ii) training schemes and collaborative research with affiliated centers to ensure that significant members of scientists from Member states are trained in state-of-art technology, in areas of direct relevance to the specific problems of their countries,

(iii) acting as the coordinating hub of network of affiliated centers that serve as localized nodes for distribution of information and resources located at ICGEB.

In addition, the other centers for biotechnology in India are : Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi University, Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izzatnagar (U.P.); Central Food and Technology Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore; National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal (Haryana); Malaria Research Center (MRC), Delhi; Regional Research Laboratory (RRL) Jammu; Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) and Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, Madras, Bombay and New Delhi. Other centers to which DBT has provided infrastructural facilities are Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; Allahabad University ; M.K. University, Madurai; Anna University (Madras); Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore); Pune University, Pune; All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Bombay, etc. Facilities supported by DST are given in below Table. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the Late Prime Minister of India, laid a foundation stone on October 4, 1988 at the Center I.A.R.I. with the name "Lai Bahadur Center for Biotechnology".

Table: Infrastructural facilities supported by DBT, Government of India.
Many public and private institutions working under the Government departments and organizations have advised the DBT to formulate the biotechnology programmes under the following areas : (i) Plant molecular biology and agricultural biotechnology, (ii) Biochemical engineering, process optimization and bioconversion, (iii)Aquaculture and marine biotechnology, (iv) Fuel, fodder, biomass and green cover, (v) Medical biotechnology, (vi) Microbial and industrial biotechnology, (vii)Large scale use of biotechnology, (viii)Integrated systems in biotechnology, (ix)Veterinary biotechnology and (x) Infrastructural facilities.

A workshop of ICGEB was organized in New Delhi during September 18-22, 1988, in which about 60 scientists from 15 countries participated and discussed the problems. The recommendations made by them on research priority and thrust are as below:
(i) Genome organization and vector for transfer of recombinant DNA to plants, for example, (a) development of diagnostic tools especially for identifying the tropical plants disease, (b) identification of plant genes involved in disease resistance, (c) restriction fragment length polymorph (RFLP) mapping of a major agricultural crop, (d) plant-bacterial interaction, and (e) microbial fermentation of plant gene products.
(ii) Genes of agricultural importance, for example (a) disease resistant genes, (b) drought resistant genes, (c) salt resistant genes, (d) high temperature resistant genes.
(iii) Molecular biology and genetic engineering of nitrogen fixation.
(iv) Plant cell culture, differentiation, regulation and transformation.

Pharmaceutical industry in India is very strong and vibrant with expertise for chemical drugs. It has little experience in biotech diagnostics and no experience in biotech therapeutics. Moreover, pharma industry is located between Mumbai and Ahmedabad (90% of drug production in India is in Gujarat and Maharashtra). There is no Government institution or university with expertise in this area to help pharma industry. However, for a variety of reasons, the Indian pharmaceutical industry will sooner or later enter in manufacturing of biotechnology based diagnostics and therapeutics (Padh, 1996).

Need for Future Development
A few developing countries like India have scientists and technologists related to biotechnology where national strategies of development in biotechnology could be implemented. The scientific and technical manpower has to be properly shifted towards new biotechnology with the aim to produce expertise in biotechnology. In a keynote address, Bachhawat and Banerjee (1985) have described the impact of biotechnology on third world countries. They emphasized "Indian bioscientist must be trained to utilize their knowledge and expertise for application and orientation, for example, a microbiologist must be trained in microbial genetics to be really useful in fermentation technology, or a botanist must be trained in cell culture, protoplast fusion or DNA recombination for practical utility and similarly, people from traditional disciplines in life science may be trained to reorient their knowledge towards application and process of training readjusted according to need."

It is, therefore, necessary to encourage the biotechnological programmes at industrial and educational levels. In higher education, teaching of biotechnology should be compulsory for undergraduate students to expand their understanding and knowledge of the scientific and engineering principles underlying biotechnology. Countries like U.S.A., France, Germany and Japan have taken this issue seriously.

In India, most of the universities have started teaching biotechnology at under-graduate level. However, at post graduate level teaching and research have been initiated only by a few universities/ institutes on all India entrance test basis. Government of India has selected many thrust areas of national and international relevance, as described earlier.