TNSCST Establishing Patent Cells
The Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology (TNSCST) will establish Patent Cells in some universities to enhance patent filing of biotechnology products in the State, S. Vincent, Member Secretary of the Council, said in Coimbatore recently. Inaugurating a two-day conference on “Innovations and Challenges in Agriculture, Food, Bio-fuel, and Health Care" at Karunya University, he said the cells will be established in the Madurai Kamaraj University, University of Madras, Bharathiar University, Bharathidasan University and Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.Bio-technology has enormous potential to improve agriculture, food, health, energy and environment. It has also helped create opportunities for employment generation and has added to the economic progress of the nation through environmentally sustainable industrial development, Mr. Vincent said. “The Department of Biotechnology has been pioneering policies and guidelines for biotechnology development in the country. The seven agro-climatic zones in Tamil Nadu provide substantial advantages of bio-diversity that can be rarely found in any part of the world. The forest, agricultural and plant resource base of the State are both large and diverse and represent great market opportunities for biotechnology products,” he said.
Biotechnology as an industrial application is set to increase exponentially in the future. It is also expected to focus on drug-directed research by pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. H.S. Ramaswamy, Professor, McGill University, Canada, spoke on the emerging technologies in food and bio-processing applications. Paul P. Appasamy, Vice-Chancellor, urged the participants to pursue multi-disciplinary approaches for uplift of research and development in India.
