Biotechnology in India an Introduction

ASIA-PACIFIC BI TECHNEWS BIOTECHNOLOGY IN INDIA AN INTRODUCTION D. Balasubramanian* iotechnological activities in India can broadly be classified under two B categories — classical and modern. Classical biotechnology mainly refers to areas of biotechnology where tissues and organs, whole plants, organisms It is not commonly and animals are used, while modern biotechnology is largely based on molecular “ and cellular techniques. Classical biotechnology was already in practice effectively by a few universities and national agricultural research institutes in known that the areas India around the 1950s. Scholars trained in the classical disciplines of botany, zoology and agriculture were leading the research activities and indeed some of protoplast fusion, trail-blazing discoveries and developments were made in these universities. It is not commonly known that the areas of protoplast fusion, anther culture and callus culture, as well as micro-propagation using tissue culture of plants got anther culture and its earliest start in India, notably in the department of botany at the University of Delhi. The pioneers in these techniques are Professors Indra Vasil (protoplast callus culture, as well fusion), S. Maheshwari and his student Sipra Guha (callus culture and anther culture), B M Johri and H Y Mohan Ram (micropropagation, promiscuous as micro-propagation flowering of plants). Even as early as the late 1950s, micro-propagation of a variety of plants was successfully achieved in their laboratories. (It is thus notable, but not surprising, that much of the biotechnological activities in using tissue culture of India at present is still pretty much plant-based and is focused on micro- propagation in green houses.) It was around that time that plant geneticists plants got its earliest realized the importance of hybrid seeds, cross varieties, selection breeding and other biotechnological inputs. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research start in India. (ICAR), which predates independent India, had established excellent field stations and research outlets at various places such as Pusa, New Delhi, and Coimbatore. ” *Professor D. Balasubramanian is Director of Research, Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India. APBN • Vol. 4 • No. 4 • 2000 47 BTV4•4/part1 47 2/9/00, 9:09 AM “The fact that a nation that was forced to import food two generations ago now produces more than its needs and is able to export food grains is testimony to the successful use of biotechnology in agriculture. Concurrent with these national efforts in food production” Classical Biotechnology and livestock improvement, vaccination and other When the Mexican grass variety of wheat was introduced intervention methods have also been in practice on a large to the world by Norman Borlaug, one of the earliest scale in order to eliminate debilitating and death-causing countries to take advantage of this was India. Based on a diseases such as cholera, smallpox, measles, and goiter, systems approach, involving hybrid seed selection and among others. Delivery of the vaccines and immunization breeding, irrigation, use of appropriate fertilizers, post- of several hundred million people across a nation of harvest technologies and distribution of the produce, led 3000 km x 2000 km is an exercise of continental to what is now recognized as the Green Revolution. From proportions, which has been carried out successfully a mere 50 million tons output of food grains in the late more than once. The most recent instance has been the 1940s, India now produces 200 million tons — in just a immunization of over 150 million Indian children against matter of slightly more than 50 years. The fact that a nation polio using the oral polio vaccine in a ‘pulsed’ fashion that was forced to import food two generations ago now twice within 60 days. Similarly, the large-scale elimination produces more than its needs and is able to export food of goiter from focal areas through the use of iodized salt grains is testimony to the successful use of biotechnology and the administration of vitamin A doses to school children in agriculture. Amongst the active promoters of this form to counter night blindness have also been a story of of biotechnology are the scientists M S Swaminathan, success in India’s march towards better health. Drs. V Gurdev Khush, and M V Rao. Ramalingaswami and C Gopalan, two former chiefs of the Indian Council of Medical Research, have played key Classical biotechnology has also been used in India to roles in promoting and coordinating these efforts on a improve the livestock industry. Selective breeding of chosen national scale. breeds of milch cattle, sheep, horses and other animals has been successful. The White Revolution in dairy has closely Birth of Modern Biotechnology followed the Green Revolution in food production. Modern biotechnology was introduced in India around Cooperative dairy management involving thousands of the 1970s when a significant number of Indian researchers dairies, proper choice of livestock and milch cattle, an trained in the US and Europe in various aspects of modern efficient people-friendly, and people-participatory biotechnology returned to India. In fact, some of them distribution system led to this revolution. Varghese Kurien were front ranking players in the development of numerous is highly regarded in this matter. It is interesting to note methods and significant discoveries in enzymology, that while M S Swaminathan, Gurdev Khush and M V biopolymer structure and conformation, reverse transcrip- Rao are trained scientists, Kurien is a generalist and a tion, molecular virology, ribosome structure, transcription systems manager. This underscores another facet of and translation, cell culture techniques, biomolecular biotechnology, namely the close and necessary interaction spectroscopy, computer methods and so on. Indeed in the between the researcher and the manager. field of biopolymer conformation, the pioneering work of 48 APBN • Vol. 4 • No. 4 • 2000 BTV4•4/part1 48 2/9/00, 9:09 AM ASIA-PACIFIC BI TECHNEWS The DBT operates with an overseas scientific advisory committee, as well as an internal scientific advisory committee comprising of experts from within the country. The DBT not only funds extramural research projects but has also started institutions and centers of excellence in areas of modern biotechnology such as the National Institute of Immunology, National Centre for Cell Sciences, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, and the National Centre for Brain Research. It also supports university centers of excellence. The DBT has also prepared guidelines on the use of recombinant DNA techniques, transgenics, and other issues. An important fillip to capacity building in biotechnology in the country has been provided by the DBT through their MSc programs in biotechnology, for which students are chosen on the basis of a national examination, and the DBT postdoctoral research program which supports about a hundred postdoctoral research fellows in four or five centers across the nation. Sponsored projects and grant-in- aid projects also employ postdoctoral researchers. International cooperation in the area of biotechnology has also been possible through the DBT Visiting Associateships and Visiting Fellowships offered to both Indian and overseas scholars. G N Ramachandran had already established him as a world In addition to the DBT, other governmental agencies leader. His school in Madras and later in Bangalore, such as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), comprising researchers such as V Sasisekaran (nucleic Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), acid conformations), V S R Rao (polysaccharides), Department of Science and Technology, Council of C Ramakrishnan (protein structure), M Vijayan (X-ray Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Bureau crystallography), and their students and associates continues of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS), as well as the to lead in the field of conformational predicts and analysis. Universities Grants Commission are other sources of It was about the same time that the Department of Science research funding in biotechnology in the country. It has and Technology (DST) of the Indian Government initiated been estimated that close to 60% of all grants-in-aid offered the National Biotechnology Board or NBTB. This board, by these national agencies goes into areas of modern through its two pioneering researchers — the bio-organic biology. Professional associations in the area of modern chemist S Varadarajan (then secretary of the DST) and the biology have also been active for over two decades now. biologist S Ramachandran (then head of the NBTB), played a proactive role in promoting specific methods and Notable amongst these are the Society of Biological technologies, curricular programs, research laboratories and Chemists of India, Indian Cell Biology Association, Indian funding research projects to individual scientists. Within a Immunological Society, Association of Indian Microbio- short time, NBTB matured into a full-fledged department logists, Indian Biophysics Society, and the informal and of the government, called the Department of Biotechnology yet very effective annual meeting called the Guha Research (DBT). During the 15 years of its existence, it has been Conference. These have led to camaraderie and cooperation led by prominent scientists such as S Ramachandran, C R between investigators within the country so that exchange

Load more