I am always amused with the talks of new year resolutions and
its impact on our achievements. Can anyone tell me if new year resolutions have
really made a great impact on your life? I don’t make new year resolutions as
we have 365 opportunities (if not more) to make resolutions on any other
days. I make resolutions all the time, so I don’t wait till the 1st
of Jan.
Anyways, to those who religiously followed through
your resolutions - my sincerest congratulations!
I would like to reproduce my editorial note from the Dec
issue of Petri Dish and hope we could connect with each other on the issues
discussed.
“THE year is coming to an
end. And as usual it is time to take stock of our success and failures to
improve in the coming years. A number of biotechnology related policies were
launched in 2012.
The Bioeconomy Policy
took the limelight, so did all the EPPs under the Economic Transformation
Programme (ETP). The National Biomass Strategy and the various strategies to
promote innovations all looked very ambitious.
It created a number of
high-level positions and involved huge investments and expenses and these have
to be justified and the return of investment has to be quantified in terms of
number of successful biotech companies, commercialisation of research at
universities and research institutes, and creation of job opportunities.
So what is on my
Christmas and New Year wish list? Pointedly it is for the country to pay urgent
attention to fundamental research. I am reiterating what I have always preached
- if we don’t have strong fundamentals or basic research, we can never have
successful commercialisation of high-end products. We will end up with herbal
supplements with no global standards and markets, buying technologies from
outside, luring foreign companies to set up their plants here with locals
working as second-class workers, seeking assistance from outside to address
national challenges such as tropical diseases, food security, managing diseases
and pests in the agricultural sector, etc.
We keep encouraging our
students to take up science but are the job opportunities promised a reality?
How would biotech companies emerge if there is no fundamental research? Is that
why a number of Bionexus companies have closed shop and none have reached
global status?
There are no short-cuts
in biotechnology. Just like how a building without a strong foundation would
crumble, a biotech industry without strong fundamental research would not last
long. Players will come and go and no legacy would be created.”
By Mahaletchumy Arujanan
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