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Alphabetically
arranged Hyperlinked Conference titles with Important
Abstracts
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Besides
important articles and recent advances in the field of
biotechnology, we shall publish news of participation of
Bangladeshi Biotechnologists in important meetings,
conferences as a speaker or an instructor in a seminar
or workshop. The news may also relate to any new appointment
which a Bangladeshi biotechnologist has accepted. Members
are requested to send in such pieces of information for
posting in the home page at aislam24@yahoo.com
or abidur@bio.umass.edu.
We shall flash in the home page the news of any new member
joining GNOBB.
____________________
Eleventh Congress of IAPTC&B
at Beijing August 13 through17
Austin, July 24,
'06. The Eleventh
Congress of the International Association of Plant Tissue
Culture and Biotechnology (IAPTC&B) was held August 13
through 17 in Beijing International Convention Center. The
number of both plenary and symposium sessions will be four
each. Seventeen plenary and 33 keynote speakers have
confirmed their participation. The
number of posters
classified under 26 symposia are 1601. Besides posters,
155 papers will be
presented under 26 different symposia titles S-1 to S-155,
6-7 sessions running concurrently. In the workshop on RNAi
Research four papers will be presented and the same number
of papers in the other workshop entitled, "Opportunities for
Research in Agriculture Science in Canada."
To know more about the
conference, pl click
the title.
The
biotechnology
community will be interested to take clues from some of the
papers/posters to be presented at the conference such as “Engineering
Plants for the Global Clean up of Arsenic Pollution (P-9)”
by
Richard Meagher,
USA in order to ameliorate the problem of arsenic
contamination in both rural and urban Bangladesh.
GNOBB member,
Dr. Kamal Chowdhury,
Associate Professor of Biology, Claflin University, SC
attended the conference.
_________________________________________________
The 2nd International Rice Congress 2006
Austin March 11, 06. The 2nd International Rice Congress 2006 (IRC2006), being jointly organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) will be held October 9 through 13, 2006, in New Delhi. The theme of the conference, "Science, technology, and trade for peace and prosperity" reflects the current trends of thought among rice scientists. The Congress is divided into four sections addressed to specific areas concerning rice as viewed by pure scientists and breeders, technologists, businessmen and traders and last but not the least by the policy makers at the Ministerial level. The sections are as follows: 26th International Rice Research Conference, the 2nd International Rice Commerce Conference, the 2nd International Rice Technology and Cultural Exhibition, and the 2nd International Ministerial Round Table Meeting.
_____________________________
American Society for Microbiology Annual Meeting on 21 thru 25 May
Austin March 02, 06. The 106th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology will be held in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL from May 21 thru 25, 2006. A number of workshops will precede the Annual Meeting. The program has been drawn out in detail and will include nearly 300 individual colloquia, symposia, roundtable discussions, award lectures, and poster sessions. Pl click the title to know more about the Annual Meeting.
GNOBB is happy to announce that Forum member, Dr. Jahangir Alam will present a paper there under the title, "Salmonella in clinically ill cattle in a commercial feed-yard."______________
______________________________
Mechanism
of Pollen Rejection in Self-incompatible Nicotiana
Species
Austin Feb 23, '06. In
self-incompatible (SI) taxa such as
in some Nicotiana species pollen is rejected
when it lands on the stigmatic surface of another flower of
the same individual. Recent studies in the pollen-pistil
interactions have shown that in SI plants S-RNase is
secreted. It acts as a specific cytotoxin destroying any
pollen that has the same haplotype (haploid genotype)
as the female reproductive tissue represented by
stigma, style and ovary. This is one of the nature's ways
of preventing inbreeding between closely related individuals
in the same population. Besides, S-RNase, there are other
factors such as HT-B, 4936 and the 120 kDa glycoprotein
which also contribute to pollen rejection in SI species. In
the paper published in Nature on the 16th
February (vol 439, 805-810), Ariel Goldraij et al.
have shown that subsequent to its entry, S-RNase is
ferried to a vacuolar compartment of the pollen tube in
situations where HT-B or 4936-factor are not expressed. In
such instances, S-RNase fails to cause pollen rejection. In
compatible species HT-B or 4936-factor is degraded thereby
suppressing the effect of S-RNase. The above study leads to
the conclusion that the function of S-RNase is related to
the stability of HT-B; they must be together to effect
pollen rejection in SI plants.
________________
Proteome
survey reveals modularity of the yeast cell machinery
Austin
Feb. 18. '06, An
exciting feature article
under the above title has been published
online (22nd January) in this week's Nature. It
is first of its kind reporting genome-wide screen for
protein complexes in yeast. As many as 32 scientists from
four well-known institutions, namely,
Cellzome
AG, European
Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Max
Planck Institute for Infection Biology
(MPI-IB)
and Center
for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (CeMM)
have taken part in this
piece of research and have coauthored this feature
article. The
scientists identified 491 complexes
of
which 257 were unique. The 257 novel proteins revealed how
cellular machinery is organized and the principles behind
such an organization.
The conclusion of these authors
was based on modular
organization of the proteome
which was integrated with
"available data on expression, localization, function,
evolutionary conservation, protein structure and binary
interactions."
______________
Interesting
Developments in Multitude Fields of Biotechnology
Austin
Feb 21, 06.
Forum member Professor Zeba I. Seraj
selected the following titles recently posted in the
SciDev.Net website. All the four titles deal with areas of
biotechnology directly related to the promotion of
biotechnology in our country. The first title, "Bangladeshi
farmers banish insecticides"
has depicted how without the use of pesticides Bangladesh
farmers were able to enhance the yield of crops, once they
were trained how to avoid using pesticides without crop
loss. The
second article, "GM
crops are compatible with sustainable agriculture"
allays
the fear of adversaries of GM crops who fear that their
introduction will do irreparable loss to the ecosystem. The
third article, "WTO
says Europe's GM ban broke trade rules"
brings to
the attention of the EU countries that they cannot continue
banning imports of GM
crops from countries like Brazil because that will go
against the trade rules which clearly spell out that without
clear cut evidence such an embargo cannot be imposed on
import of food crops. The fourth article "Genomics
accelerates East Coast Fever vaccine hunt",
epitomizes as to how the
cracking of the
genomic library of Theileria
parva,
a
parasite that causes a deadly cattle
disease causing
an annual loss of about USD
200 million, has
helped the vaccine biotechnologists to come up
with eight parasite
proteins that
have
proved to be promising vaccine candidates.
__________________________
A
Specific Amino Acid Added to a Protein Tail Activates Gene
Expression
Austin
Feb. 10, '06. Describing
the current week's molecular biology news published in Science
(10
February 2006, page 757),
Jean Marx begins by saying that,
"Turning on a gene is a lot more complicated than
simply flipping a switch ".
Explaining the inability for a gene to express
itself, she
states that the gene trapped in chromatin is unable to
interact with the transcription factors needed for its
activation. Chromatin
folds facilitate folding of the nucleosomes that are made up
of DNA wound around a core of histones. Nucleosomes, when
folded in
stacks prevent
the expression of genes.
On the other hand, unfolding of the stack of
nucleosomes
activates the gene to function. Shogren-Knaak and his
colleagues attached an acetyl group to
a specific lysine located in the tail of so-called
histone 4 (H4). Such
a modification was shown to
prevent the folding, presumably by blocking the
necessary nucleosome-to- nucleosome interactions. This
outstanding finding provides
a deep insight into
the mechanism of gene activation.
In other words, the process of
acetylation was found to induce the specific
chromatin open for gene activity.
Equally interesting was the fact that addition of
magnesium salts to chromatin containing H4 tails with the
acetylated lysine did not fold the nucleosomes,
compared to those without the lysine.
Researchers have shown for the first time that a
specific histone, if modified with one amino acid, in this
case a lysine, may radically
change the property of the chromatin.
___________________
 Warmest
Congratulations to Seraj et al. for
their Recent Publication
Austin
Feb.
20, '06.
GNOBB
members are delighted to convey their warmest
congratulations to Professor Zeba I. Seraj and her
associates at the Department of
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dhaka University
for contributing a valuable chapter in a recently published
book, "Abiotic
Stress Tolerance in Plants"
by
Springer, The Netherlands.
The details are as follows:
Zeba
I. Seraj, Laisa A. Lisa, M. Rafiqul Islam, Rokeya Begum and
Deepok K. Das (2005) Genetic Diversity of Saline Coastal
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Landraces of
Bangladesh. In:
Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants.
Toward Improvement of Global Environment and Food.
Ashwani K. Rai and Teruhiro Takabe (eds.).
Springer, The Netherlands, pp. 229-244. Click the title
to know what this book is all about and its contents.
_________________________
Genomes
to Systems Conference in Manchester UK March
22-24, '06
Austin Feb. 14, '06.
The Consortium for Post-genome Science announces that the
Genomes to Systems Conference will be held 22-24 March 2006
to discuss the latest Post-Genome Developments. The
conference will be held at the Manchester International
Convention Center. Those of you who are
interested to know more about the conference are requested
to click
here or the title.
_________________
Prospect
of GM crops in Malaysia to Improve Crop Productivity
A
senior Forum member, Dr.
Abul
Ekramoddoullah,
sends the attached article, "Sharing
Malaysian experience with the development of
biotechnology-derived food crops"
thinking that it might
interest GNOBB members. So here it is only a click
away from you.
__________________
DNA
Sequencer in Dhaka University.
Austin
Feb. 10, '06. The good news
about a DNA sequencer at Dhaka University has already
reached many of you. This morning I have received a letter
from Professor Zeba I. Seraj at the department of
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, D. U. regarding some of
the details about the sequencer. In her letter she has
requested interested GNOBB members to contact Dr.
Amir Hossain Khan (ahkhan@univdhaka.edu)
of the DU Center of Excellence, if you have any suggestions
or queries regarding the sequencer.
Another scientist to contact is Dr.
Gazi Nurun Nahar Sultana who is now learning the
technicalities, preservation, operation and sample analysis
on the machine (nngazi@univdhaka.edu).
Click here to read Prof.
Zeba's letter.
Pl also go to the Guest Book on the right hand column
navigator and click "View comments".
(members/gbook_list.asp) to
read the comments of Professor
Ahmed Azad,
Dr.
Abed Chaudhury and Dr. Abul
K. M. Ekramoddoullah, on the news that the D. U.
Center of Excellence has now acquired a DNA Sequencer.
Austin, Feb.11,
06. The
procurement of a DNA sequencer by D.U.has set in motion an
exchange of thought-provoking letters indicating how keen
Forum members are to promote biotechnology in Bangladesh. Pl
do spend sometime to air your views on the issue. Here is
Professor Ahmed
Azad's second letter in the same issue
which GNOBB wants to share with you. Although not
directly connected with the title above, you may like
to read an article entitled, "Bigyan
niye jege oothuk Desh"
by Dr. Abed Chaudhury published in the Science section
of "Prothom Alo" in its 12th February edition.
_________________________
6-11
August GRC Meet will Focus on Stopping replication of hepatitis
C virus
Austin
Feb. 5 06. This
week's Science (3rd February,
06) cover has a beautiful picture depicting the natural
substrate of hepatitis
C virus. The substrate has been shown to bind to the active
site of the NS3-4A protease
enzyme. This new finding has enabled the concerned
pharmaceutical scientists to design novel protease
inhibitors. Such inhibitors, when available in the near
future, will stop the replication of this life-threatening
hepatitis C virus. In this image binding grooves of the
NS3-4A enzyme can be seen clearly. All the aspects related
to the production of this enzyme and the mechanism of its
attachment to the substrate,
hepatitis C virus NS5A-5B will be discussed in the
upcoming Gordon
Research Conference on Medicinal Chemistry to be
held from 6 - 11 August 2006 at Colby Sawyer
College, New London, NH. Among others, the concluding
session will be addressed by Dr. John Talley, Vice President
Drug Discovery at Microbia Inc.
GNOBB
members might be interested to read the following
comments about GRC, made by Dr. Alan I. Leshner is
chief executive officer of AAAS, executive publisher of Science,
and a member of the GRC Board of Trustees and we quote from
the 3rd of February's issue of Science. "The
GRCs are only one way to encourage transformative thinking
and research, but their track record suggests that we may
need more venues like them. Scientists
sometimes lament that peer review may be biased in favor of
cautious and "safe" research, unsupportive of
departures from mainstream thinking. By creating
a relatively unthreatening, unconstrained atmosphere, the
GRCs provide a refreshing opportunity to try out new
ideas on one's colleagues, brainstorm about difficult and
complex issues, and think about possible solutions.
Not a bad strategy at all."
___________________________
Arabidopsis Research Conference (2005):
16th International Conference on
Arabidopsis Research Concluded
The 16th
Intl. Conf on Arabidopsis research was held June 15
through 19 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While
there were abstracts of 612 posters, the number of
abstracts of papers for oral presentation were 60. The first
abstract of oral presentation was by Dr. Chris Somerville
(Dept of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution of Washington
and Department of Biological Sciences, University of
Stanford) who advocated more research on plant biomass which
can make a significant contribution towards meeting the
challenge of energy crisis. He said that the species that
are suited for biomass production are undomesticated
and that basic research in plant biology in this field
focusing on domesticating such species will have "a
significant impact" toward reducing
our dependence on nonrenewable energy. Since acute
energy crisis is felt in many of the developing countries
including Bangladesh, research aimed at finding suitable
wild species combined with their domestication, should be
launched forthwith. GoB may consider giving its top priority
on designing and implementing such a project independently
or jointly with neighboring countries where fuel shortage is
a chronic problem.
Click here
for abstracts
of oral presentation: Click
here for
abstracts of Posters.
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Arabidopsis Research
Conference (2004) held in Berlin,
Germany 11th through 14th July. Below are given the list of 14 talks with hyperlinks. I will recommend everyone to go through the second and sixth talk entitled, "A Journey through the Plant Cell" and "Functional analysis of Arabidopsis genes."They are all hyper-linked; so you can view any one or more titles by merely clicking these
links
Botany 2005: Combined meeting of
4 Societies Begins Tomorrow at Austin
Austin Aug. 12, '05. The news about the above conference
features GNOBB website because a large number of papers and
posters to be presented at the conference are related to
application of biotechnology. The theme of the Conference
is, "Learning from Plants" and will be held August 13
through 17 in Hilton Hotel, Austin. Click
here
and the title to know about the meeting,
titles and abstracts of oral presentations and posters.
One of the awe-inspiring talks at this meeting was by
Professor Henry Daniell
at the Central Florida University, Orlando. He spoke on
edible vaccines under the title, "Genetically modified
plants producing pharmaceutical products". Listen to an
animated version of a similar talk
delivered by him at Yale University on May 12, 2005 by
clicking here.
_________________
Electronic Paper from the Gram Negative Bacterium
Acetobacter xylinum
Another
exciting plenary lecture of the above conference delivered
on Monday the 15th of August was on, “Botany
in the World’s Service, focusing upon Nature’s Most Abundant
Macromolecule, Cellulose by
Professor Malcolm Brown
at the
School of Biological
Sciences (Section
of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology,
UT, Austin. He began his talk by describing “the atomic and
molecular structure of cellulose crystals and polymer
chains, to cloning and sequencing cellulose synthase genes”
from the gram negative bacterium, Acetobacter xylinum.
He then talked about their recent finding in which they
demonstrated that high-quality sheet of cellulose (made up
of polymer of numerous D-glucose units, linked together
with b-1-4-glycosidic
bonds), suitable for paper-making can be derived by
processing the material through the culture of the above
bacterium.
more. ....
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Signals that Regulate Germination and
Polarized Growth in Pollen and Fern Spores.
Another thought-provoking
topic of the conference was the Annals of Botany Lecture
delivered on the 16th of August by Dr. Stanley Roux,
Distinguished Teaching Professor in Molecular Cell &
Developmental Biology,
UT, Austin. Professor Roux and his associates have been
studying how the polarity of pollen
tubes and fern rhizoids is determined and the factors
involved in their development. Both these structures begin
their development as single cells that grow in a polar
fashion at their apical tip. Both sustain growth by the
delivery to their tip of secretory vesicles that are guided
in part by a gradient of calcium that enters at the growing
end of the cell. In both cell types disruption of the
calcium gradient by nifedipine, a calcium channel blocker,
disrupts polar growth. In both cell types annexins
accumulate primarily at the growing tip, where they may
participate in promoting both vesicle fusion and calcium
uptake, and in both cell types nitric oxide can influence
growth. Based on the similarities revealed by these
comparisons, they propose that the basic molecular
strategies for regulating polar growth in plant cells were
established early in evolution accounting for the similarity
of development of diverse structures such as pollen tubes
and rhizoids in distantly related taxa such as ferns and
angiosperms.
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Plant Biology 2005: Highlights of
ASPB-Organized Plant Biology 2005
Meeting held July 16-20
August 16, '05.
Plant Biology 2005 Meeting
was held at Seattle July 16 thru 20.
In
addition to Five Symposia listed above and 20 Mini-symposia,
over 1,000 posters, 40 exhibits and a number of workshops
were organized. A number of Bangladeshi Biotechnologists
attended the Meeting and two presented their papers.
You will see the abstracts of
all the 20 Mini-Symposia merely by clicking the word,
abstracts
in
blue fonts.
Please read the
highlights and over all impression of the ASPB Meeting from
the account prepared by Dr. Abidur Rahman, Forum Member who
attended it. Please Click
here
for the write-up.
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Plant Biology 2004:
July 24 through 28
The Plant Biology Meeting arranged by ASPB concluded on July
28, 2004, at Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. If you want to know more details about this Conference please click the title above. There were five symposia and 27 minisymposia as shown below: They are all hyper-linked; so you can view any one or more titles by merely clicking these links. Five symposia were on
(a)
Tropism; (b)
Reactive Oxygen Species: Balancing Signaling and
Stress (c)
(c)
Advances in Plant Reproductive Biology
(d)
Sensing and Responding to
Water; (e)
From the Soil to the Seed.
The titles of the 27 mini-symposia were:
Mineral Nutrition
;
Signaling
;
Secondary Metabolism
Oxidative Stress;
10,000 Years of Maize;
Epigenetics;
Protein Turnover;
Cell Division;
Global Change;
Tropisms
Plant Symbiont;
Interactions;
Genome Evolution;
Heavy
Metal;
Reproductive Development;
Photosynthesis;
Cell Walls;
Water;
Plant Defense Signaling;
Gene Regulation;
Photomorphogenesis;
Emerging Technologies;
Salinity;
Protein Targeting;
Membrane Transport;
Pathogen Virulence Mechanisms;
Proteomics;
Temperature
.
In addition an
Education Workshop
was held.
__________________
Plant Genetics 2005
Austin, May 1, '05. Organized by
ASPB, Plant Genetics 2005, the second of a
series will be held in the
Snowbird Resort & Conf. Center, Snowbird, Utah
October 12 through 16. Professor Dorothy Shippen at Texas
A & M University will chair the conference. The theme of the
conference is, “Mechanisms of Genetic Variation.” The
presentations spread over seven sessions will center round
the nature and mechanisms of genetic variation and their
effects on evolution of plant form and function, as well as
how these factors have influenced plant speciation and crop
domestication. The abstract submission deadline is August
22.
The
topics of seven sessions will be as follows:
1:
Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics I
2: Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics II
3: Origins and Nature of Genetic Variation
4: Epigenetics and Epigenomics
5: Chromosome Dynamics
6: Genetic Mechanisms in Plant Development
7: Genetic Mechanisms in Plant–Microbe Interactions
________________
Plant
Tissue Culture Conference: Fifth International Plant
Tissue and Biotechnological Conference concluded
Austin, December 7.
About 200 scientists
from home and abroad attended the conference held from
the 4th through 6th of December at the Department of Botany,
Dhaka University.
Thirty-seven were foreign delegates from the USA, Germany,
India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Iran.
Most of the delegates are eminent scientists working at
prestigious institutions in their respective countries. About 160
scientists and observers from almost all the institutes and
Universities of Bangladesh, where biotechnological
research including tissue culture is carried out, were
present at the conference. The Government of People's
Republic of Bangladesh was represented by
Dr. Kamal Uddin Siddiqui,
Principal
Secretary to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, who was the
Chief Guest at the concluding session, where
recommendations were presented, discussed and adopted.
GNOBB sincerely believes
that Dr. Siddiqui will carry the SOS message of the conference
to the Prime Minister. We believe that Dr. Siddiqui's keen
interest in the promotion and development of biotechnology
in the country will prompt him to adopt adequate measures
for implementing the recommendations passed at the
concluding session. Ten years have passed by since the
holding of the First International Plant Tissue Culture Conference in
1994 and we hope that the GoB, without further loss of time,
accords high priority to this important discipline of
science and technology which is vitally linked to the
development of the country in the industry, agriculture and
health sectors. For details of the deliberations, please
click the highlighted word,
conference report.
____________________
Please
read in this connection also the following:
Agricultural
Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII) and
the Program on Biosafety Systems (PBS) at the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA),
Ibadan, Nigeria. and
also about Global
Bioscience Development Institute.
___________________
Symposium:
The Fifth International Symposium on
PTRoPGE at UT, Austin, Concluded
Austin 12th
June,
The Presentation of papers at the 5th
International Symposium on "Post Transcriptional Regulation
of Plant Gene Expression (PTRoPGE)" began today at UT
Austin. On the first day of the conference 20 papers
distributed over three sessions were presented. In addition,
there was a 1-hour special lecture by Professor Jim
Carrington of Oregon State University on, Small RNA Pathways
in Plants. Read more about the papers presented on the first
day by clicking
here.
About the details of the program
click the title
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