AFSI Newsletter - November 2022

Recent Activities Organized by the South Asia Biosafety Program in Bangladesh


Drs. Andrew Roberts, Bhavneet Bajaj, and Vibha Ahuja returned to Dhaka this October to participate in a series of outreach and training activities in Bangladesh. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Agriculture & Food Systems Institute's South Asia Biosafety Program (SABP) works with in-country partners to develop a network of trained, authoritative local experts to communicate about the science of agricultural biotechnology and its biosafety to interested stakeholders. During this trip, AFSI and SABP staff co-organized the Conference on Genome Editing in Plants: Harnessing the Benefits for Bangladesh, in collaboration with the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS), Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC), and Biotech Consortium India Limited (BCIL). They also conducted the Fifth Workshop of the IBO Training Program, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Bangladesh, and the 2022 Progress Review Meeting of the Biosafety Research in Bangladesh Grants Program (BRBGP), which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 

South Asia Biosafety Program

Conference on Genome Editing in Plants: Harnessing the Benefits for Bangladesh

Several institutions in Bangladesh have initiated research projects aimed at harnessing innovative technologies to accelerate genetic improvement through plant breeding in different crops. With over 130 participants, this conference took place on October 18-19, 2022 and was preceded by two webinars. The event provided a platform where international experts and domestic scientists from the public sector, academia, and the private sector could discuss enabling policies for handling products of genome editing in Bangladesh.


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Fifth Workshop of the IBO Training Program

This by-invitation-only workshop series aims to ensure that institutions in Bangladesh are aware of their obligations under the biosafety regulatory system and are empowered to work with researchers to meet these obligations. Attended by 16 institutional biosafety officers (IBOs) on October 15-16, 2022, this training session focused on understanding regulatory submissions, writing meaningful dossiers, and navigating the regulatory submission process.


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2022 Progress Review Meeting of the Biosafety Research in Bangladesh Grants Program

From 2019-2021, the Biosafety Research in Bangladesh Grants Program (BRBGP) funded research projects that would build local knowledge and establish baseline data needed to support comparative assessments for agricultural biotechnology. This review meeting brought together seven awardees to share the progress, challenges, and way forward for the research activities funded by this program. The researchers also had the opportunity to discuss their potential poster or oral presentations at the upcoming 2023 ISBR Symposium.


About the BRBGP» 

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