Source: FAO-BiotechNews

The FAO e-mail conference entitled "The role of biotechnology for the characterisation and conservation of crop, forest, animal and fishery genetic resources in developing countries" is now finished.

It ran from 6 June to 3 July 2005, about 650 people subscribed and 127 messages were posted, from people in 38 different countries. Over 60% of messages came from developing countries.

Of the biotechnologies discussed, most focus was on molecular markers with much less emphasis on cryopreservation or in vitro culture.

Discussions covered a wide range of issues relevant to crop, forest, animal and fishery genetic resources, such as the potential role or value that markers have for prioritising populations for conservation purposes or for characterising different populations; advantages and disadvantages of different marker systems; potential importance of DNA banks; international collaboration and capacity building; and low cost options for tissue culture.

The messages are available at http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/c13logs.htm or can be requested as a single e-mail (size 184 KB) from biotech-admin@fao.org.