Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal today announced the setting up of UNESCO Regional Centre for Biotechnology in Faridabad and Haryana.

Talking to reporters here, Sibal said the Centre would be beneficial to all countries in the region including India in developing knowledge-rich highly skilled human resource, harmonization of policies and procedures in biotechnology and indirectly promoting trade. Biotechnology being essentially global, the partnerships are as much within as across countries.

"The Centre will create a place from which many such partnerships will emerge. A Centre of education, training and research in biotechnology with intimate contributions from the countries of the region and academic institutions from the rest of the world and provides a meeting place where innovation, enterprise, and industrial development will germinate," he added.

The unique activities at the Centre will include Science and Technology expertise building for physicians intending to enter biology; short term medicine exposure to biologists and engineers by networking through local hospitals/ medical schools and short term training in platform technologies for skill development in existing personnel.

Specialized domain-specific programmes will also be created in new opportunity areas such as Cell and Tissue Engineering, Nano and biosciences, synergy of information technology and advanced biomaterials to create a cadre of highly specialized people who integrate across disciplines.

An important focus of expertise building will be regulation, product development, scale up, manufacturing science and bio-entrepreneurship. The Centre will also provide user friendly opportunities for career development and will also be open to industry for enhancing their skills in specific areas required for career advancement. The Centre will have adequate infrastructure for scale-up and process engineering.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt of India has decided to set up a unique Health Biotech Science Cluster (HBSC) at Faridabad and will co-locate the UNESCO Regional Centre for Biotechnology (URCB) and the Translational Health Science Technology Institute (THSTI). A number of other related Centres to be co-located at the cluster are at conceptual stage. The Cluster will facilitate synergizing high value resources and infrastructure, coordinated development and maximize societal benefits.

The Mandate of the UNESCO Regional Centre for Biotechnology is to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research, education and training in order to create human resources required at the biotech interface of engineering, chemistry, physics and medicine and to empower human resources critical for a wide range of biotech needs and to seek knowledge-based innovative and context-specific biotechnology solutions

The centre will be open to industry for enhancing their skills in specific areas. Domain-specific programmes will also be designed for people from basic sciences in nanotechnology, implants and devices, vaccine development and stem cell biology in order to create a cadre of highly specialized scientists for technology development in these areas. (ANI)