The Hindu Business Line : Govt for setting up of human stem cell bank

(From left) The Chairperson of the Vision Group on Biotechnology and CMD of Biocon, Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, with the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr N. Dharam Singh; the Karnataka Agriculture Minister, Mr Srinivasa Gowda; the Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ms Vasundhara Raje, and the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, at the inaugural function of Bangalore Bio 2005 on Friday. - Bhagya Prakash K.

Bangalore , April 22

THE Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, on Friday stressed the need for setting up a stem cell bank for breeding human cell for research and development of effective cure for diseases.

At the fifth Bangalore Bio conference here, he said that with more than 25 million births in the country, umbilical cords were going waste. This could be prevented by setting up a bank for research use.

He said the Government was planning to bring in legislation to preserve human stem cells for curing many degenerative diseases by using it for organ culture.

Dr Ramadoss said the Centre would create a conducive atmosphere for developing genomic medicines and conducting clinical trials and added that regulating norms for bio-safety would be made less stringent to allow healthy growth of the sciences.

Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson of the Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology and CMD of Biocon, said Indian biotech industry had the capability to grow to global scale and added that the target of $5 billion worth of biotech business by 2010 was well within the reach of India.

The Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr N. Dharam Singh, said Bangalore was home to 131 biotech companies, accounting for 50 per cent of the total number of such firms in the country, with 21 of them opening in the last one year itself.

He said the State Government was in the process of setting up a biotech park named `Bangalore Helix' with world-class infrastructure and work on it would start in June.

The Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ms Vasundhara Raje, said the bio-cluster in Bangalore should move to other parts of the country and her State would provide all the facilities to augment the infrastructure for investors to exploit its potential.

Dr George Atkinson, Science and Technology Advisor to US Secretary of State, stressed that in the rapidly changing scenario of biosciences and technology, scientists and policy makers should have closer interaction for evolving a viable policy based on right information to reach the benefits of the biotechnology and biosciences.

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