Bigyan Projonmo
In the Bigyan Projonmo section of the last Sunday's edition of Prothom Alo, Mr. Munir Hasan has published the life sketch of Professor Maqsudul Alam starting from his early life; and traced it to his phenomenal rise in academic and research career, most of which he accomplished in Russia, thereafter in Germany and now in Hawaii. He now heads the department of Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu. In an interview with Mr. Hasan, the Prof. said that jute being the main cash crop of Bangladesh, its government and industrialists should come forward to finance the jute genome project. The Prof. said that unlike rice which has a huge number of varieties, jute has a limited No. of cultivars requiring breeders to depend upon the arsenal of the genes in jute cultivars for their improvement in fibre qualities, lignin reduction, their use in vegetables and medicines etc.; and that is possible only through the construction of jute genomic library. Completion of the jute project will not only help this cash crop regain its lost glory but also build up skilled manpower in the country and put Bangladesh in the World Atlas of biotechnology. Read the article by clicking here for page 1 and here for page 2.
It may be recalled that Professor Alam heads a team of 85 scientists who recently cracked the entire genomic structure of papaya and has agreed to explore the possibility of constructing jute genomic library on a global level of which Bangladesh will be an integral part. For the Lecture Schedule Summary Click here.
