The member of the organizing committee of the International Congress Biotechnology Havana 2014, Mario Estrada, highlighted the need to promote programs to guarantee people feeding on a global scale, especially in the developing countries.
In this century, the food production will be even more important in the international agendas than wars and disease control, Estrada assured during the opening of the event in the Hotel Occidental Miramar of this capital.
The scientific secretary of Biotechnology Havana 2014 and specialist of the Cuban Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB by its Spanish abbreviations) underlined that due to the importance of the issue, scientists of 34 countries gathered in this capital in representation of all the continents.
Likewise, he informed that in the congress, which initiates this Tuesday its second day of session, 323 works will be presented in eight plenary conferences and six specializing symposiums.
The first vice-president of the CIGB, Eulogio Pimentel, emphasized the impact that has had throughout the years the work of this institution in the Cuban society.
Thanks to our work in the field of the pharmaceutical biotechnology we achieved laudable advances in the struggle against illnesses like the Hepatitis-B, to such a point that from the year 2000 in the country there do not register cases of children affected by this illness, underlined Pimentel.
The executive also informed that the CIGB develops researches in the areas of animal biotechnology and plants with promising results. He remembered that in 2013 the biggest island of the Antilles penetrated for the first time into sowing a corn seed modified genetically (transgenic).
The second day of work of Biotechnology Havana 2014 begins today with the paper "The importance of the transgenic cultivation for the world agriculture", in charge of the Belgian scientist Marc Van Montagu.
Montagu is considered one of the pioneers of the molecular biology in plants, worked as director of the Laboratory of Genetics of the School of Sciences of the Belgian University of Dante and as scientific director of the Department of Genetics of the Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology of Flanders.
The second plenary session of the day will be centered on the immune answers of the mucous cells in the fish teleosteos, topic that will be presented by the professor of the American University of Pennsylvania, Oriol Sunyer.
Biotechnology Havana 2014 will be developed until the next Thursday under the motto "Agriculture - biotechnology for Feeding Sustainability".