Nearly 500 Scientists Participate in National Biotechnology Science Conference 2023

27/10/2023

The nearly 500 delegates are scientists, managers, lecturers and PhD students from universities, institutes and research centers in the field of biotechnology nationwide, participating in the National Biotechnology Conference 2023 in Hanoi.

With the permission of President of Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (QĐ 398/QD-VHL, dated 21/03/2023), on October 6, 2023, Institute of Biotechnology in collaboration with the Association of Biotechnology, Vietnam Association of Biological Industries will organize the National Biotechnology Science Conference 2023 in Hanoi. This conference is one of the activities marking the 30^th anniversary of the Institute of Biotechnology.

Overview of the Conference

Opening remarks, Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha, Vice President of Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Director of the Institute of Biotechnology, and Head of the Organizing Committee, said: "Biotechnology development is the trend of the world, an important driving force to implement the process of renovating the growth model, restructuring the economy, ensuring social security, national defense and security and improving people's lives. The Party and State have paid much attention and prioritized investment in biotechnology development from Directive 50-CT/TW of the Secretariat more than 15 years ago to Resolution 36-NQ/TW of the Politburo issued in early 2023 on the development and application of biotechnology for sustainable development of the country in the situation new, focusing on developing and striving to turn our country into one with developed biotechnology in the world, a smart production and service center for biotechnology, one of the leading groups in Asia and building the bio-industry into an important economic-technical sector, contributing positively to the country's GDP".

Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha reviewed some meaningful contributions of biotechnology to the socio-economic development of the country. In the field of agriculture: actively produce over 70% of plant varieties and livestock; processes to create tree varieties, especially fast-growing, sustainable green forest trees; Biotechnology helps develop applications related to traceability, identification of indigenous varieties. In the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals,: thanks to the achievements of biotechnology, especially gene technology, Vietnamese scientists have been able to diagnose SARS, influenza A / H5N1 and H7N9, for example, the Institute of Biotechnology has mastered the technology of sequencing the nCoV virus, contributing to epidemic prevention. For the first time the Institute of Biotechnology mastered reverse genetic technology, and was able to actively research the production of avian influenza vaccines. Currently, Vietnam has actively researched and produced a number of drugs and antibodies in the treatment of cancer, inflammation and, autoimmunity. Initially applying autologous stem cells, regenerative medicine, and individual medicine for clinical trials oriented to the treatment of a variety of incurable diseases. In the field of energy and environment: applications such as the use of microbial preparations have been present in many food processing industries, papermaking industry, biological waste treatment, decomposition of toxins in the soil; In the field of defense and security: gene technology has also contributed to human genome analysis, creating individual identification tags, sequencing mitochondrial genes of some ethnic groups of Vietnam, identifying the remains of unidentified martyrs.

Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha delivers the opening speech at the Conference

Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha emphasized that the conference is a forum for leading scientists in the field of biology and biotechnology working at domestic and foreign universities, institutes and research centers to present issues related to biotechnology to serve important fields of social life. This is also an opportunity for managers and researchers to have an overview of the research situation of schools and research institutes nationwide in the field of biotechnology.

According to the Organizing Committee, the conference has a large organizational scale, the quality of scientific articles is higher than the previous year, and the number of participants is large with nearly 500 authors registering and submitting more than 250 full-text reports posted at the conference. In particular, the articles have been evaluated by the Editorial Council through independent reviews in accordance with the editorial process of national journals to ensure scientific quality. The Editorial Board selected 217 articles that met the content requirements for publication in the Scientific Reports Collection of the Conference. The Organizing Committee selected more than 50 representative reports to present at the sub-committees of the Conference.

The National Biotechnology Conference 2023 is divided into 6 subcommittees, including: Genomics; Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology; Enzymatic and Biochemical Technology; Microbiology and Environmental Biotechnology; Plant Biotechnology; and Animal Biotechnology.

Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha awards certificates to 03 scientists who presented the report at the plenary session

During the plenary session, three scientists presented on the latest research trends in the field of biotechnology: "CRISPR/Cas9 in plant variety improvement: application potential, management situation, some updated results at VAST"; "Population-scale Vietnamese genome sequencing: vision and solutions"; "Research and development of protein-enzyme technology: importance, achievements and difficulties and challenges".

The conference was supported by leaders of Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam Association of Biological Industries; the enthusiastic participation of members of the Organizing Committee, members of professional sub-committees, editorial boards, scientists and research and training units across the country; the sponsorship of BCE Vietnam Co., Ltd., Union Science Co., Ltd. (USCI), QMEDIC Orient Science and Technology Equipment Co., Ltd., Viet Anh Scientific Equipment Co., Ltd., Van Nam ITS Company, LOBI Vietnam Co., Ltd., ABT Equipment Company, and Vitech Scientific Development Co., Ltd.

The organizers hope that domestic and foreign scientists and research agencies will jointly build more scientific research projects and programs associated with practical application, contributing to the development and application of biotechnology for sustainable development of the country in the new situation.

Some photos at the Conference: