Biotechnology in Vietnam
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Vietnam has developed demonstrated skill base in electronics, computing and software and has been able to attract both domestic and overseas investments in these fields. Not so well known is the biotechnology research in the country. Vietnam has recognized that biotechnology can help the country improve healthcare, as demonstrated by the biotech remedies developed in technologically advanced countries for hemophilia and detection of genetic diseases.
Developing countries like Vietnam face health problems such as increasing incidence of chronic diseases like diabetes and cancer, organisms that cause TB and malaria that acquire increasing resistance to conventional drugs, and outbreaks of infectious diseases like the flu. Biotechnology can help in this context by developing better preventive, diagnostic and treatment tools.
Researchers at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City had conducted a series of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) experiments starting mid 1990s. PCR is a DNA-based diagnostic method for quickly and accurately detecting pathogens and its use has expanded rapidly since then. It is being used widely in Vietnam now to detect various local influenza viruses, and diagnosing malaria and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Well equipped biotechnology research facilities, such as the Institute of Biotechnology and the Military Medical University in Hanoi with microarrays, high-resolution electron microscopes and mass spectrometers, are being established in the country. These institutions are able to carry the research into fields other than PCRs.
Read the report of one top researcher in Vietnam at SciDev.net.
Tags: biotech research, improved healthcare, vietnam
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Biotech Research Needs New Tools
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Biotech reseearchers often find that the technology needed to do what they want to do is not there. For example, testing thousands of substances on cells and measuring the results precisely is going to take a great deal of time if done manually. To be feasible and useful, automated methods are needed to carry out such tests.
Another issue is doing things within affordable costs. Creating artificial skin models is something that can be done at competitive costs if automation is used to do it.
The Biopolis testing laboratory opened at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany is focusing on this issue. Biologists and engineers work together at the laboratory.
Engineers know how to use machines to process small objects and use robots to handle tiny amounts of fluid. On the other hand, they learn that living organisms like bacteria and cells from the human body rarely behave as the engineers would like them to do.
There are also completely new issues in biotech engineering that engineers have probably never come across before. For example, the equipment must be permanently sterilized and the gearboxes of robots must be encapsulated to prevent wear debris from contaminating the cell cultures.
Read about the first project that the lab is handling and other news at Research in Germany
Tags: automated equipment, biotechnology research
Posted in biotechnology, research equipment | No Comments »
