LAHORE – Biotechnology has become a major international industry to produce all preventive vaccines for humans and livestock, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Vice-Chancellor (VC) Dr Muhammad Nawaz said on Tuesday. He was addressing the inaugural session of a national workshop titled, “Molecular Diagnostics” organised by the UVAS Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) at the varsity’s conference hall.
The UVAS VC said that Pakistan could progress by leaps and bounds by adopting new vistas of research and developing sciences. He called upon pharmaceutical entrepreneurs and businessmen to join hands with the UVAS in its unique project titled, Lahore Biotechnology Park. Dr Nawaz said, “Pakistan is importing preventive diagnostic and therapeutic biological medicines worth billions of dollars for human beings and animals while the country’s poultry import is nearly Rs 6 billion per annum.”
Punjab Forensic Laboratory Project Director Nayyar Mehmood said that molecular diagnostic testing uses sensitive and specific clinical laboratory techniques to detect and identify biomarkers at the most basic level including nucleic acids DNA and RNA.
He urged the intelligent class to share knowledge with others instead of using it for singular purposes. Mehmood elaborated that sharing is more powerful than limiting knowledge”. He said that the federal and provincial governments should focus more on rural population education and enhance state-of-art facilities to fight against illiteracy and ignorance.
