LAHORE – The 2nd International Conference of Plant Scientists kicked off at the Government College University (GCU) Lahore on Tuesday under the auspices of Pakistan Botanical Society and GCU Botany Department. Botanists from Germany, Egypt, China, Canada, and Turkey and across Pakistan gathered at the varsity to deliberate on scientific solutions to food and fuel challenges.
GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Khalid Aftab chaired the opening session of the three-day conference. The conference features five poster and 19 technical sessions wherein more than 250 research papers will be presented on modern challenges related to Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Plant Physiology, Ethno-botany, Plant Ecology, Plant Physiology, Plant Anatomy, Biodiversity, Genetics, Plant Breeding, Plant Tissue Culture, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Plant Taxonomy, Paleo-botany and Mycology.
Addressing the opening ceremony, Pakistan Botanical Society (PBS) President Prof Dr Ikramul Haq said, “Research in plant sciences has become critical as we need to produce more food and feed for animals, to meet the dietary needs of an increasing human population. At the same time we also need to produce biomass and products from plants that can be used as sustainable industrial feed stocks. And all this has to occur against the backdrop of global warming, changes in weather patterns, increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, continuing water shortages, loss of arable land and erosion of valuable topsoil.”
He called on the plant research community to rise to the challenge of producing novel crop varieties capable of high yields under a variety of climatic conditions. However, he also accepted that this challenge in many ways highlighted the need for investment in plant sciences. He said a majority of the world’s energy need is met through fossil fuels that apart from causing atmospheric pollution are limited and at the current usage rates, will be consumed shortly. He said plant biotechnology also offers an opportunity to contribute to providing renewable alternatives to non-renewable petrochemical outputs in terms of energy sources, polymers, plastics, pharmaceuticals etc.
GCU VC said the success of conference is often mistakenly gauged by the number of research papers presented in it and overall participation. He said quality of research papers should be given more weight. “We judge the quality of research by its ability to bolster claims, illuminate understanding, and add credibility to speech,” he added. He said GCU will hold more international conferences in the near future as these conferences provide platform to scientists from various backgrounds to interact and exchange ideas, and such an interaction can lead to fruitful long term collaborations which would be beneficial for the development of science in Pakistan.
GCU Botany Department Chairperson Prof. Zaheerud Din also addressed the opening ceremony of the conference. Later, Ozyigit from Marmara University Turkey, U Yasar from Bartin University Turkey, Ali from Zhejiand University China, S Sakcali from Fatih University Turkey, Muhammad Qaisrani from National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Faisalabad, T Khanum and Aziz from Karachi University, Abid MA Qureshi from AARI Faisalabad, Fatima and Akbar from Punjab University and MA Khan and Muhammad Javed of GCU Lahore presented their papers at the first technical session of the conference.
