Fourth International Plant Tissue Culture Conference Concludes

Austin Nov-03-01: The Fourth International Conference ended after three days of deliberations on a happy note.

Papers presented included those on micropropagation of diverse crops, transformation, DNA fingerprinting, use of DNA markers to check DNA variation in micropropagated material, preservation of Biodiversity and IPR issues. The concluding session continued until 9 in the night.

In the near future there will be more detailed reporting on the conference's different sessions and highlights of important papers presented by different speakers including the resolutions adopted at the end of the conference.

The 'souvenir' published on the past three  conferences  were attractive and won the hearts of the participants. The present 'souvenir'  to mark the occasion has surpassed the previous three in its design, thanks to the ingenuity of Professor Rakha Hari Sarker. 

The organizers deserve admiration for their decision to bring out the December issue of  "Plant Tissue Culture"  journal two months ahead of time. This was done with two objectives in mind: 1) to publicize the journal to participants to the conference and 2) to bring home to them that they could count on this 11-year old journal to focus their research results to the world community. Apart from peer review of every submitted paper, this has been made possible through the online availability of summaries of the published articles on the Association's Web page: www.baptc.org. 

The current issue of the "Plant Tissue Culture" journal  (PTC vol. 11 (2), December, 2001)has one more added  feature "News and Views" as a part of the process to broaden the journal's scope. The title of the article in this new section is:  "Internet Resources for Molecular Biology: a Primer for Scientists from Least Developed Countries."  The article will be welcome  particularly to those desirous of embarking on a molecular biology career. Expansion of the scope of the journal  began in June 2000 (vol. 10) with the publication of a "Review" article  on "Occurrence of Albino Plants in Anther and Pollen Cultures : A problem Limiting the Application of In vitro Androgenesis in Crop Improvement" by Professor S. S. Bhojwani and his associates.