Biotechnology worldwide and the 'European Biotechnology Thematic Network' Association (EBTNA)

The European Biotechnology Congress 2011 held under the auspices of the European Biotechnology Thematic Network Association (EBTNA) in conjunction with the Turkish Medical Genetics Association brings together a broad spectrum of biotechnologists from around the world. The subsequent abstracts indicate the manner in which biotechnology has permeated all aspects of research from the basic sciences through to small and medium enterprises and major industries. The brief statements before the presentation of the abstracts aim to introduce not only Biotechnology in general and its importance around the world, but also the European Biotechnology Thematic Network Association and its aims especially within the framework of education and ethics in biotechnology.     

Comparative development of knowledge-based bioeconomy in the European Union and Turkey

Abstract

Biotechnology, defined as the technological application that uses biological systems and living organisms, or their derivatives, to create or modify diverse products or processes, is widely used for healthcare, agricultural and environmental applications. The continuity in industrial applications of biotechnology enables the rise and development of the bioeconomy concept. Bioeconomy, including all applications of biotechnology, is defined as translation of knowledge received from life sciences into new, sustainable, environment friendly and competitive products. With the advanced research and eco-efficient processes in the scope of bioeconomy, more healthy and sustainable life is promised. Knowledge-based bioeconomy with its economic, social and environmental potential has already been brought to the research agendas of European Union (EU) countries. The aim of this study is to summarize the development of knowledge-based bioeconomy in EU countries and to evaluate Turkey’s current situation compared to them. EU-funded biotechnology research projects under FP6 and FP7 and nationally-funded biotechnology projects under The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Academic Research Funding Program Directorate (ARDEB) and Technology and Innovation Funding Programs Directorate (TEYDEB) were examined. In the context of this study, the main research areas and subfields which have been funded, the budget spent and the number of projects funded since 2003 both nationally and EU-wide and the gaps and overlapping topics were analyzed. In consideration of the results, detailed suggestions for Turkey have been proposed. The research results are expected to be used as a roadmap for coordinating the stakeholders of bioeconomy and integrating Turkish Research Areas into European Research Areas.     

Current state of biotechnology in Turkey

Biotechnology is an interdisciplinary branch of science that encompasses a wide range of subjects like genetics, virology, microbiology, immunology, engineering to develop vaccines, and so on and plays a vital role in health systems, crop and seed management, yield improvement, agriculture, soil management, ecology, animal farming, cellular process, bio statistics, and so on. This article is about activities in medical and pharmaceutical biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology and nanobiotechnology carried out in Turkey. Turkey has made some progress in biotechnology projects for research and development.     

Visual arts education provisions for primary schools in Turkey

This article examines the history of art education in Turkey. Since the beginning, the purposes of the arts and art education have been a point of discussion by various authorities. Whether art education should be taught, and how it needs to be taught, have been at the forefront of educationalists' minds. As a result, introducing certain models of art education has been a challenge. The objective of this article is to present the changes in art education since the 19th century in Turkey. The main focus is on art education practices and policies and an overview of key events in Turkey's history of art education. The article also presents issues related to the importance of visual arts education in Turkish primary school settings. In so doing, this research aims to show readers how past developments helped to create the current visual art education policy in Turkey.     

The Role of the Arts in Mental Health

One of the most important factors determining a nation's level of development in the modern world is preschool education. When preschool education is perceived as an entity that affects every aspect of childhood development, this fact is undeniable. Several aspects of preschool education, including art education, play a significant role in a child's development. This article explores the arts in Turkish preschool education from the Ottoman Empire to the present. A framework of how art is included in preschool education has been created, and an attempt has been made to develop a critical, but also solution-oriented, perspective on the Turkish education system as it relates to preschool art education. This perspective can shed light on issues related to the importance placed on preschool art education curricula in the Republic of Turkey in hopes of developing standards comparable to those in place in Western countries.     

Biotech in Turkey

Cover illustration: Biotech in Turkey. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the most famous monuments of Turkish and Islamic art. Also known as the “Blue Mosque”, it dominates the skyline of Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire. This special issue of BTJ, edited by Hikmet Geçkil and Pınar Çalık, is devoted to the history, research and developments in biotechnology in Turkey. The Forum magazine and Review articles focus on some of Turkey's 150 research institutions and biotech companies. Articles by Turkish authors cover fermentation processes, microarray technology, biosensors and apoptosis. Image © ImageState.     

A review of bioinformatics degrees in Australia

Bioinformatics has been a hot topic in Australia's biotechnology circles for the past five years. As with biotechnology in the 1990s, there has been a sudden increase in the number of Bioinformatics undergraduate degrees. For students in the 2005 intake there are six undergraduate Bioinformatics degrees to choose from and another five Bioinformatics streams within a Bachelor of Science degree. The courses vary from three to four years of full-time study. This report aims at dissecting each of these degrees to determine where the differences lie, to give the prospective students an idea as to which degree suits their career goals and to give an overview of the pedagogy of Australian bioinformatics education.     

Industrial biotechnology in The Netherlands

Biotechnology is perhaps more developed in The Netherlands than in any other European nation of a comparable size. This brief review illustrates what has been achieved and how industrial biotechnology in The Netherlands has developed.     

Needs and means for education and training in biotechnology: perspectives from developing countries and Europe

A plenary discussion session on Biotechnology education and training programs at the Xth International Conference on The global Impacts of Applied Microbiology in 1995 gave an opportunity to identify current priorities for biotechnology in developing countries. The discussion focused on three major areas: the nature of the skills required; education and training for the various categories of staff; the role of the scientific community in informing the decision makers about biotechnology and its prospects. Comparable discussions are taking place in Europe and elsewhere in the industrialized world. They are exemplified by developments arising from a White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment published by the European Commission in 1993 which included a reinforcement of the work of the European Initiative for Biotechnology Education (EIBE) for teachers in schools. There are also widespread anxieties about the effects of deficiencies in the amount of attention being given to microbiology in undergraduate courses.The author is with the National Centre for Biotechnology Education, The University of Reading. Whiteknights, PO Box 228, Reading RG6 6AJ,UK     

Linguistic capital: Language as a socio-economic resource among Kurdish and Arabic women in Turkey

Data from the 1998 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey are used to gain insight into the characteristics of the non-Turkish speaking individuals in Turkey and in the socio-economic consequences of not speaking Turkish for them. The very large majority of non-Turkish speaking individuals turn out to be Kurdish and Arabic women, living in East Turkey and in the countryside. The data indicate that of the married women aged 15–49 in Turkey, about 4 per cent, or one in 25, is not able to speak Turkish. More than 90 per cent of these women has not finished primary education. Regarding their social background, our results suggest that they were more under the influence of traditional cultural values, that their access to the public domain was limited, and that they were more heavily controlled by their family. Regarding the consequences of not speaking Turkish, we found the non-Turkish speaking women to be less employed in the formal economy, to have husbands with lower educational levels and occupations and to have lower family incomes. This result is in line with the predictions of linguistic capital theory.     

非洲：生物科技发展日趋重要

非洲是世界上生物科技最不发达的地区,现代生物科技在许多非洲国家还是新鲜事物。但近年来,非洲国家对生物科技的发展充分重视,不断加强生物人才培养,积极开展国际合作,高度重视生物安全,参与各种UNEP/GEF生物安全计划,并在非盟组织以及国际机构的引导和支持下,成立了生物科技高水平专家组（ABP）,撰写了“非洲生物技术发展报告”提出非洲生物技术发展构想。了解和研究非洲生物科技发展现状及动态对我国生物科技的发展以及开展中非合作有着重要的意义。     

Trans-Kemalism: the politics of the Turkish state in the diaspora

Abstract

In contrast to the huge amount of research on Turkish migration and migrants, the diasporic politics of the Turkish Kemalist state constitutes a neglected research subject in the scholarship on Turkish diaspora. How does the Turkish state reach out to its nationals and expatriates abroad? In what ways does the Turkish Republic seek to make Islam (as it does in Turkey) into an instrument legitimizing its politicizing and mobilizing enterprises? To explore these questions, this article investigates the long-distance Kemalism engaged in by the Turkish state to Turkify and secularize its nationals in the diaspora, using its activities in Australia as its case study. In sketching out trans-Kemalism's dimensions, the analysis directs attention to the intimate relationship between the political and religious fields of transnationalism manufactured by the state. The paper concludes that the intense political polarization in Turkey in the present makes the future of trans-Kemalism abroad somewhat uncertain.     

The ethnic question in an environment of insecurity: the Kurds in Turkey

This article examines the effect that a poor structural context, what we term an "environment of insecurity", has on the Kurdish ethnic nationalist mobilization in Turkey. The empirical evidence for this analysis is based on data from the 1993 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey [TDHS]. The data provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first reliable and representative figures on the situation of Kurds in Turkey. Our key claim is that the Kurdish population in Turkey is relatively much worse off than the Turkish population in the country. This claim is strongly supported by the data. Many other factors also account for the ethnic nationalist mobilization, but we argue that the Turkish Kurds' environment of insecurity, materially and non-materially, stands out as a key package of both causal and intermediate variables behind the ethnic revival.     

Profane Intuitions: Kurdish Diaspora in the Turkish City

Contemporary analysis of the ‘Kurdish question’ in Turkey has often enough noted the recent explosion of Kurdish refugees and immigrants to the major Turkish cities. Interest in the re‐constitution of Kurdish identity in the metropolis, however, has been less evident. This article seeks to identify some of the main themes that need to be addressed in any such investigation. It begins by arguing that discourse on the ‘Kurdish question’ often frames the Kurds, rather than the Turkish state, as the problem. The response of the Turkish Republic to such a problem has been to assimilate the Kurds. The struggle against assimilation then is the common theme binding the multiple visions and experiences of the Kurdish diaspora.     

我国生物技术产业发展政策建议

生物技术已成为我国参与国际竞争、争夺未来高技术制高点的一个重要领域。近年来,我国政府通过制定实施一系列发展计划、管理法规和政策措施,正在努力为生物技术的发展创造良好环境。但就产业而言,目前还有不少环节急待进一步改善,需要配套更有力的产业政策。主要分析了我国生物技术产业发展的现实政策环境,针对产业在创新体系、投融资体系、研发服务、法制监管等方面存在的薄弱环节,提出了若干推进政策建议 。     

Failed promises: economic integration, bureaucratic encounters, and the EU-Turkey Customs Union

European integration is based upon the promise to bring prosperity by creating economic and social equilibrium among member states and its regions via integrationist policies jointly managed by states and the institutions of the EU. As one common market initiative for greater economic integration in the wider region, goods circulate without tariff and customs duty barriers in the EU’s common customs area. Turkey, not an EU member, has been in this common market since 1996. The EU-Turkey Customs Union, which promised to bring deeper economic and political integration through eventual Turkish membership, represents Turkey’s aspirations to move from the periphery of Europe into its core. As an anthropological contribution to investigations of advanced European capitalism, this paper examines fundamental conflicts of interest between the EU and Turkey and locates them in their unequal power relations and in the disjuncture of each side’s overall objectives from economic integration. Most importantly, it shows that these interest conflicts have ramifications at the individual bureaucratic level and in daily bureaucratic practice. Dramatic expressions of Turkish state power, which are initially geared toward balancing out power inequities, exacerbate Turkish and EU officials’ failures to maintain at least a facade of mutually sustainable interests. Interpreted by EU officials as Turkish bureaucratic inertia, such disintegration of interests has implications for ongoing economic integration and membership negotiations between the two parties, with Turkish officials experiencing loss of control. The paper calls for a critical political economy that pays due attention to the cultural settings in which the former is embedded.     

Indian entrepreneurship in biotechnology comes of age

Biotechnology is one of the fastest growing, knowledge-driven industries in India and is expected to play a key role in shaping India’s rapidly developing economy. Since its inception in 1986 the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has been guiding to foster growth of Indian biotechnology with a range of initiatives. Indian biotechnology industry registered over 3.0 billion USD revenue generation in 2009–10, which constitutes about 2 % share of the global biotechnology market. More than 300 companies are engaged in different biotechnology sectors in India, majority of which are clustered in western and southern regions. Biopharmaceuticals is the largest biotechnology sector in India with about 62 % market share. Bioservices ranked second due to the upward trend in a range of service oriented research activities. Bioagriculture recorded highest growth in 2009–10 and is dominated by insect resistant transgenic cotton. Bioindustrial, which deals with production of enzymes for different industrial uses, is the smallest biotechnology sector in India with 6 % revenue share.     

Genetically modified soybeans and food allergies

Allergenic reactions to proteins expressed in GM crops has been one of the prominent concerns among biotechnology critics and a concern of regulatory agencies. Soybeans like many plants have intrinsic allergens that present problems for sensitive people. Current GM crops, including soybean, have not been shown to add any additional allergenic risk beyond the intrinsic risks already present. Biotechnology can be used to characterize and eliminate allergens naturally present in crops. Biotechnology has been used to remove a major allergen in soybean demonstrating that genetic modification can be used to reduce allergenicity of food and feed. This provides a model for further use of GM approaches to eliminate allergens.     

Influence of cultural and disciplinary identity on the way teachers in agricultural education in France relate to knowledge in biotechnology

Socio-professional identity of teachers may have an impact on their way of teaching biotechnology. Livestock and crop production teachers have been trained according to the intensive agriculture model. They have been affected by the emergence of limits to this model; an identity crisis has appeared due to the gap between their disciplinary culture and new social demands. Biotechnology applications have various repercussions in different disciplinary fields, whether in the humanities or in science an technology. To identify the influence of the prevailing culture in various disciplines, a comparative study of opinions (arguments, emotions, behavioural intentions) on various biotechnology applications held among teachers of different disciplinary options has been made in agricultural education in France. In the fields of ethics, human health and the environment, the opinions among teachers in the humanities (economics, modern languages and history/geography) differed significantly from opinions among teachers with scientific and/or technical training (in biology and livestock and crop production). The former expressed more disquiet than the latter. Biology teachers felt less concern about the development of biotechnology applications.