Evolving Industrial Biotechnology in Developing Countries

The Centre for Science and Technology of the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries (NAM S&T Centre) is an inter-governmental organisation with a membership of 47 countries spread over Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America. Besides this, 11 S&T agencies and academic / research institutions of Bolivia, Brazil, India, Nigeria and Turkey are the members of the S&T-Industry Network of the Centre. The Centre was set up in 1989 to promote South-South cooperation through mutually beneficial partnerships among scientists and technologists and scientific organisations in developing countries. It implements a variety of programmes including international workshops, meetings, roundtables, training courses and collaborative projects and brings out scientific publications, including a quarterly Newsletter. It is also implementing 8 Fellowship schemes, namely, Joint NAM S&T Centre - ZMT Bremen Fellowship; Joint NAM S&T Centre - ICCBS Fellowship; Joint NAM S&T Centre - DST (South Africa) Training Fellowship on Minerals Processing & Beneficiation; NAM S&T Centre - U2ACN2 Research Associateship in Nanosciences & Nanotechnology; Joint CSIR / CFTRI (Diamond Jubilee) - NAM S&T Centre Fellowship; NAM S&T Centre Research Fellowship; NAM S&T Centre - ACENTDFB Fellowship in Neglected Tropical Diseases and Forensic Biotechnology; NAM S&T Centre - ASRT, Egypt Fellowship Programme. These activities provide, among others, the opportunity for scientist-to-scientist contact and interaction, training and expert assistance, familiarising the scientific community on the latest developments and techniques in the subject areas, and identification of technologies for transfer between member countries. The Centre has so far brought out 79 publications and has organised 113 international workshops and training programmes.