Japan has started selling a new biofuel made from rice which is expected to help the country reduce its dependence on imported petrol and make better use of deserted farmlands. The Niigata prefecture of Japan has begun selling the new biofuel, produced from domestically grown brown rice and blended up to three per cent with petrol.

According to Japans National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations Zennoh (JA Zennoh), the bioethanol is equivalent to regular petrol both in quality and mileage, and will be available in a similar price range. The project will also promote effective utilization of rice paddies that are left uncultivated due to the governments rice-reduction programme, JA Zennoh said, adding that it is expecting an annual sale of about 33,000 kilolitres of the new fuel.

Japanese oil companies had started selling petrol blended with bio-ethanol in 2007 in some retail markets in the country, but none of the mixtures was previously made using rice-derived biofuel. The countrys annual petrol demand is estimated at 60 million kilolitres.
Source: www.indiaenews.com

SThe Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, has allocated Rs 300 million (US$6.5 million) for setting up five incubation centres across the country within the next five years. DST has already identified two locations for the centres: the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, said Mr. Harkesh Kumar Mittal, Head, National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, New Delhi.

The facility at AIIMS is being set up with the assistance of Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai, and Stanford University, the United States. The incubator would help medical students and scientists who have worked and developed biomedical products. At IISc, which has a dedicated Society for Innovation & Development (SID) Entrepreneurship Centre, there are several companies engaged in biotech diagnostics and bioinformatics, including Bigtec and Strand Life Sciences.
Source: www.pharmabiz.com

Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Australia, have created a weakened strain of the malaria parasite that will be used as a live vaccine against the disease. The vaccine developed in collaboration with researchers from the United States, Japan and Canada will be trialled in humans from early next year. The human trials of the vaccine will take place at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States.

Professor Alan Cowman, Head of the Institutes Infection and Immunity Division, said in developing the vaccine the research team had deleted two key genes in the Plasmodium falciparum parasite which causes the form of malaria most deadly to humans. By removing the genes, the malaria parasite is halted during its liver infection phase, preventing it from spreading to the blood stream where it can cause severe disease and death.

Prof. Cowman said similar vaccines had been tested in mice and offered 100 per cent protection against malaria infection. He said it was hoped the vaccine would produce similar results in humans. This approach to vaccine development using a weakened form of the whole organism that causes a particular disease has proven successful in eradicating smallpox and controlling diseases such as flu and polio. Prof. Cowman said it was unlikely the weakened parasites used in the vaccine would regain their potency as the genes had been deleted from the genome and could not be recreated by the parasite.
Source: www.eurekalert.org

The United Kingdom is planning to spend up to 100 million to support genetically modified (GM) crops for the worlds poor despite not having allowed any of the controversial foods to be grown commercially at home. A new white paper shows the government is committed to dramatically increasing spending on high-tech agriculture in the next five years, much of which will be on GM crop research. Biofortified crops, containing added vitamins, will receive 80 million of development money, 60 million will go on researching drought-resistant maize for Africa and a further 24 million will be spent on pest resistance. In addition, support for an international network of GM crop research stations, in collaboration with GM companies, will be doubled. A further tranche of aid will go to a research initiative backed by Syngenta, genetically modified crop company, which is developing a strain of rice modified to increase vitamin A.

The white paper avoids the terms genetically modified. But scientists and development experts are clear that much of the money will be spent on GM. The government has in the past revealed its strong support of high-tech food for Africa as a way to reduce poverty and also gain acceptance for GM foods in the United Kingdom. Last year, the then science minister, Mr. Ian Pearson, said: If GM can demonstrably provide benefits for sub-Saharan Africathe public will want to support [it].
Source: www.guardian.co.uk

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. Dr. Henry Markram, Director of the Blue Brain Project a joint project of Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne of Switzerland and IBM company based in the United States has already simulated elements of a rat brain. Dr. Markram told the TED Global 2009 conference that a synthetic human brain would be of particular use in finding novel treatments for mental illnesses. Around two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said. It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years, he said. Shared fabric, the Blue Brain Project, was launched in 2005 and aims to reverse engineer the mammalian brain from laboratory data.

Dr. Markrams team has focused on the neocortical column repetitive units of the mammalian brain known as the neocortex. It is a new brain, he explained. The mammals needed it because they had to cope with parenthood, social interactions complex cognitive functions. The evolution of neocortex is continuing, he said, at a great speed. Over the last 15 years, Dr. Markram and his team have picked apart the structure of the neocortical column.

The project now has a software model of tens of thousands of neurons each one of which is different which has allowed them to digitally construct an artificial neocortical column. While each neuron is unique, the team has found that circuitry in different brains have common patterns, which they think is species-specific. The team uses a supercomputer to make the model come alive. Simulations have started to give the team clues about how the brain works. For example, they can show the brain a picture and follow the electrical activity in the machine.
Source: news. bbc.co.uk

The prospects of plant-derived pharmaceuticals in Europe have brightened with the recent publication of the first European guidelines for growing these genetically modified (GM) plants. Drawn up by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the guidance describes how developers of GM plants grown for purposes such as producing pharmaceuticals or industrial enzymes will need to assess the potential risks to humans, animals and the environment. The guidelines are reported to compare favourably with the regulations in the United States.

In the view of the GMO Panel, the fundamental principle of comparative assessment comparing the properties of a GM plant with its unmodified parent line is valid for assessing the safety of molecular farming plants. In the case of pharmaceutical plants, EFSA asks plant manufacturers to provide comprehensive descriptions of the active substance and its properties as is the case with drug approvals. Risk assessments will also look at the probability of environmental exposure to the new substances and how high this exposure could be.
Source: www.gmo-safety.eu