“The biotech industry in Georgia has enjoyed the most growth in the past 5 years or so — a 38 percent increase, which is much higher than any other,” said K.C. Chan, chair of Natural Sciences at Albany State University.
“We need to do more of what we’re doing today to get people’s interest. If they find out where they can get jobs, it would really motivate their interest.”
With a panel of university professors and research scientists drawn from around the Southeast, “Biotechnology Day” exposed a few hundred Albany State and Darton College students Tuesday to the possibilities of connecting applied science to good-paying jobs. ASU begins a biotech degree program this spring, Chan said.
Biotech is the only answer to feeding a world population that has grown by 13 percent in the last decade, said Daniel Gorman, a research scientist for 18 years with DuPont Pioneer who is now based in Cairo, Ga.
Using a variety of research methods, Pioneer discovers ways to improve the corn eaten by humans and livestock and made into fuel, such as developing lines that mature rapidly and can be tested sooner, he said.
“The goal is to feed the world,” he said.
The business of biotechnology is truly a slow, costly process, said Sandeep Bhatagan, a corn breeder with Monsanto, which introduced the pesticide Roundup to the world in 1976.
Investing from $2-10 million during the first few years to up to $40 million during the final phases of a product’s development, commonly a 10-year process, “yes, it is safe, because we have gone through all that product testing,” Bhatagan said.
Only through the developments of biotechnology will corn production, now up to 150 bushels per acre, possibly reach the 300 bushel mark needed to help feed a global population of 8 billion in the year 2030, he said.
“Without biotechnology, we wouldn’t be there,” he said.
Rod Gilbert of Georgia Agriculture Innovation Center updated the students on Georgia’s progress in making bio-energy.
Seven Georgia plants are being outfitted to make electricity from wood chips, including Georgia Power’s 96-megawatt Plant Mitchell, expected to go online in 2010, he said. Plants in Baconton, Cordele and Camilla make ethanol from biomass, but production of fuel from plants not used as animal feed is critical, he said.
“That’s something the governor considers a priority, to not have feedstocks used as fuel,” Gilbert said. Cellulosic ethanol, made from wood scraps, will utilize products from Georgia’s pulp and paper industry that is “basically gone” due to foreign competition, he said.
Fuel and food aren’t the only uses for biotechnology, however, Cleveland Miles, a forensic scientist for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, demonstrated.
Technology has proved most useful in helping the GBI automate the extraction of DNA from trace evidence increasingly in demand.
The GBI maintains CODIS, a DNA database of state-level convicted offenders, anyone serving a life sentence or probation for a felony and death-row inmates.
C.S. Prakash, professor of genetics at Tuskegee University, offered biotechnology as the answer to improving food quality, crop stress tolerance and the length and area of a growing season.
Biotechnology improves the chances 800 million people, many in countries where agricultural activity is limited, have of not going to bed hungry every day, Prakash said.
Sarwan Dirh, Director of the Center for Biotechnology at Fort Valley State University said FVSU’s major in plant science biotechnology had increased from 26 graduates in 2005-2007 to more than 55 now. Half of grads find work in Homeland Security; others work for the Centers for Disease Control or in pharmacy, medicine, pharmaceuticals or education, he said.
“With a biotech degree, you can go anywhere you want. It just depends on you,” he said.
