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June 12-13, 2019 | Edinburgh, Scotland
8th European Clinical Microbiology and Immunology Congress
&
3rd World congress on Biotechnology
Joint Event
Microbiology: Current Research | Volume: 3 | ISSN: 2591-8036
The cooperative approach tobiotechnology for the promotionof education inclusion,
improved agriculture, and science-based industries: An ongoing experiment from a
rural area in Argentina
Lentz EM
IdESA-UGACOOP, Argentina
Cities around the world with a rich history of renowned
universities have seen the rise of biotech-based
companies, which further stimulates the concentration
of creative and opportunity-discovering minds in these
interdisciplinary centers. In this long-term project, we
aim to promote such process in the 50,000-people city of
General Alvear in Mendoza, which neither counts with a
university, nor a research center, and its main economic
activities are based on agriculture. A biotechnology lab has
been constructed with funds from the local government,
maintained with the support from cooperative energy and
wine producing companies in the area, and managed by an
interdisciplinary group of professionals. We have started
teaching the first year of a biotechnology technical degree
making use of both DIY-Bio and low-cost approaches, and
we are observing growing interest among students in town
and surrounding cities, who are looking for non-traditional
career options. A collaboration with the government
organization ISCAMEN has been started to produce and
commercialize biocontrol agents and insect-derived
products to supply the growing demand from organic
producers that can access to new markets, created by
consumers around the world interested in good agriculture
practices and decrease use of phytochemicals. Another
key collaboration addresses the need of wine producers
of "Algarrobo Bonito" for virus-free plant material. The
generation and certification of healthy plants stocks of
Vitis vinifera by virus specialists in INTA Lujan de Cuyo,
led by Dr. Gomez-Talquenca, and the micropropagation of
these plants in our cooperative laboratory, will make this
high-quality material available for local producers, leading
to an upgrade of their wineyards with an associated yield
increase in the fields. These "biotechnological seeds"
could generate a synergistic critical mass of science-based
individual entities, collaborating in a highly mutualistic
community of entrepreneurs and academic environment,
contributing to the evolution of city development and
progress.
e:
Microbiol Curr Res, Volume 3
ISSN: 2591-8036
Notes: