At the beginning of the visit, the IOFS Director-General briefed the Head of the most advanced in the region Technological Center shortly on all newly approved 16 programs, especially about the Centers of Excellence for strategic commodities: wheat, rice, cassava and palm oil. IOFS Director General focused on the need for establishing a Genetic Reserve Center for plants and livestock in OIC countries. The development of national Gene banks is one of IOFS flagship programs. The interlocutors remarked on the strategic importance of joint implementation of this and other STI Agenda programs. From his side the NCB Director General stressed on the importance of using the advanced biotechnology diagnostic procedures to characterize the plants and livestock and explained several projects currently being performed by the Center. Prof. Ramankulov led the IOFS Director General and Dr. Ismail Abdelhamid Director of Programs Office in IOFS, in a tour to agriculture-related laboratories, such as cell culture laboratories that able to study new biotics incl. biotic wheat varieties among other important projects that published in high ranking international scientific journals. NCB is currently also using the most advanced technologies in genome sequencing.
At the end, Director-General of IOFS and Director-General of NCB agreed to strength the close cooperation within implementation of concerned Science-Technology-Innovation Programs and congratulated on the coming New 2021 Year.
