The Food Biotechnology Training Course for Developing Countries was held in Beijing from 30 Nov.to 5 Dec. 2013 at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS). Prof. FANG Xin, TWAS Fellow, OWSD President, Member of Presidium, CAS, attended the opening ceremony and gave a welcome address. Prof. Romain Murenzi, Executive Director of TWAS, delivered an opening message to this training course.

This training course was co-sponsored by CAS and TWAS, organized by CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence for Biotechnology (CoEBio), together with Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-organized by CAS Key Laboratory of Microbial Physiological and Metabolic Engineering and Beijing Society of Microbiology. The topic of this training course is “Classical Biotechnology (Fermentation) and Genomics for new and improved food products”.

Eight lecturers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and China, and around 40 participants from 18 developing countries, including Egypt, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Cameroon, Lesotho, Mauritius, Burkina Faso, Iran, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and China attended this training course.

Prof. FANG Xin extended her warmest welcome to all the lecturers and participants attending this training course. She pointed out that the rapid development of economy and growth of human population in the past decades has brought about huge pressure on the global climate, environment and natural resources. To achieve a sustainable development, human society must rely on science and technology plus other social actions and plans. Through science and technology, particularly the application of biotechnology, better food with better quality and safety can be provided.

Prof. Murenzi addressed, in his opening message, that fermented foods could play a vital role in meeting global food needs, but the use of advanced biotechnology for food production, in developing countries, is uneven. TWAS sees the issue of technology as critically important. There is a need to continually build understanding about the processes of food fermentation. There is a need to improve those processes and move beyond historic methods of production. He hopes the participants to take the ideas back to their home countries and use them in their teaching and research practices, to build up new knowledge, new network, new infrastructure, in their home country so that people can benefit from what they learned.

On the opening ceremony, Prof. FANG Xin presented the 2013 TWAS-ROESEAP Regional Prize on Public Understanding and Popularization of Science to Dr. Custer C. Deocaris from the Technological Institute of the Philippines. Prof. Fang also presented certificates of appreciation to the invited lecturers of this training course.

Prof. LIU Shuang-Jiang, Director-General, Institute of Microbiology, CAS, presented his welcome speech to all guests, lecturers, and participants. The opening ceremony was chaired by Prof. LI Yin, TWAS Young Affiliate, Director of CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence of Biotechnology, and Professor at the Institute of Microbiology, CAS.

This 5-day training course enabled participants to have lectures on food fermentations and genomics, to take part in “Biotechnology-in-Practice” workshop that aims to generate novel ideas to address the problems in food/nutrition sectors in the home countries of the participants, and to visit local traditional food fermentation factories.