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Bioprospecting is the exploration of natural sources for small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that could be developed into commercially valuable products for the agricultural, aquaculture, bioremediation, cosmetics, nanotechnology, or pharmaceutical industries. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, almost one third of all small-molecule drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1981 and 2014 were either natural products or compounds derived from natural products.
Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for many aspects of life, such as plants as medicines, foods, intoxicants and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", explained the discipline in this way:
Ethnobotany simply means ... investigating plants used by societies in various parts of the world.
Ethnobiology is the scientific study of the way living things are treated or used by different human cultures. It studies the dynamic relationships between people, biota, and environments, from the distant past to the immediate present.
"Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute", renamed in the fond memory of visionary Prime Minister of India Shri Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is an autonomous Institute established by the Government of Kerala on 17 November 1979 at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It functions under the umbrella of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), Government of Kerala. The Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew played an exemplary and significant role in shaping and designing the lay out of the JNTBGRI garden in its formative stages.
Kattungal Subramaniam Manilal is an Emeritus of the University of Calicut, a botany scholar and taxonomist, who devoted over 35 years of his life to research, translation and annotation work of the Latin botanical treatise Hortus Malabaricus. This epic effort brought to light the main contents of the book, a wealth of botanical information on Malabar that had largely remained inaccessible to English-speaking scholars, because the entire text was in the Latin language.
Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) is an autonomous body constituted by the Government of Kerala in November 2002 to encourage and promote science and technology-related activities in Kerala State. Prior to the establishment of KSCSTE, the body responsible for carrying out similar work was the State Committee for Science, Technology and Environment (STEC) established in 1972. KSCSTE was formed by restructuring STEC in concurrence with the Science Policy of Government of India.
Rajeev Kumar Varshney is an agricultural scientist, specializing in genomics, genetics, molecular breeding and capacity building in developing countries. Varsheny is currently the Research Program Director- Genetic Gains that includes several units viz. Genomics & Trait Discovery, Forward Breeding, Pre-Breeding, Cell, Molecular Biology & Genetic Engineering, Seed Systems, Biotechnology- ESA, Sequencing and Informatics Services Unit, and Genebank ; and Director, Center of Excellence in Genomics & Systems Biology at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a global agricultural research institute. He holds Adjunct/Honorary/Visiting Professor positions at 10 academic institutions in Australia, China, Ghana, Hong Kong and India, including Murdoch University, The University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, University of Hyderabad, Chaudhary Charan Singh University and Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University.
P. Ananda Kumar is an Indian plant molecular biologist and biotechnologist.
The Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) is an autonomous organization engaged in agricultural research related to spices in India. The institute has its headquarters in Moozhikkal, Silver Hills, Kozhikode, Kerala and is a subsidiary of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, under the Ministry of Agriculture, India.
Sudhir Kumar Sopory is an Indian educationist, plant physiologist, scientist and former vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is known to be the first to purify a protein kinase C activity from plants and is credited with the identification of topoisomerase as a substrate of protein kinase C. He is an elected Fellow of several major Indian science academies and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and is a recipient of many honours, including the 1987 Shanti Swarup Bhatangar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to science and technology.
Virender Lal Chopra was an Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, agriculturalist and a director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), known to have contributed to the development of wheat production in India. He was the chancellor of Central University of Kerala, a Chancellor of the Central Agricultural University, Imphal and a member of the Planning Commission of India. An elected fellow of several science academies such as Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, European Academy of Sciences and Arts and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), he was a recipient of a number of honors including Borlaug Award, FAO World Food Day Award and Om Prakash Bhasin Award. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1985, for his contributions to agricultural science.
Sushil Kumar was an Indian geneticist and academic, known for his Plant and microbial genetical genomics, especially the studies on Escherichia coli and Lambda phage as well as on the mutants of Rhizobium. He was a former director of the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, and Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1981, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Ina Vandebroek is an ethnobotanist working in the areas of floristics, ethnobotany and community health. Since 2005, she has worked at The New York Botanical Garden in the Institute of Economic Botany. She has worked on ethnobotanical projects in North America, the Caribbean, and South America.
Pulok Kumar Mukherjee is an Indian scientist working as the Director of Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, an autonomous Institute under Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, Imphal, Manipur, India; as well as an Associate Editor of the Phytomedicine Plus; Consulting Editor of the Pharmacological Research published by Elsevier. He is the Professor of Pharmaceutical technology at the Jadavpur University and former Director of the School of Natural Product Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Akhilesh Kumar Tyagi is an Indian plant biologist and the former director of National Institute of Plant Genome Research. Known for his studies on plant genomics and biotechnology, Tyagi is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies namely Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 1999.
Kochupurackal P. Mohanakumar is an Indian chemical biologist, neuroscientist and the director of Inter University Centre for Biomedical Research and Super Specialty Hospital, Kottayam. He is a former chief scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and is known for his studies on Parkinson's disease and Huntington’s disease. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2000.
Madhavan Radhakrishna Pillai is an Indian cancer biologist and the former director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology. Known for his studies on papilloma viruses, Pillai is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, Royal College of Pathologists and the National Academy of Medical Sciences. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2002.
Trilochan Mohapatra is an Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, a government secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and the director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Known for his studies in the fields of molecular genetics and genomics, Mohapatra is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2003.
The School of Life Sciences, Kannur University hosts two departments, Department of Biotechnology and Microbiology, which was established in 2000 for conducting master's degree (M.Sc) courses and research (Ph.D) in Biotechnology and Microbiology. An Inter University Centre for Bioscience was also established at the department by the Higher Education Department, Government of Kerala, to be a global center of excellence for research in biological sciences. Master's degree course in computational biology was introduced in 2020.
Rainer W. Bussmann is a German botanist and vegetation ecologist, specializing in ethnobotany and ethnobiology, wild food plants, wild crop relatives, climate change, gastronomic botany and preservation of traditional knowledge in the Andes, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. He has worked at the University of Bayreuth, University of Hawaii, University of Texas, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Ilia State University; he has founded several international non-governmental organizations, including Nature and Culture International, Saving Knowledge, and Ethnomont.
References
- ↑ "Padma Shri Awardees". Government of India . Retrieved 5 March 2010.
