A three-day seminar on "Biotechnology: An Emerging Frontier for the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry" under the sponsorship of the AICTE, was organized by Sinhgad Technical Education Society''s (STES) Sinhgad College of Pharmacy (SCOP), Pune.

The seminar was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Dr. S. S. Jadhav, Executive Director, Serum Institute, Pune. In his keynote address he discussed the biotechnology scenario in context with Indian as well as global Pharma industry with a particular reference to vaccines and sera.

The seminar programme was accompanied by a poster exhibition by the students of SCOP based on the theme of biotechnology and was inaugurated by Prof B B Nimbore, Joint Secretary, STES and Prof S B Bonde, Director, STES.

In the first opening session presided by Dr R Paranjape, Director National Aids Research Institute, Pune, Dr Vasanti Deshpande, Scientist, NCL, emphasised the role of microbes and fermentation as a key to the success of biotechnology. Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale, Head Cell & Molecular Biology, Torrent Research Center, Ahmedabad elaborated on Drug discovery in post-genomic era with a particular emphasis on identification of novel genes & proteins as new therapeutic targets.

In post-lunch session, Dr. Sangeeta Sawant, Department of Bioinformatics, University of Pune, detailed on the computational methods of prediction of protein structure and functions and their importance in drug design, vaccine development and protein engineering. M L Panse, Vice-President, Indclone Biotek Secunderabad gave an account on the applications of biotechnology in diagnostics and tests based on enzymes and antibodies.

On the second day the morning session started with a thought-provoking lecture by Dr Mangesh Deshpande on gene delivery systems and use of polymeric vectors. Dr Ashok Giri, Scientist Dept of Biosciences, NCL, spoke on role of plant molecular biology in herbal pharmaceuticals. The session was presided by Dr P Ranjekar, Advisor and Ex-Director Dept of Biosciences, NCL, Pune.

The afternoon session was presided by Himadri Sen, President, Lupin Research Park, Pune. Dr R P Jagdale, Director, Scitech Park, Univ. of Pune gave a detailed introduction on the basics of Intellectual property rights (IPR), various terminologies vis-à-vis the changing global scenario in drug and pharma industry.

Sachin Itkar, event manager for 54th IPC, Pune gave an interesting talk on IPR and its protection in context to various issues related to biotechnology. In the evening of second day the B Pharm students of SCOP enlightened the delegates and audience with a two-hour cultural programme.

The last day session, Herbal Biotechnology was presided by Dr V S P Rao Director, Agarkar Research Institute, Pune. Dr V D Rangari of Poona College of Pharmacy spoke on plant tissue culture biotransformation, a relatively recent development in biotechnological research and its impact on drug production and design.

Prof A P Purohit, H.O.D, Dept.of Pharmacognosy, Poona College of Pharmacy, dealt with clonal propagation and genetic engineering of plants and its applications including plant vaccines. In the afternoon session presided by Prof S R Dhaneshwar of Poona College of Pharmacy, Prof. S B Padhye, Dept of chemistry, Univ. of Pune, gave an interesting account on the use of receptor-based drug design, solution phase combinatorial chemistry and applications of robotics and HTS for New Drug Discovery Research (NDDR).

Dr Bhushan Patwardhan , Director, School of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences, University of Pune comprehensively summed up this important event and explained the present and future potential of Biotechnology especially to the drug and pharma industry. This was followed by a short prize distribution ceremony for the students who excelled in the poster session as well as the cultural programme. A short feedback session from delegates was also organised.

Dr K S Jain, Co-ordinator of the seminar proposed the vote of thanks. The event management was done by Mrs M A Nagras and Mrs. A.M. Avchat while the poster session was realised by Mrs S K Patwardhan and Mrs M A Nagras, Lecturers, SCOP.

The seminar was attended by more than 100 delegates of which half were from outside Maharashtra.