This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at La biotecnología resulta fundamental para recuperar el crecimiento económico

It concludes with success the first edition of the 2010 BioEncuentro organized by Asebio and genome Spain

Biotechnology is essential to restore economic growth

Drafting Interempresas02/11/2010

November 2, 2010

Biotechnology is becoming one of the key drivers to recover the path of economic growth. In fact, experts in the sector consider that it constitutes an escape route out of the crisis, like the rest of processes requiring a greater presence of the r & d in the economy. This is one of the main lessons learned from the first edition of the BioEncuentro with media 2010, organized on 28 October by the Spanish Association of Biocompanies (Asebio) and by the genome Foundation Spain. The end of this meeting was to show the different areas of application of biotechnology and its importance for society and the economy to the media.

The course was opened by the Secretary general of Asebio, Isabel García Rams, which explained the importance in the training of journalists in this area to be able to convey all the knowledge generated by the sector to society. "To be competitive, it is necessary to commercialize science, and one of the keys to this is the promotion of biotechnology to foster social change." "The sector has many future projection of scientific and business development initiatives," said Isabel García.

Then, genome Spain, Rafael Camacho, director-general highlighted the scientific achievements during the past years, with such important milestones as the human genome project which situated to biotechnology as "the new age of innovation" that would take the baton from the previoussuch as the industrial revolution or the explosion of the Internet. "The potential of biotechnology in the scientific and economic fields for years or even decades, is overwhelming," he explained.

Speakers of the first edition of the 2010 BioEncuentro.

The benefits for human health of biotechnological research, their possibilities of business and the need to transmit them adequately to public opinion to eliminate social alarms and create interest were topics that dominated much of the interventions.

The President of the Scientific Committee of Asebio and Professor ad honorem of the CSIC, Emilio Muñoz, spoke in his statement on biotechnology and the socio-economic landscape, and explained the evolution of the growth of the number of companies biotech in Spain and the characteristics of the three main areas of biotechnology: red or health, green or agrifood and white or industrial. Emilio Muñoz reviewed the evolution of biotechnology in the European Union, Japan, USA, among others, and made an overview of the perception of this matter by the consumer, Spain, Portugal and Finland to be the countries most defenders of this sector.

The "prodigious decade"

The honorary researcher of the Cabimer and former Minister of health, Bernat Soria, in his speech 'Regenerative medicine', reviewed the main findings of what defined as "the prodigious decade", referring to all the technology advances achieved during the Decade 1997-2007. He also made reference to the new advanced therapies that are underway, and defended the importance of research as "one of the elements" out of the crisis. Also highlighted in science "the expectations are unlimited and finite resources" and that "the failure does not mean that future there is no, failure is equal to learning".

The current situation and prospects of agriculture applied to GM food was the subject of the intervention of Daniel Ramón, Managing Director of the company Biopolis. Ramon spoke of a new more precise stage which will solve the gaps food of millions of people, with innovations like the rice with provitamin A. He also mentioned the limited knowledge that society has still on these products. He also stressed that GM foods are "most tested food in the history of food" and that these foods have the same risks as traditional food.

For its part, the scientist of the CSIC Maria Jesús García focused its participation in the 'second generation biofuels', and the possibilities that will be offered to go there the substitution of fossil fuels, highlighting new features as the next generation of bio-ethanol.