Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Genetically modified foods: Their benefits and controversies

International Conference and Exhibition on Food Processing & Technology

November 22-24, 2012 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, India

Tawheed Amin

Posters: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Genetically modified foods are the foods obtained from plants, animals and microorganisms which have their genetic code modified by selective introduction of specific DNA segments by the help of gene splicing technique. These techniques are much more precise than mutagenesis where an organism is exposed to radiation or chemicals to create a non-specific but stable change. With the help of genetic engineering, a selective trait can be introduced into plants, animals and microbes to get desired results, for example, increased production yield and much better insect, pest and disease resistance, improvement in nutritional value and appearance, taste, drought resistant. The increasing world population which is expected to touch 9.1 billion in 2050, demands an increase in the production of food crops which could potentially be achieved through genetic engineering. Despite their numerous benefits, there have been many concerns regarding their risk to human or animal health and environment associated with their wide use. Due to their continuous and wide use, many non-target species are affected and rapid evolution of resistant pests and pathogens, development of antibiotic resistant micro-organisms, toxicity and allergenicity to humans has been reported. The cost and time involved in their development is quite high. Patent infringement is also a big concern for agribusiness. In the future, new molecular and genetic engineering techniques will make genetic engineering to crops much precise and will help scientists to replace an existing copy of a gene with another copy that will be slightly better. The study of the genome of plants or microorganisms will allow more rational and cleverer approaches to genetically improve the crops.

Biography :

Tawheed Amin is pursuing his M. Tech Food Technology from Amity Institute of Food Technology, Amity University, NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh, India. He has published 5 papers in reputed journals and 2 abstracts in the proceedings of an international conference. His areas of interests are Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals, Synbiotics, Omics technologies, extraction and isolation of bioactive components from medicinal plants, Somes technologies, and microbial analysis of foods. He has carried out the major project: ?Extraction of Essential Oil from Rosemarinus officinalis L. and isolation of Bioactive Components from its Extracts? at Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR), Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir.