Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Agricultural Biotechnology is at a crucial stage: the requirements to feed the world in the XXI century will force massive deforestation unless transgenic technologies would be applied to increase yields and to allow cultivation of marginal lands. In the session-track on ?Biotechnology in Agriculture? and in the Symposium on ?GM crops to feed the world in the XXI century and the risks posed by the irrational opposition of radical ecologists? there will be presentations to demonstrate how transgenic crops can improve food production and the author will discuss the problem created by some ecologist organizations demonizing transgenic crops and preventing their social acceptance in Europe. The author will count with one of the founders of transgenic plant technology, Marc Van Montagu, from the University of Gent in Belgium, who recently received the 2013 World Food Prize, equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Agricultural Sciences. The author hopes this meeting will promote a change in the perception of transgenic crops and you are invited to participate in this historical debate.

Biography

Ramón Serrano is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Department of Biotechnology and researcher at the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. He works on the homeostasis of monovalent cations (H+, K+ and Na+) in connection to cellular growth and death and to stress responses. He has published more than 180 articles in reputed journals including Nature, Science, EMBO Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Plant Cell. He has received more than 13,600 cites and his ?h index? is 70. He is member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and ?Doctor Honoris Causa? by the University of Regensburg, Germany.