The Center for Special Studies and Programs (CSSP) affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's Academic Research Sector and the World Academy of Sciences for the Advancement of Science in Developing Countries Arab Regional Partner (TWAS-AREP) are hosting a number of Nobel Laureates via webinars.
The first webinar was entitled Fact and Fiction about GMOs? and took place on Thursday, 11th June, 2020, at 4:00 pm. It was conducted by Sir. Richard J. Roberts, an English biochemist and molecular biologist who is the Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs, Massachusetts, USA. He was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Allen Sharp for the discovery of introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism of gene-splicing. The webinar was moderated by Prof. Ramy Aziz, a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy at Cairo University.
The lecture shed light on the history of GMOs and safety of such technology. It described some of the GMO crops that can be beneficial to poor people in developing countries including the development of Golden Rice, which can help combat Vitamin A deficiency a nutrient problem that currently kills or physically impairs one to two million children every year. Finally, it gave some examples of how GMOs can solve a variety of problems facing humanity.