The Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies Thiruvalla (Macfast) will host a three-day national symposium on algal biotechnology from Tuesday.
In a statement here on Monday, Maya Subramoni, scientist and head of the Centre for Algal Biotechnology at Macfast, said the symposium would discuss the recent trends in algal biotechnology. It would bring together academics, scientists, scholars and researchers and provide them an opportunity to check out directions for future work in the field, Dr. Subramoni said.
The symposium would discuss algal biofuel, algal nanotechnology, algae as source of food, feed and nutraceutical, value-added products from algae, algae in ethnopharmacology, bio-prospecting of marine algae, algae as source of pigments, seaweed farming, recent trends in algal taxonomy, algae in industry and agriculture and see weed tissue culture.
Dr. P. Pushpangadan, director of the Krishnamurthy Institute of Algology, Chennai, will inaugurate the symposium on Tuesday forenoon. Cherian Ramanalil Corepiscopa of Malankara Orthodox Church will preside over the inaugural function.
Fr. Abraham Mulamoottil, Macfast Principal, and C. Balagopalan, Resident Dean of Macfast Bio-Science Campus, will also address the meeting.
Prof. V. Krishnamurthy from Chennai, Dr. C.S.P. Iyer, IITMK, Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram; Dr. S. Shanmughasundaram of Madurai Kamaraj University, Prof. R. Rangasamy, director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany in Chennai, Dr. N. Jeeji Bai, scientist from Chennai; Dr. G. Abraham from New Delhi and Dr. N. Anand, Vice-Chancellor of Vels University, would be among the invited speakers at the symposium.
