Opinions:
Biobanking in Sri Lanka: a need of the hour
Sri Lanka is rich in lot of natural resources including rich biodiversity and a profound traditional knowledge. At the same time, we have a highly literate citizen base and thousands of modern scientists in life science. However, we see neither a proper directive of the scientific research on national requirements nor lack of recognition on important basic aspects like biobanking and data banking. Because of this, we come across news like gene theft, brain drain, knowledge theft, patent restrictions on our flora and fauna. The other important component is devaluing, underestimating and underutilization of our resources which could be used for better economic returns and sustainability of the country. Creating an interest in young scientists on different angles of national interests would result a good research culture and for this, proper dissemination of relevant information is mostly important. Adulating the efforts of Chemical Society of Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, here we discuss one aspect of such a national interest – exploring the treasures in biobanks.
What is Biobanking
Biobanks are stores of biologically important resources applied in medical, agricultural research and development works for the future use. At the same time, conservations and preservation of the biological resources are achieved (Wikipedia). Other than in situ or ex situ conservations, cryopreservation of tissues and DNA banking with proper data bank will result in a very good resource for the next step of the process.
Significance of Biobanks in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is famous to have lot of natural resources underutilized or without any utilization. In many policy documents, sustainable use of these resources are discussed but barely implemented. Biological resources of the country have been almost well recognized by most of the policy makers. However, it seems, biological information is more valuable than resources and that has not been recognized by the policy makers in the current scenario. Where there is importance and value, there is the threat of theft and that applies here too. Biobanks with genotyped data and subsequent research culture might be a good solution for this and they can play a significant role in healthcare, agriculture and industry in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has potential in developing biobanks for traditional medicinal plants, rice and field crops, vegetables and fruits etc, plantation crops, domestic and farm animals, all other flora and fauna in different locations, cancers, genetic disorders, other diseases and disorders and blood etc.
Some of the uses of each biobank could be listed as;
Biobanks for healthcare
These biobanks would include known and unknown medicinal plants, diseases and disorders patients and causative organisms. These have the highest potential for drug discoveries, drug analysis, diseases/disorders prevention & control and future applications like patient specific therapies (personalized medicine).
Biobanks for agriculture
These biobanks includes traditional rice varieties, field crops, vegetables fruit crops, plantation crops, minor export agriculture crops, domestic animals and fish species. These biobanks can play a role in development of highly productive varieties, pest control or resistance, salinity /drought tolerant varieties, and etc
Biobanks for industry
These biobanks includes almost all possible microbes, flora and fauna from almost everywhere. We should explore not only butanol producing bacteria in dust for bioenergy and cellulase producing fungus in plant debris to be used in textile industry but also new drug ingredients, active components in food, cosmetics and brewery industries. Biobanks and subsequent research cultures would pave the way for new discoveries in each sector. Our medicinal plants have lot of active ingredients that could be used in drug manufacturing. At the same time we have a profound knowledge base from our traditional medical practices. If we combine both and supplemented with new technologies, there will be lot of benefits for the world through new pharmaceutical industry in Sri Lanka which is almost totally dependent on imports.
Issues and probable solutions
Research culture – Sri Lankan research culture is now attempting to be well directed towards national interests. We are aware that various responsible institutes like NSF, NRC, CARP and COSTi and some ministries are striving in this but it’s debatable whether effective enough to the level required. There are some limitations in implementations of the policies. The main obvious positive outcome is human resource development in life science sector. Most of researches are planned and performed as per the individual scientists’ interests where it would be great if they were of national interests. Certain individuals like Srilankan Scientist Magazine will be trying to promote biotechnology as an “economic driver” and we believe this would get a good positive feedback from the policy makers and implementers.
In this case, for instance on drug discovery national interest, the research plan should be to develop various biobanks of medicinal plants, genotype them, analyze and document as research publications for each and every sample of the biobank through universities and research institutes. Undergraduates, MSc, MPhil, PhD students can then search for active ingredients in the biobanks with the help of traditional or current knowledge. Then other researchers can perform RNA and protein analysis and later cell health assays, cytotoxicity assays, invitro expressions and at last we can perform in vivo expressions as well leading to confirmation of the drug component.
Such successful experiments have resulted in various types of drug ingredients in the world and such a list is available for reference at
http://rainforest-database.com/plants/chapter2.htm or internet search will result more
Cost of technology
As biotechnology or life science as an economic driver, we have to invest into basic infrastructure like human resources and laboratories. Yes, we agree that those technologies are expensive but with which we do compare?
Figure: Maxwell 16 for automated DNA extraction
Meanwhile, research infrastructure development and capacity buildings are not handled properly as much of the investments are wasted while real researchers are pleading for facilities. If we could think of “National Centers of Excellence” with the most sophisticated technologies with proper usage policy, we could have saved a lot of money and directed to the national interests.
Finally we would conclude by saying that the government do not recognize the genetic conservation as a good source of revenues for the country if we have applied some protection for our national treasures of flora and fauna. In pharmaceutical industry, our resources are INVALUABLE. Medical Research and diagnostics industry, this is equally a treasure. Brewery and cosmetics industries our resources would be real revenue sources. If our scientists are directed with a target, we can unearth lot of treasures hidden in our country.
WPDK Fernando
සියනෑකෝරළය ඇවිළුණේය. ගම්මාන දොළහක මිනිස්සු පාරට බැස උද්ඝෝෂණ කළහ. ගම්මු පාරට බැස තිබුණේ ප්රදේශයේ ජල සම්පත ආරක්ෂා කර දෙන්නැයි කියන්නටය. රතුපස්වල, නැදුන්ගමුව ප්රදේශයේ පිහිටා ඇති කර්මාන්තශාලාවකින් පරිසරයට මුදාහරින විෂ රසායනික ද්රව්ය නිසා ප්රදේශයේ භූගත ජලයට ඇසිඩ් එකතු වී ඇති බව ප්රදේශවාසීහු කියති. ගැටලුව තරමක් බරපතළය. ඇසිඩ් යනු වසය. එසේ නම් වස බී මිනිස්සු මැරෙන්නට පෙර මේ ජල ගැටලුව ගැන සොයා බලන්නට අපිදු එම ගම්මානවලට ගියෙමු.
රැස්ව සිටි පිරිස මීයට පිම්බා සේය. එක් කාන්තාවකගේ හඬ පමණක් බණ මඩුව පුරා දෝංකාර දුන්නාය.
ගම්මුන්ගේ ඝෝෂාව තරමක් පහව ගිය විට ප්රදේශයේ දැවෙන ප්රශ්නය ගැන කරුණු කරණා විමසා බැලීමට අපි ගම්මු අතරට ගියෙමු.