Morakot Tanticharoen, director of Biotec, said the policy in 2007 will focus on the cluster concept for food and agriculture, medical care and community development.

Biotech will also focus on developing and applying core genomics and bioinformatics technologies to support food and agriculture products such as rice for the creation of higher value-added products.

"Thailand is a base for international companies to produce seeds such as sweet corn, tomato, cucumber and chilli.

"Therefore, we need to collect genome types to research and encourage the local seed industry," said Morakot.

She said the centre has joined with local businesses and universities to share resources and transfer technology to develop seeds under the Thailand brand name.

For medical care, the centre plans to utilise bioinformatics research for the development of new drugs. It is now studying the genome of the dengue-fever virus so the centre will able to reduce the risk of disease.

In the community-development area, the centre has worked with the private sector to set up the Tissue Culture Lab for breeding and improvement of varieties of flowers and herbs.

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation