Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Sir richard John Roberts

For the first time, Nobel laureate Sir Richard John Roberts will be attending the convocation ceremony of the Mumbai University on January 11 as the Chief Guest of the event.

Sir Roberts, an English Biochemist, and a Molecular Biologist won a Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1993 for the discovery of split genes. He currently works in the USA as a chief scientific officer at the New England Biolabs and has published 243 research papers.

” This is the first time a Nobel laureate will be present for the convocation ceremony as the chief guest. It’s a golden opportunity for students to get their gold medals and awards from a great scientist,” said Vice Chancellor Suhas Pednekar.

A supporter of the pro-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) movement, Sir Roberts expressed his love for India and his reason for accepting MU’s invitation.

“This will be my first time in Mumbai. I accepted the invitation because I am a big fan of India and this will give me a good opportunity to talk to young people about the benefits of GMOs and why India should embrace them and not listen to the distortions being promulgated by the anti-GMO activists,” he said.

In an email interaction, talking about the GMOs Robert said “GMOs are safer than traditionally bred crops. This is the point we are trying to get across and to get Greenpeace and other anti-GMO groups to acknowledge. They claim to believe in science, but apparently only when it suits their purpose.”

“While I and most of my Laureate friends deplore the way that big agro-business behaves in the commercial sector and especially their single-minded pursuit of making money, that is a completely separate issue from the safety and desirability of using GMO technology to breed better crops,” he adds.

“Because traditional breeding approaches are time-consuming and expensive, only big agro-businesses have been able to make the large investments needed to bring them to market. This has effectively prevented small businesses and particularly scientists in the developing countries from improving their local crops using traditional methods.  However, the GM method is fast, highly accurate and much easier to implement than traditional approaches. This means that countries that rely on crops that are not a staple in the west can now easily improve their own crops for the benefit of their own populations,” he explains.

Talking about the interaction with students he also adds “I will use some autobiographical examples to show how luck can change one’s career.”

Explaining his thoughts on the usage of scientific “This is the basis of capitalism. Without such companies exploiting technology, we would not have automobiles, cell phones, television and the myriad other improvements in our lives. While I am sad that these benefits often leave great segments of the world behind, it is our policymakers who are responsible, not the scientists. We are very limited in what we can do. However, now is a time when the governments of the developing countries could do something that would be extremely beneficial for their populations,” he says.advances, he says

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