2nd Expert Group Meeting on Biotechnology Information Network for ASIA (BINASIA)

24 - 25 January 2006 Bangkok ThailandOrganized by United National Asia and Pacific Centre for Transfer of

Technology (APCTT), New Delhi, Indiaand

Korean Research Institute of Biosciences and Biotechnolgy (KRIBB)

Country paper

Vietnam

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Thi Anh Hong

Deputy Director of National Agricultural Genetics Institute (MARD)

Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnam • A member of ASEAN

• Population of more than 80.0 millions (2004)

• Currently one of the fastest-growing economies in the world: averaging growth around 7.51%

• Agricultural production doubled, transforming Vietnam from a net food importer to the world's second-largest exporter of rice, coffee.

• Yet, Vietnam continues to be poor country with more than 70%

of population living in rural area

Biotechnology research in Vietnam

• Biotechnology research institutions in Vietnam are mostly in government sector.

• Very little research in private sector

• The linkage between research, education and industry is very weak

Major R & D Institutions

No Institution name Main field of Biotech Activity

1 Institute of Biotechnology, Nat. Centrerof Natural Sciences and Technology(CNST)Nat. key lab, Genetic Engineering

- Molecular Biology- Genetic engineering

2 Institute of Tropical Biology, (CNST)Nat. key lab: Plant cell Biotechnology

- Cell biotechnology- Genetic engineering

3 Institute of Agricultural GeneticsNational key lab. Plant cellBiotechnology.(MARD)

- Genetic basis of Breeding andmicrobiotechnology genetics.

- Molecular breeding and GeneticEngineering

- Plant Cell Biotechnology

4 Institute of plant protetion (MARD) - Biocontrol, Biopesticides for plant insectand diseases

5 Institute of Agricultural Engineering andPost-harvest Technology (MARD)

- Post-harvested Biotechnology process

6 Cuu long Delta Rice Research Institute.(MARD)

- Rice breeding- Molecular and cellular Biotechnologies

applyed for rice improvement

Major R & D InstitutionsNo Institution name Main field of Biotech Activity

7 Institute of Animal HusbandryNat. key. lab. Animal cellBiotechnology (MARD)

- Biotechnologycal basis of Animalbreeding, propagation.

- Cell manipulation and cloning.8 Institute of veterinary Research

(MARD)- Animal disease pathogens and

disease controlCentralpharmaceutical factory for AnimalHealth.

9 Research Institute of Marineproducts( Ministry of Fishery)

- Breeding, Food, cultivation anddisease control of Aquacultureproducts.

10. Research Institute for aquacultureNo. 1( Ministry of Fishery)

- Breeding, Food, cultivation anddisease control of Aquacultureproducts.

11 - Institute of Hygiene andepidemiology (Ministry of Health)- Company of vaccine andBiopharmaceuticals- Nat. key lab. VaccineBiotechnology

- Vaccine and diagnostics - Endemic diseases control - Production of vaccines for expended immunization

12 Pasteur Institute; Ho Chi Minhcity(Ministry of Health)

- Vaccine and diagnostics - Endemic diseases control

Major R & D Institutions

No Institution name Main field of Biotech Activity

13 Institute of Food Processing(Ministry of Industry)

- Food process Biotechnology

14 Hanoi National University of NaturalSciencesNat. key lab: Protein Engineering

- Education, research and training inBiotechnology Areas

15 Nat. University of Natural SciencesHo Chi Minh City

- Education, research and training inBiotechnology Areas

16 Hanoi Nat. University of Agriculture - Education, research and training onAgri-Biotechnology

17 Can Tho University of Agriculture - Education, research and training onAgri-Biotechnology

18 Hanoi Medical College - Molecular, genetic and cellularbasis of Human diseases anddisease treatments

Overview national achievement in the area of biotechnology

• Vietnam being an agricultural country the prospect of utilization of biotechnological practices in agriculture is much more than other sector.

• MEDICAL BIOTECGNOLOGY

The discovery and development of new drugs and the drug delivery system has become very important

Recombinant vaccines for BCG and Hepatitis are being developed

Millions of vaccine doses have been produced and applied for immunization to prevent those dangerous disease in Vietnam.

- Hepatitis B vaccine (HB vaccine):

- Hepatitis B recombinant vaccine

- Hepatitis A vaccine

- Japanese Encephalitis vaccine (JE vaccine)

- Oral Cholera vaccine (ORC vaccine)

- Poliomyelitis vaccine

- BCG vaccine: (Bacterial Vaccine Against Tuberculosis)

- Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis Combined Vaccine

- Typhoid Vi vaccine

An initiative relating to bioprospecting of important molecules and genes in this regard has already been taken as a multi-institutional effort.

- Isolation of genomic DNA of Bacillus subtilis FS2.

- Screening recombinant strains having collagenase activity

- Production of recombinant proteins for medical applications

Agriculture and forestry

• Molecular and marker assisted breeding

• Genetic transformation

• Identification and analysis of genetic diversification of some crops using molecular method

• Haploid technologies

• Cloning propagation

• Biological control

• Biofertilizers

• Animal husbandry

• Veterinary

Molecular and marker assisted breeding

• Temperature-sensitive genetic male sterility genes derived from Vietnamese rice mutants (TGMS-VN1, TGMS6) have been detected and mapped

• Location and function of number of important genes in rice on the chromosome have already been found such as:

+ male sterile gene tms-3

+ pollen function restoration gene Rf-3;

+ rice-blast resistance to Southeast Asian pathogen strains: Pi-2;

+ bacterial leaf blight resistance to Southeast Asian pathogen strains: Xa-4, Xa-5, Xa-13, Xa-21;

+ brown rice leaf-hopper resistance biotype 2, 3 BHP-10;

+ insect and herbicide resistance genes of some rice varieties

• Genetic transformation.• Primary research on transformation of economic valuable genes such as :

Cp (virus resistnce; Chitinase, Glucanse, Osmotune, (fungus resistance), etc to Soybeen, Maize, Rice, Tomato, Potato, Coton, Casava,...have been conducted. Some transformant lines have been received and now we

+ Screening of transgenic potato plant containing the CP gen for virus resistance.

+ Screening of transgenic tomato plant containing the Glucananse, Chitinase or Osmatine gen for fungus resistance.

+ Screening of transgenic sweet potato plant containing the Bt gen for viwil resistance.

+ Screening of transgenic coton plant containing the Bt gen for worm resistance.

• Screening of transgenic cassava plant for obtain cassava tuber antioxidase.

• Some difficulties

+ Lacking of well expert and generation systems (soybean, cotton,..) limited successfully for this work.

• Haploid technologies• Triploid and tetraploid lines in breeding of seedless

Citrus

+ Using plant cell biotechnology for breeding of seedlessness in fruit

plants + Numerous triploids and tetraploids have been received through

polyploidization, embryorescue, ovule cultures and somatic embryogenesis

• All of material obtained are in Laboratories

• Cloning propagation

• Micropropagation of crop varieties, forest and fruit trees, medical plants and flower.

+ Industrial scale of plant propagation has been developed for reforestation (10-15 millions plantlets produced)

+ Flower and ornamental plants, for some cultivars of floewrs, (Ch, Ger, Cala, Limonium, ), sugarcanes, banana.…about 30 tissue culture laboratories have been actived in country.

• Development of different diagnostic methods (PCR, ELISA, RFLP) for producing disease-free materials in industrial scale.

• Biological control• Development and use of biopesticides have been conducted

• Many high antagonistic strains including effective strains of fungus, bacteria for disease and insect control were selected and collected as resource for future bioproducts

• Some effective bio-pesticides and fungicide have been produced (small quantity)

+ NPV, V-Bt have been used to protect vegetable, food crops, cotton, tobacco from bollworm and insects.

+ (ChaeVDT, TrichodermaVBVTV...) has been used to control some kind of soilborne diseases on Coffee, Litchi, Groundnut, Citrrus, Durien, Tomato, Maize, Soybean and flowers (efficiency 51- 60%).

• Biofertilizers• Utilizing microorganisms in fertilizer production has been widely

applied in bio-organic fertilizer and sugar factories

• Animal husbandry • Molecular techniques such as PCR-RFLPs and Sequencing have been

used to detect

+ Halothan gene relating to lean rate and stress tolerance ability of pig,

+ genes Kappa casein which control productivity and quality of milk in cow,

+ hormone gene relating to growing rate and quality of pork,

+ gene controlling sex in cow to define sex of 7-day-germ

• Technology of transferring and cutting embryos is applied to multiply cattle stocks.

+ Utilization of embryo transferring method has resulted in creating cow stock with heterosis of 30- 40%.

+ Success of embryo cutting technology has led to 2 twin calf babies in multiplication of milk cow stock.

• Determination of sex in cattle of three breeds using multiplex PCR

•

• Veterinary

• Vaccine for cattle and poultry have been produced by using microbial fermentation technology and cultured on animal cells (Salmonellosis vaccine of duck and Parovirus of pig).

• Produced some types of vaccines for different animal diseases.

• Monoclonal antibody for diagnosis of Newcastle virus.

• Important diseases of : Foot and mouth disease, Bovine Spongiforn Encephelitis (BSE)

• Detection of porcine circovirus type 2 in Pigs at some intensive farms in Ho Chi Minh City and some adjacent provinces by PCR technique.

• Microbiological products used to enrich food for poultry and animal production

• Use of the new method to identify Campylobacter coli in chicken carcasses at abattoirs.

+ 319 chicken carcass-rinse samples from 15 abattoirs classified as large and small size were examined for the presence of Campylobacter (From November 2004 to May 2005) .

+ Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli were determined in 67.9% and 23.2%, respectively of the 112 Campylobacter isolates.

• The high rates of Campylobacter in chicken carcasses are aware of the potential source of food borne hazards to consumers. The effective hygienic standards along the poultry slaughter line should be implemented.

Aquaculture and fishery

• Aquaculture is becoming one of the most important economic sectors that have benefited the country both economically and socially. Aquaculture and Fishery have to be developed in sustainable ways for competitive export of Vietnam in international market.

• Researches have been developed on Breeding, feeding, disease prevention, environment treatment. The main achievements are breeding of sex change fishes, food for fish and shrimp, microorganism disease prevention products and environment treatment.

• The most important question of aquaculture in Vietnam is water contamination and emerging viral diseases that make great losses for the farmers.

Biodiversity

• Biotechnology is becoming a tool in conservation biology.

• Establishment of methods for identification and analysis of genetic diversification by using molecular approaches.

+ The genetic identification of accessions of Theobroma cacao L. and analyze genetically diversity of cocoa cultivars by using ISSR (microsatellite microsatellite) technique

+ The genetic diversity of cashew population in Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province. could be divided in to two major groups, including 36 accessions based on RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) analyses

• 5 000 000 ha forest tree plantation.

• The Marine diversity, their documentation and characterization are investigated.

Environment

• 1. The initiatives for environment management have been started. Biogas technology has been successfully applied to transform organic waste into biogas, garbage and peat into fertilizers. Research on application of microbiological technology in managing waste water, waste from agriculture, forestry industry has also been carried out.

• 2. Biotechnology for pollution treatments and Sustainable Development: protecting and cleaning water resources, development of green cover of country and reducing green-house effect.

• 3. Oil pollution treatment by microorganisms has been primarily studied.

• Biosafety regulation for Vietnam population of 80 millions is a national concern.

Industrial biotechnology

• In Vietnam the pharmaceutical sector has had a major impact from this field as a number of units are coming up for production of industrial enzymes like amylase, proteases, lipases etc.

• We are producing some antibiotics by fermentation.

• Produce important vaccines like Hepatitis B vaccine (HB vaccine):

• Hepatitis B recombinant vaccine

• Hepatitis A vaccine

• Japanese Encephalitis vaccine

• Oral Cholera vaccine

• Poliomyelitis vaccine

• BCG vaccine: a live bacterial vaccine against tuberculosis

• Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis (DTP) Combined Vaccine

• Typhoid Vi vaccine

• The biotechnological research of Agriculture in Vietnam is far from industry. The research funding is mostly for small experiments, not adequate for technological release. The study on pilot-scale and industry - scale is very limited. (flowers, medical plats, banana, sugarcane...

• The bridge between research and industry has to be built.

Bioinformatics• Human resource development has been recognized as an important area

for effective sustenance of bioinformatic activities. For meeting the need of trained bioinformatic professionals, long-term courses are being run in several reputed universities and institutions. Several major International databases for application to genomics and proteomics have been established.

• The network addresses two distinct issues viz (i) Communication, which includes e-mail, file transfer, remote login, video conferencing, web casting, electronic bulletin boards and establishment of web-based information resources among people, projects and institutions engaged in biological research and applications; (iii) organization, access, search and retrieval of biological information, documents, and literature

Human resource development• Trained manpower and expertise in Vietnam belong to classical and

modern biology/ biotechnology. Most of the present day modern biologists had long or short-term training in laboratories of India, Australia, Japan, USA and Europe.

• The programme of the government to award short and long term overseas fellowships and post doctoral fellowships has helped in training about 500 scientists in a period of 20 years. The post graduate programme at 12 Universities and Institutions train about 1000 students every year. Training programmes add value to the technical skills of these students so as to make them suitable for advanced R&D and production activities.

Biotech infrastructure

• Since 1986, there was concerted effort by the Government of Vietnam towards capacity building both in terms of human resource and sophisticated infrastructure for R&D. As a result at present, there are 6 key Laboratories: Nat. key lab: Protein Engineering, Nat. key lab: Plant cell Biotechnology (CNST); Plant cell Biotechnology (MARD); Nat. key lab. Vaccine Biotechnology (Biopharmaceuticals); Nat. key. lab. Animal cell Biotechnology (MARD); Nat. key lab, Genetic Engineering. Those Laboratories have enough infrastructure but lack of sufficient skilled manpower.

• GM testing labs and recently automated DNA sequencing equipment.

• Micro arrays and Proteomic

Technology transfer• The initiatives of biotechnology transfer of research leads, protocols

and technologies to producers.

Regulation policies• Regulatory policies are in general compliance friendly. GM detection

and analytical food safety laboratories have been established to facilitate generation of scientific data.

International cooperation

• The international cooperation on research, education and training is considered as most important promotion for biotechnology research in Vietnam. Vietnam entered into several bilateral agreements for implementing joint projects and human resource development programmes:

• Research cooperation projects with Europe (Swedden, Franch, Denmark, Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, Hungary

• Japan, US...

• Rockefeller Biotech Programmes: Rice, Maize,...

• IRRI.

• ICGEB: International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

• ASEAN The bilateral research cooperation amongst ASEAN countries. Vietnam, India, Malaysia and Thailand should be very important for economic growth and human health in our region.

• The main objectives of International collaboration in general have been to assist in implementation of National Programmes; acquisition of knowledge in areas of specialization not available within the country; share expertise and large scale facilities; participation in joint R&D programmes; and to add to the economic well being of the country, through private sector participation in product and process development, technology transfer and commercialization.

Conclusion

• With the large infrastructure in 18 Biotechnology Institutes, Central and State Universities, more than 40 National Laboratories and research institutions, it would be possible to develop capabilities and programes so that these universities and institutions act as the regional hub for providing technological interventions. It will be equally important to establish strong partnerships and linkages with the industry to commercialize the research leads.

Review contribution of member countries to BINASIA

•

+ In collaboration with MOST/Vietnam organized:

• 1st Conference: “National workshop on BINASIA in Vietnam".

• National Focal Point together with MOST/Vietnam in collaboration with APCTT and BINASIA organized that Workshop

• Time:

• 27-28/ January/2005.

• Objective of the Conference:

• Role of Government in the Development and transfer of Biotechnology.

• Government policies and initiatives for the development and promotion of biotechnology.

• Government policy on Biosafety issues.

• Biotechnology Development: opportunities and Challenges.

• S & T development in VN and suggested policies for International cooperation in Biotechnology.

• Research and application of Biotechnology in Public Sectors and in Private Sectors.

+ Role of BINASIA in Asian Cooperation.

+ Role of BINASIA in Vietnam Cooperation.

+ This workshop marked Vietnam become one of members of BINASIA Network and stimulated Vietnamese Government pay more attention to Bio-Informatic in Vietnam.

• 2 ndConference: Bilateral Workshop between Vietnam and Malayxia on: "Application of Biotechnology in Agricultural production".National Focal Point of Bioinformatics in collaboration with MOST/Vietnam and MOST/Malaisya Organized that workshop.

+ Objective of the Workshop:

Joint research on Biotechnology between Vietnam and Malyasia.

+ Time:

30-31 May/2005.

+ Participant:

More than 56 managers, researchers, students.. from different Establishment come and participated at this Workshop.

• In collaboration with Library Science: to transfer Magazine Biotechnology (APCTT-BCIL) to Library Science of our Institute and National Library Science for readers from different organisms can use this Magazine.

• Possible support and participation in BINASIA by Vietnam

•Support to information net working activities

•After “National workshop on BINASIA in Vietnam”, MOST and Institute of Agricultural Genetics and Biotechnology will open the website in 2006 and to fill our specific activities similar activities of other BINASIA member countries.

Mass production of insect for NPV biopesticide product

Influence of αNAA to callus development of the medical plant

Diagnosis of shrimp disease

WSSV-Nested PCR: Early detection of diseases for shrimp aquaculture

Somatic embryogenesis citrus

Somatic embryos at different stages of development

Equipment and facilities

Mass spectrometry (MS-MS MALDI-TOF)

FPLC system

HPLC systemAutomatic DNA Sequencer

Pictures of workshop between Vietnam and Malaysia

Some pictures of Binasia conference

Thanks for your attention !