Sources from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said Tuesday that the International Congress of Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology (ICPTC&B) will be held in Beijing in August 2006, setting up a platform for international academic exchanges.

The International Congress will inform Chinese plant biologists about the recent international progress and showcase China's current advances in the field, said Xue Yongbiao, chair of local organizing committee of the event and director of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the CAS, Tuesday on the press conference.

Xue said the International Congress will increase China's worldwide influence on plant molecular biology, genetics and agri-biotechnology and the application of agri-biotechnology.

The Congress will be held in Beijing from Aug. 14 to 18, 2006. More than 2,000 foreign and Chinese plant biologists, including four Nobel prize winners, are expected to attend the Congress to discuss hot topics like the industrial uses of transgenic plants, intellectual property in biotechnology, biosafety and genetically modified plants.

China can develop genetic modified products on its own and the number of theses published annually in the top research journal accounts for 10 percent of the total journal thesis, said Xu Zhihong, chairman of the International Congress, also an academician of the CAS and president of Beijing University.

Zhu Zhen, director of the bureau of life sciences and biotechnology of the CAS, said lectures on GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) will be organized during the Congress to popularize agri-biotechnology among the public, cleaning up some misunderstandings about genetically modified food.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2005)