In April 2004, FAO launched "Developing Country Biotechnology Profiles", a searchable database aiming to provide easy access to key, updated sources of biotechnology-related information about individual developing countries (including countries with economies in transition). For each country, information may be stored on the following 11 subjects: biotechnology research policy; research capacity (key institutions; summary of major research programmes); biotechnology regulatory framework (biosafety; food safety; patents; plant variety protection; plant genetic resources; animal genetic resources); biotechnology applications and, finally, publications and links. The database has been updated and information is now available on 128 countries. The database is a feature in FAO-BioDeC and is accessed by clicking the "Country Profiles" button on the left hand menu of the FAO-BioDeC webpage (http://www.fao.org/biotech/inventory_admin/dep/default.asp). Contact [email protected] to provide comments or to request more information.

08/06/2005