Oman Wires It's all about Oman
The centre in Barka will be constructed on an location of 504,656sq m and the size of the facility will be 27,000sq m. Some of the functions of the centre will be a microbial lab, plant lab, greenhouses, aquatic lab and animal sheds, stated Abdullah Ali Hamed al Rawahi, deputy executive director of help solutions, OAPGRC. “The zoo will be for animals endemic to Oman. The centre will study topics such as genetic erosion, water scarcity, salinity, climate change, population growth and food security. “We hope that the private sector will participate in building this centre,” stated Rawahi.
Listing the centre’s other achievements, objectives and projects of the year, Rawahi stated that TRC beneath which OAPGRC operates will be hosting a Geno Business Forum from May eight-9 at the Public Authority of Civil Aviation headquarters in Muscat. More than 100 participants from six nations which includes Oman will take element in the forum. The nations consist of, Taiwan, Greece, Morocco, Britain and Italy.
“We will also launch a new Omani product range called Nawa at the forum, which includes seven cosmetic products for women. The products are made using extracts of date palm seeds,” stated Rawahi. Rawahi stated that presently ten programmes are in progress, two a lot more will be rolled out this year. “Examples of our recent success include the Genetic Resources Information Platform (GRIP), which has over 13,000 data sets of the plant species, the Oman Biodiversity Information Platform (OBIP) with data on more than 2,600 animal species and 2,500 marine species.”
The OBIP is a repository of information on animal and marine species. Microbial Database conserves information on fungi and bacteria. It also has the Oman Herbarium collection with 13,098 digitised pictures of dried plants from the National Natural History Museum. OAPGRC had also established an animal and plant gene bank with the University of Nizwa. This bank homes collections of DNA samples of different species. Rawahi also listed the different programmes carried out routinely.
“The Ideathon and Geno Business are held for widening horizons and the monthly Science Cafés are a platform for discussion among experts.”
Information Source: Muscat Daily
