AMU professor speaks at international biotechnology meet

Aligarh: "New radiation-biology technique should be adopted for
boosting the production of menthol, an essential oil component of mint
plant. This technique is extraordinarily safe, inexpensive,
ergonomical and handy", said Dr. Mohd. Masroor Akhtar Khan, Associate
Professor, Department of Botany at the Aligarh Muslim University
(AMU).

Dr. Khan was presenting his paper at the International Biotechnology
Conference organized by the American Association of Pharmaceutical
Scientists in San Francisco, California, USA.

Prof. Khan said that Menthol is highly useful in making pain-balms,
cough syrup, mouthwash, antipruritic (reducing itching) medicines,
etc. Using this novel agricultural technique, menthol production may
be increased by 40% and even more.

The, technique utilizes radiolytically degraded polysaccharides
obtained from specific sea-weeds. This work was an output of a
collaborative work with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai
and the Department of Botany, AMU.

This conference was aimed at "Advancing Health through Innovation in
Biotherapeutics". More than 1200 scientists participated in this
conference. Besides, more than 100 pharmaceutical companies also took
part in the conference. Most of the participants were from USA.
However, delegates from 30 countries other than USA also attended the
conference.

Dr. Khan's work was highly appreciated by the participants. Several
companies and many scientists expressed the interest in the technique,
asking for future collaborative work in this direction.

Dr. Khan has been working on medicinal plants for the last 30 years.
He has presented his work in USA, Finland, Canada, South Africa, Sri
Lanka, Cuba etc. His present trip to attend the conference was
sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).