In 1987, Dr. Günter Tharun requested to the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research whether there would be possibilities for training of scientists from the Philippines and Thailand in the field of industrial biotechnology. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research agreed to give this support.
At that time the CDG had set up a programme for the development of soy sauce production in Thailand and mushroom production in the Philippines.
Within this scope various scientists from universities were trained in fermentation technologies and related fields during the next years.
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After this successful start, Dr. Tharun was interested in 1997 in setting up a long-term training programme in industrial biotechnology together with the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research as coordinating institute.
This led to the start of this one- year- training programme financially supported by CDG and after the fusion of CDG and DSE by the new organisation InWEnt.
Since then this programme has successfully run with about 20 participants per year. In parallel, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research coordinator together with the head of the regional InWEnt office in Hanover have started visits to many institutes in the Southeast Asian region.
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It became clear that after having trained a sufficient number of scientists and together with the interested institutes from Southeast Asia, we had a critical mass for the start of a Biotech network.
With the decision of InWEnt to include Brazil and Argentina into the forthcoming programmes we decided to phase that region into the network for 2006.
We are convinced that it will provide an excellent basis for enhanced communication, collaboration, and faster progress in the field of industrial biotechnology for the regions together with Germany.
Prof. Dr. Rainer Jonas
Helmholtz Centre (HZI), Germany
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