Dr Masroor Akhtar Khan of AMU speaks at international biotechnology meet at USA

"New radiation-biology technique should be adopted for boosting the production of menthol, anessential 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 theAligarh Muslim University (AMU).

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

, 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 thanUSA 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).