Hyderabad: Dr MS Swaminathan, Unesco Cousteau Chair in Ecotechnology, known as the father of the Green Revolution in India and Prof William Rutter, CEO Synogenics LLC will be conferred the prestigious Genome Valley Excellence Award for their outstanding contribution in the field of biotechnology.

According to state industries secretary BP Acharya, the award, the first of its kind, would be conferred every year to leading scientists and persons of academia.

Bio Asia will be held in the city from 26^th to 28^th February and will have representatives from a wide spectrum of global bio tech companies.

According to Mr Acharya, there would be a wide representation of companies from the Asian region as well as from Western countries. He said Asian countries had expressed great interest in participating in the event.

The organizers said, "The purpose of Bio Asia is to narrow the gap in technological development in the bio tech field between developed and developing countries. The Asian countries and the less developed amongst them hope to reap significantly from this event. Last year the event held as Bio Invest was extremely successful and was attended by a large number of companies across the globe. Hence it was decided Bio Asia would be an annual event."

The forum would have prominent speakers like Dr MS Swaminathan, Prof William Rutter, Dr RA Mashelkar, director General CSIR, Stephen Lawton, general counsel BIO USA, Prof Li Fang Dong, deputy director, Pawlomia Research and development of China, Dr Takashi Yohkaichiya, senior exec, VP and chief medical officer, Shin Nippon Bio Medical Laboratories Tokyo, Dr. Bruce Whitelaw, Roslin Institute, Department of Gene Expression and Development, Edinburgh, Vipin Garg, president & CEO, Tranzyme, USA, Dr. Jai Nagarkatti, president, Sigma-Aldrich Scientific Research among others.

The forum of Bio Asia has been successful in attracting delegations from 15 countries and would have 50 delegations. About 50 stalls would be displayed at the event and USA, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have confirmed participation.