Don’t ape west on GM crops: Peter C Doherty

India should take its own stand on genetically modified (GM) food and ignore the west, Nobel laureate Peter C Doherty said at a lecture on Monday. With increasing political involvement in GM food, Doherty said that it is time nations took individual stand regarding them.

At a lecture, ‘Science protects humanity: Adventures in immunity and infection’, at JN Tata Auditorium, IISc, the 1996 Nobel Prize winner for medicine said: “India should take its own stance on GM foods and ignore the west on what they do with it.”

About difficulties of debating GM food and the increasing growth of such food being adopted in markets, he said: “It is extremely difficult to talk about it as there is no real evidence of it being harmful. They are also restricted to the European and Western world. But that does not mean they must interfere in making decisions for the other countries,” he said. As for research in new branches of science, Doherty said: “It has become harder to get jobs in the field of research. However, more girls are enrolling for research courses, while boys are heading towards financial jobs. But, we need more people working in science fields.”

“Local networks must add to global networks in research. For instance, as some of the universities in the US could not afford to spend on research on migration of birds, they connected with the local groups of amateur bird-watching groups helping researchers understand migratory mechanisms of birds,” he said.