The Hindu Business Line : Ministry for declaring horseshoe crab as endangered species

THE Ministry of Science and Technology will ask the Ministry of Environment and Forests to declare horseshoe crab that has potential to help treat diabetes and cancer, as an endangered species, according to the Science and Technology Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal. He was addressing a news conference here.

A compound derived from the animal's blood is used as a diagnostic reagent for detecting bacteria which cause diseases such as typhoid and meningitis. Detecting these bacteria using conventional methods is difficult. While the animal is killed to extract this compound in the US, scientists at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) have developed a process for the same in which the animal need not be killed. NIO has already patented the process, Dr Anil K Chatterji, of the NIO, said.

"We want it to be included in the Schedule IV of the Wild Life Act so that it becomes labelled as endangered species," Mr Sibal told newspersons here. "We will write to the Environment Ministry for such an initiative which would allow it to be used for research purposes," he said adding that the issue was apparently taken up by the Orissa Government with the Environment Ministry earlier.

Japan has already declared it as a protected animal, he said adding there were only five species and the animal was found only in US, Japan, Malaysia, China and India. The country has two species of the animal, which is found in Balasore in Orissa and Sunderbans in West Bengal.

The scientists have also isolated a compound from the fluid that surrounds the animal's larva and found it to be causing formation of heart in chick embryo, he said.

The development is significant as the team now intends to find a gene responsible for heart enlargement, a disease that also inflicts humans, he said adding the compound has been patented.

Mr Chatterji said the fluid has been tested in diabetic mice and found to lead to regeneration of `islets of Langerhans' in pancreas, which helps produce insulin.

Scientists working on genome sequences of crops

AFTER successfully sequencing a part of a chromosome of rice, Indian scientists have started working on the gene sequence of other important crops such as tomato, coffee and sugarcane while they are likely to complete the work on the genome sequence of a micro-organism in a year.

"Indian scientists are now sequencing chromosome number 5 of tomato. While in the rice project, only a part of chromosome number 11 of the plant was sequenced, in case of tomato, it would be the entire chromosome," Mr Sibal said.

Simultaneously to know the functions of rice genes, scientists are also working on functional genomics, he said. Dr Akhilesh Tyagi from the Delhi University said that the scientists were working on the gene sequence of a micro-organism and in a year's time the sequence was likely to be announced.

However, he did not disclose the name of the micro-organism.

The initiative on rice genomics was carried out by the University of Delhi and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute.

Work on sequencing of coffee and sugarcane genome had also begun in India, adding the work carried out so far would have implications on plants such as tobacco and brinjal.

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