Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, or "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 2).

1. Survey on Biotech Product Perception
Course Name: GMOs and Biosafety (BTE402)
Survey Date: 21/03/2018
Submission Date: 25/03/2018
Spring 2018
Surveyees:
Raghib Ishraq Alvy
15236001
BSc in Biotechnology
BRAC University
Submitted to:
Kashmery Khan
Lecturer
Department of Mathematics and Natural Science
BRAC University

2. 2
Contents
1. Place…………………………………………………………………… 04
2. What is biotech product?...................................................................... 05
3. Why biotech products are made?......................................................... 05
4. Questionary Sample (Printed Copy)……………………………........ 06
5. Questionary Sample (Online Copy)…………………………………. 07
6. Personal Information of Surveyors………………………………….. 08-09
6.1.Gender
6.2.Graduation Subject
6.3.Current Semester/Year
7. Survey Questions……………………………………………………… 09-13
7.1.Sources of information about biotechnology and its application:
7.2.What is your opinion on availability of information regarding GMOs?
7.3.At present what biotech products are in use by you? (Agro-base, Pharmaceuticals,
Nutraceuticals)
7.4.Will you encourage others to use biotech product over existing traditional standard
variety?
7.5.What sort of product you will encourage others to use? (Agro-base, Medical biotech)
7.6.What is your concern about biotech products?
8. Surveyor’s opinion on Biotech Product…………………………….… 14-17
8.1.Do you think that there can be a potentially replacement of GM tech in the near future?
8.2..GM technology is useful in solving important challenges with feeding the world's
increasing population and fighting disease
8.3.GMOs can help in production of cheaper food
8.4.Development of GM technologies is largely driven by the private companies and their
own desire for profit maximization
8.5.GMOs can help save lives
8.6..In order to reduce the risk of genetic modification applications we need to seek expert
advice to get more understanding about the potential risks to health and the environment
8.7.Bio-safety measures and quality control in GMO industries is maintained
8.8.Using GMOs is unethical.

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8.9.Who would you prefer to be in charge of quality control in case of GMO production in
Bangladesh?
8.10. How would you characterize the GMO based works being carried out in
Bangladesh?
8.11. How would you describe the current GMO industry of Bangladesh?
8.12. Do you think Bt-brinjal is helping to reduce the pesticide usage, thus ensure safe
environment?
8.13. Soon golden rice and pathogen resistant potato will reach the Bangladesh market
after all safety assessment. How do you feel about its acceptance by the consumers?
9. Discussion………………………………………………………… 18
10. MS Excel Copy………………………………………………….. 19-30
11. QR Code and Link for Online Copy…………………………...31
12. Printed Copy of Survey

4. 4
1. Place
Jahangirnagar University is a public university in Bangladesh, based in Savar Upazila, Dhaka. It
is the only fully residential university in Bangladesh.
The university was established in 1970 by the Jahangirnagar Muslim University Ordinance of the
government of Pakistan. Its first vice-chancellor, Mafiz Uddin Ahmad (PhD in
chemistry, University of Illinois, Chicago) took up office on 24 September 1970. The first group
of students, a total of 150, were enrolled in four departments: Economics, Geography,
Mathematics, and Statistics. Its formal inauguration was delayed until 12 January 1971, when the
university was launched by Rear Admiral S. M. Ahsan, the chancellor.
It operated as a project until 1973, when the 'Jahangirnagar Muslim University Act' was amended
as the 'Jahangirnagar University Act'.
There are 34 departments under six faculties
Faculty of Biological Science
 Department of Botany
 Department of Zoology
 Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
 Department of Microbiology
 Department of Pharmacy
 Department of Public Health & Informatics
 Department of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering

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2. What is biotech product?
Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop
or make products, or "any technological application that uses
biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or
modify products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on
Biological Diversity, Art. 2).
3. Why biotech products are made?
Biotechnology is the third wave in biological science and represents
such an interface of basic and applied sciences, where gradual and
subtle transformation of science into technology can be witnessed.
Biotechnology is defined as the application of scientific and
engineering principals to the processing of material by biological
agents to provide goods and services. Biotechnology comprises a
number of technologies based upon increasing understanding of
biology at the cellular and molecular level.
The application of biotechnology can result in new ways of producing
existing products with the use of new inputs, and new ways of
producing new products.
One of the best known applications of genetic engineering is that of the
creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). There are
potentially momentous biotechnological applications of GM, for
example oral vaccines produced naturally in fruit, at very low cost. This
represents, however, a spread of genetic modification to medical
purposes and opens an ethical door to other uses of the technology to
directly modify human genomes. A genetically modified food is a food
product derived in whole or part from a genetically modified organism
(GMO) such as a crop plant, animal or microbe such as yeast.
Genetically modified foods have been available since the 1990s.

6. 6
4. Questionary Sample (Printed Copy)

7. 7
5. Questionary Sample (Online Copy)

8. 8
6. Personal Information of Surveyors
6.1 Gender
From this chart we can determine that from 32 surveyors 6 were Female and 26 were
Male.
6.2 Graduation Subject
Between 32 surveyors majority was from Microbiology which is 28.1%, next majority from
Biotechnology (18.7%). Minority from Botany, Computer Science, Law, History and Statistics
(3.1%).

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6.3 Current Semester/Year
Around 20 surveyors from 32 were 1st
to 2nd
year students, 7 were 2nd
to 3rd
year, 3
were 4th
year students. And rest of were from final year or working on dissertation.
7. Survey Questions
7.1 Sources of information about biotechnology and its application
From this graph it can be said that in Jahngirnagar University most of the student’s
knowledge about biotech product comes from Research Publications or internet.
They have not adequate materials on GMOs in their course curriculum.

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7.2 What is your opinion on availability of information regarding
GMOs?
Most of the surveyor things that Communication to the public regarding research
and assessment of genetic engineering has been lacking of biotech product, which is
31.3%. It reflects the present condition of Bangladesh on biotech products.
7.3 At present what biotech products are in use by you? (Agro-base,
Pharmaceuticals, Nutraceuticals)

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Most of the surveyors said that they use Virus free potato (Agro Base), Antibiotics
(Pharmaceuticals) and Energetic Beverage (Nutraceuticals). Though it also reflects
the lack of information on GMOs in Bangladesh, which will be discussed in
Discussion section.

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7.4 Will you encourage others to use biotech product over existing
traditional standard variety?
Only 9.4% of surveyors have negative answer regarding the following question,
majority (90.6%) goes for Yes. Which indicates their interest on Biotech products.
7.5 What sort of product you will encourage others to use? (Agro-base,
Medical biotech)

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In this section, it is seen that most of the surveyors go for Golden Rice (Agro Based)
and Personalized Medicine (Medical Biotech). The reason behind this type of
response will be discussed.
7.6 What is your concern about biotech products?
Between 68.8% surveyors 34.4% thinks that Safety of consumer’s health/ side
effects should be ensured and 34.4% considers it is safe. Rest of the surveyors have
mixed response.

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8. Surveyor’s opinion on Biotech Product (8.1-8.8)

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From 8.1 to 8.8 most of the surveyors had neutral response. As there are much lack
of information on biotech product so they gave their responses as it is shown on the
following graphs.
8.9 Who would you prefer to be in charge of quality control in case of
GMO production in Bangladesh?
The majority of the surveyors think that Ministry of Agriculture health and
environment should have charge of quality control in case of GMO production but
40.6% of surveyors thinks Separate Ministry for biotechnology should be opened.
8.10 How would you characterize the GMO based works being carried out in
Bangladesh?

16. 16
Surveyors characterized the GMO based work in Bangladesh is Research based but
some surveyors think that it is Balanced and well developed.
8.11 How would you describe the current GMO industry of Bangladesh?
Around 62.5% of surveyors think that Current GMO industry of Bangladesh is
Gradually getting deviated from development and 25% think it is
Underdeveloped.
8.12 Do you think Bt-brinjal is helping to reduce the pesticide usage,
thus ensure safe environment?
There are mixed response as it is seen in the graph. But majority goes for neutral
response.

17. 17
8.13 Soon golden rice and pathogen resistant potato will reach the
Bangladesh market after all safety assessment. How do you feel about its
acceptance by the consumers?
Around 71.9% of Surveyors accepted the upcoming GMO crops in Bangladesh
which are Golden Rice and Pathogen Resistant Potato. Which indicates the positive
site of future development of Biotech product in Bangladesh.

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9. Discussion
The survey was based on the view of the students of different University from
different background on the Biotech product of Bangladesh and the future
acceptance of the products among them. So this survey basically based on the
view of students of Jahangirnagar University.
As it is mentioned that there are no specific course curriculum regarding
GMOs so they used to know about these products from Research publications
and Internet. But most of the students’ response for Virus free Potato as their
daily use of biotech product, they even have no information about BT
Eggplant which is the first and most popular GMO in Bangladesh from 2014.
Again their saying is the Energetic Beverage what they are used to drink is
biotech product, but the truth is there is no biotech energetic beverage
available in Bangladesh yet. May be they focus on the Energy Drinks which
are available in the market of Bangladesh, but those are not genetically
modified or not so suitable for human health. So another reason indicates the
lack of information about biotech product.
At the question no 7.5 and 7.6, their response was for Golden rice and
Personalized medicine. But Golden Rice and Personalized medicine is not
available in Bangladesh yet, and the main point is these products are not
suitable for every single person. Especially Golden rice is for the person who
have deficiency of Vitamin A.
There were 8 questions (8.1-8.8) for getting the valuable opinion of surveyors
on biotech product but the responses indicates a neutral position of their
opinion which means they can not properly agree or disagree on the questions
they were asked, which is also a scenario of information lacking.
But their acceptance on Golden rice and pathogen free potato was 71.9%,
which is a better response on biotech product.
Overall, the survey make a semi clear view of the consumers on the biotech
products and it also declares that some issues regarding Labeling of the
biotech product, promotion and public awareness should be taken, which will
help to reduce the information lacking problems and people can easily
differentiate between the biotech product and chemical product, as biotech
product always for the well-being of human being.