Launching a New DNA Barcoding Forum in Bangladesh

A Nationwide forum for DNA Barcoding in Bangladesh has been launched on the New Year's Day of the Bangla calender.The name of the forum has been proposed as BanglaBOL Forum which stands for Bangladesh Barcode of Life. Tis is a forum of scientists which aims to provide an online available DNA barcode database for all Bangladeshi biodiversity.

The main aim of BanglaBOL is to set up and critically test - a voucher-based DNA barcoding reference system based on freshly collected material, but also on already available material. DNA barcoding will be combined with alternative molecular genetic markers and associated morphological characters to develop an intuitive, sustainable platform for everyone to reliably identify the source species of a given DNA sequence.

Organism Groups to be included in barcoding:

Algae, Fungi, Microbes, Protista, Non-vascular plants, Vascular plants, Invertebrates, Vertebrates

Scientists involved in research, especially on biodiversity covering the above mentioned groups, may become interested to join the forum and be a member. Interested researchers will be given hands-on training for DNA barcoding in short (4 day workshop) courses to be organized by the forum. The workshop is being planned in May 2012 at the University of Chittagong. Detail of this proposed workshop will be announced soon. A convening committee has been formed to coordinate the initiative of BanglaBOL.

Professor Dr. Badrul Amin Bhuiya has been named as the Convenor of the Forum.