Agrobiotechnology

Course Overview

Biotechnology has produced a new and leading technology that is helping determine the direction of Europes economic development and international competitiveness. Since the early 1990s, there has been rapid progress in this sector, caused mainly by the results of genome research and, more recently, by rapid developments in cell biology (cell factories). Growth in these areas is predicted to accelerate further. It is crucial for our future that the energies resulting from the knowledge explosion taking place in these fundamental domains be harnessed to the development of technologies useful to society at large. Starting in the winter semester 2005/2006, Justus Liebig University Giessen set up a new international Masters Degree in Agrobiotechnology to cope with the burgeoning world-wide importance of biotechnology, not least in university education, for plant and animal production, and for the nutritional sciences. Justus Liebig University was the first German university to take up the global challenge of inaurgurating an internationally oriented degree course designed to provide the highest level of academic training for entry into the biotechnology and agriculture sector of the world economy. The overall objective of Giessens Masters program in Agrobiotechnology is to equip scientists in both the traditional pure disciplines and in the domains of agriculture and nutrition for coping with managerial tasks at the cutting edge of the agricultural and food sector. One important educational goal is to teach students practical methods and expertise on a broad scientific basis.