Special Tribute Dr Fee Chon CHONG-LOW

     Fee Chon was no stranger to the International Biosafety Community. In her home country Malaysia she was a pioneer of the National Biosafety program and was instrumental in helping to define the National Guidelines on Biosafety as well as in drafting the National Biosafety Act in the late 90s. It is in no small way a result of her early contributions that the act will be gazetted and implemented this year. Her most recent post was as the UNDP Regional Coordinator for Biosafety (Asia) which she assumed in 2007 after 3 years in Geneva as a Project Manager of the UNEP Biosafety Implementation Project. Then she was responsible for 8 of the 12 GEF-funded globally distributed demonstration projects on the implementation of National Biosafety Frameworks. Her contributions were certainly far reaching with the projects completed and implemented by the UNEP in Bulgaria, Poland, China, Cuba, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia and Uganda.

     Fee Chon received a D.Sc. from the University of Ghent (Belgium) during an exemplary career at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia and as a scientist specialized in DNA markers and plant genetic mapping. She was a recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship in Plant Biotechnology and was active as an editorial board member for several scientific journals and contributed to many scientific societies. Fee Chon also sat as a member of the Board of Trustee of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), one of 15 world-wide CGIAR centres. To every project she worked on she brought with her a wealth of hands-on experience in biosafety and biotechnology, always dispensed with dedication. professionalism and openness. Friends and colleagues will also however always remember her for her warmth and cheerfulness and her infectious optimism. She will be missed.

Prof Dr Rofina Yasmin Othman
Chief Editor
Asia Pacific Journal for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

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