DHULIKHEL-Kathmandu University has received overwhelming response to its new Department of Biotechnology graduate program. Five hundred students applied for 30 slots in the department last year, indicating job saturation in the IT industry and the perception that biotechnology is the wave of the future, according to faculty members. Vice Chancellor Suresh Raj Sharma is pleased with the response and says it will allow Nepal to build human resources in the field, which has applications in agriculture, the food industry and in development of herbal products. "We made a late entry into the information revolution, we can't remain behind on the bio-technology revolution," Sharma said last week at a KU seminar on key areas in the application of biotech. The keynote address was given by Kasipathy Kailasapathy, associate professor at the Centre for Advanced Food Research, University of Western Sydney. Kailasapathy spoke on the growth of the health food industry using encapsulation technology and probiotic nutrition. "With Nepal's biodiversity and cash crops this is the time to jump on the biotechnology bandwagon, there is tremendous potential," he said.