In our effort to promote interdisciplinary views on hot scientific subjects, we are glad to initiate in this issue a new section called ‘focus on.’ Each ‘focus on’ will be a collection of papers, usually (but not necessarily) gathered from the contributors of an international conference dedicated to one particular subject at the frontiers of life science and other disciplines. We start this section with a Focus on Nutritional Security and Environmental Sustainability for Human Health. This collection comes from the GCHERA 2015 Conference, held in the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) in Lebanon on the 25th and 26th of June 2015 (see guest editorial by Lara Hanna-Wakim, Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the USEK).
GCHERA is the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences. Its mission is to encourage co-operation among higher education associations and their constituent member institutions in supporting innovation, and to provide within the global context leadership in education, research and outreach in agricultural and life sciences. The five papers (three reviews and two research papers) selected in this special focus present different and complementary insights into the theme of the 2015 conference: ‘Universities’ Global Challenge: Nutritional Security and Environmental Sustainability for Human Health.’
Jenny Tian et al. discuss the role of food science and technology in providing food and nutrition security. Nhala Hwalla et al. show how nutrition security is an integral component of food security. José Zaglul presents the EARTH University Educational Program developed in Costa Rica. Vincenzo Sellitto et al. present their study on the effect of Pochonia chlamydosporia-based formulates on the regulation of root-knot nematodes and plant growth response. Finally, Gilbert Medawar et al. compare the chlorophyll content in greenhouse tomato and cucumber leaves after HBED-Fe and EDDHA-Fe applications and discuss the perspectives on fertilization.
Besides this special focus, four ‘standard’ papers are completing this Frontiers in Life Science issue: Saba Gill et al. present a study on strain selection, growth productivity and biomass characterization of a novel microalgae isolated from wastewater, addressing the important ecological issue of biofuel production. Chandra Remya et al. present an in silico guided identification of nAChR agonists from Withania somnifera, with potential application for the development of drugs against neurodegenerative disorders. Binal Kuntmal et al. provide a comprehensive perspective on charge transfer in DNA, a very fundamental, yet still debated, physicochemical subject. Finally, M. Kavitha reviews the cold-active lipases and their role in chemical synthesis, bioremediation, food processing and as detergent additive.
As usual, we hope that the reader will enjoy reading these various contributions addressing very different subjects, all connected to life science in its huge diversity.