Conference Book of Abstracts - Taita Taveta University College

populations, habitats (including occurrence, and spatial distribution data), in addition tomolecules. In parallel to this informatics infrastructure, the technique of using a standardizedsection of an organism‟s genome, known as DNA barcoding, emerged at the beginning of thelast decade. DNA, as the genetic material in most living organisms, is transferred fromgeneration to generation. Differences among organisms have their basis in this genetic material,and this can be used to distinguish them. DNA barcoding is an approach that uses standardizedsegments of nucleic material for species identification. Using DNA has the advantage of beinglife stage independent, allowing for example identification of immature stages (e.g. insect larvaewhich often have fewer diagnostic characters than adults), identifying the diet of an animal basedon stomach contents, cryptic species among disease vectors, matching parasitoids and pests,studying tri-trophic interactions (pests, plants and parasitoids), tracking invasive species, oridentifying products in commerce (for example, herbal supplements or wood). A „DNA-Barcode‟ is analogous to a product barcode in the supermarket, which carries information aboutthe product, including its contents, quantities and price. In a similar way, the barcode datastandard demands a set of requirements for acceptance that take into account the data quality andcompleteness in order to incorporate sequences and metadata. These data are aggregated in thebarcode of life datasystems repository (http://barcodinglife.org), which to date holds nearly 2million specimen records. These developments in biodiversity informatics are already increasingthe pace of species discovery, and influencing biodiversity conservation policy and practice.Natural Products Research as a Tool for Poverty AlleviationJosphat MatasyohChemistry Department, Egerton University, P. O. Box 536, Egerton – 20115. Kenya.Email address: josphat2001@yahoo.comAfrica is endowed with a lot of natural resources that can be utilized to solve a myriad ofproblems facing it. It has a rich biodiversity that remain untapped. In order for Africa especiallySub-Saharan Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG‟s) and Kenya, inparticular, to achieve Vision 2030, there will be need for a sustainable use of local resources todevelop local solutions to our problems. Poverty in this region may be narrowed down to issuesof food and health security. While most peasant farmers harvest adequate food to last themthrough the season, nearly 30% of it is destroyed by storage insect pests and moulds. In the areaof health, malaria still remains one of the major killer diseases especially for children under theage of five years. The MDG‟s cannot, therefore, also be achieved without efforts towardseradication of this disease. In an effort to contribute to local solutions to the provision of foodand health security to Kenyans, we embarked on the search for biodiversity resources availablein Kenya that have utilizable bio-activity. Research findings towards the management of postharvestlosses due to insect pests and moulds; including the malaria vector control will be disc