Jerusalem, May 12 (IANS): Israel launched a national five-year plan to advance the field of bio-convergence, said the state's Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology.

The plan, amounting to 435 million shekels (about $127 million), was approved by Israel's National Infrastructure Forum for R&D, which includes experts from the Defence, Finance and Innovation Ministries, along with heads of academia in the country.

The program will focus on building infrastructure and developing capabilities in areas where Israel has strengths, the Innovation Ministry said.

The plan includes the establishment of infrastructure centers for applied industrial R&D, the set up of startups and consortiums of companies and academia in the field, the training and placement of biologists in the civil and defence industry etc, Xinhua news agency reported.

Bio-convergence integrates biology with additional disciplines from engineering such as electronics, artificial intelligence, physics, computer science, nanotechnology, material science and advanced genetic engineering.

Products and technologies included in the field are bionic tissues, organ engineering, transplanted products that collect data from the body, synthetic biology etc.