SNU opens Asian molecular biology center

Seoul National University’s bioengineering institute, Bio-MAX, announced yesterday the opening of the Korea Bio Hub Center, which will serve as the base for the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network. The center will receive 52 billion won ($51.7 million) in funding from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy and 47 billion won from private companies until 2008. In an interview with the JoongAng Daily, the founders of the new center emphasized the importance of cooperation among Asian countries. “This opening represents a milestone in Asia-Pacific science,” said Chris Tan, founding president of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore. “For the past 20 years, various countries have conducted their own research, but now they are seeking to work together, because if they do, the impact will be huge.” Yim Jeong-bin, director of the Bio-MAX center, said it is especially important for Asian countries to work together on urgent public health issues such as the avian flu, the clinical trials of effective vaccines against HIV and in emerging diseases that are associated with drastic changes in the environment, the food chain and the climate. Siegfried Neumann, a consultant for German pharmaceutical company Merck, said Asian countries are more competitive in these areas because they are more accepting of new ideas than Western nations. “For instance, countries like China have some problems with nutrition so they are open to genetically modified foods,” he said. “Many European countries are conservative, and they don’t make use of the potential of science.” “Also, human resources in Asia, particularly in Korea, have very ambitious young scientists with good training and are at the front line, like the work done in stem-cell research,” he said. Ken-ichi Arai, acting director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Organization for Medical research, said regional science research has adapted quickly over the years. “In less than two decades, Asia-Pacific scientists have reinvented ourselves to compete in the main arena in the century of biology,” he said. by Wohn Dong-hee