The government of South Korea announced in January that it would allocate 10 billion won — about US $10 million — to biotechnology research with a large portion of those funds dedicated to researching the production of animal organs for transplantation into humans.
South Korea is hoping to hit it big in the emerging biotech sciences, with government officials calling biotech the “next-generation [economic] growth engine.”
With Europe allowing animal rights and other considerations to limit is ability to support biotech research, Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan and China could become leaders in the field, taking the research that Europe can’t or won’t pursue.
Sources:
Korea Plans to Commercialize Animal Organs for Humans. Korea Herald, January 12, 2005.
South Korea approves cloning research. Agence-France Press, January 12, 2005.