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Biotechnology is at the heart of innovation towards establishing next growth engine in Korea. In this special issue, five representative biotechnology projects that have been carried out in Korea are showcased. Global Frontier Program is one of the key research programs funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, which aims to develop world-class core technologies towards the creation of economic growth engine. The Global Frontier Program was first initiated in 2010 and, at present 10 research centers have been established. Among them, the authors in this issue shall be highlighting the three Global Frontier Program projects in the features section of APBN. The Advanced Biomass R&D Center (ABC) reports current state of microalgae-derived biofuels and bio-products research in Korea. Next, the Medicinal Bioconvergence Research Center summarizes the efforts to establishing the integrated research platform for novel targets and lead discoveries. Third, an overview of the activities at the Bionano Health Guard Research Center are highlighted.
Two other major projects funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning are also introduced. The activities of Bio-Synergy Research Center on knowledge-based systems biology platform for natural product engineering are introduced, which is followed by brief introduction to the program on the development of platform technologies of systems metabolic engineering for bio-refineries. Although these five programs do not cover all the exciting biotechnology activities in Korea, they certainly showcase some of the active research efforts being made in Korea. It is hoped that this special issue will be helpful for readers to better understand the biotechnology activities in Korea.
- Sang Yup Lee
-Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
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