Team:Hong Kong HKUST/hp/article

From 2013.igem.org

Synthetic biology is a relatively new and rapidly growing research field that is considered to hold significant technological potential. As it involves the design and production of biological systems not present in the natural world, synthetic biology resembles an engineering application of biological sciences. Development up to now has mostly been centered in the West, in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, with Japan being East Asia’s one of the early adopters.In more recent years, other East Asian countries have begun to participate on the international synthetic biology stage. But in comparison to western countries, synthetic biology in East Asian countries is still in its infancy. The result is a disparity in information available to the public about synthetic biology developments in these respective regions.

In the interests of amending this situation, we present this document as a reference for progress in synthetic biology in the four East Asian countries/regions and one South East Asian country: Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia. It includes investigations into research achievements, public perception, regulations and funding that we conducted using local online search engines and our native languages that will hopefully provide with the inside story.