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South Korea's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) announced last
summer the first projects in a $6 billion effort to catch up with the technology
of Japan and leading Western nations by the beginning of the next century.
The Highly Advanced National Project, also called the G-7 Project, is intended
to bring South Korea's technology up to a level competitive with the G-7
nations (US, Japan, Canada, Germany, UK, France and Italy). The projects
will focus on new pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, new advanced materials
and new functional biomaterials. Other projects covering high-definition
television, semiconductors, integrated service and data networks, and computerized
manufacturing systems are anticipated as well. Along with these efforts,
the New Medicine Development Consortium and the Genetic Engineering Research
Consortium have also been established. Companies such as Hyundai, Samsun,
and Daewoo are backing projects to develop advanced materials, such as ceramics,
for use in heavy industry, automobile manufacturing and the electronics
industry. (Nature, 358:613)
Civic leaders at the Japanese science city Tsukuba have led similar leaders
in the Osaka area to plan a science city of their own. This development,
Kansai Science City, will be of broader scope and include organizations
involved in researching culture, economics, and the arts. Modeled on Princeton's
Institute for Advanced Study, Kansai's institute plans to have research
programs in the natural and social sciences and humanities. It is known
as the new International Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) and is intended
to be the 'brain' of the city. It will have a changing population of 40
senior academics drawn from all over the world, plus supporting administrative
staff. Although research in the life sciences will be a central focus, it
will also support work in philosophy and mathematics. Topics will be chosen
by its faculty as well as by outside contributors from both industry and
the government. It is supported by an endowment of about $40 million from
both public and private sources. Total investment is expected to reach more
than $30 billion over time. The research and residential complex is scheduled
for completion in early 1993. (R&D Magazine, May 1992,
p. 5; Nature, 356:647)
Japan's Ministry of International Trade & Industry (MITI) is leading
that nation's charge into the emerging field of micromachines with a 10-year,
$190 million that aims to develop two prototypes. Twenty-seven companies
and institutions, including three foreign groups, have received funding
to begin research. MITI envisions building two micromachines, one for medical
use and the other for industrial maintenance. Motohide Konaka, a MITI official
involved in the project, says "this project is focused on the actuator-type
devices, the moving parts. While most work up to now has focused on discrete
devices, to get the devices working together will require a total system
approach. MITI suggests that the interest among companies from outside the
semiconductor-related field is an indication of long-term thinking regarding
micromachines. (R&D Magazine, June 1992, p. 24)
Calling for a $5 billion "civilian technology corporation,"
the National Academy of Sciences recently recommended that the US government
match technical and manufacturing advances in other countries by funding
"pre-commercial" research and development. Although the Academy
report acknowledges that the US high-technology industry remains relatively
health on such measures as productivity per capita and trade balance, it
points our such warning signs as a decline in R&D spending and the sluggish
transfer of technology from government research labs to industry. The report
also calls for an "Industrial Extension Service" at the US Department
of Commerce, modeled after the venerable extension programs of the US Department
of Agriculture. The panel recommended that a few of the 700 federal labs
be converted into facilities that would demonstrate federal technology to
industry. (Nature, 356:372)
A small California software company is proving that it is possible to
create innovative and profitable industrial research consortia without massive
government subsidies or cumbersome bureaucracies. Biosym Technologies, a
company based in San Diego that specializes in molecular and chemical modeling
software, has started four consortia involving more than 100 industrial
members and put products on the market. Biosym has succeeded by sticking
to the basics and steering clear of its members' proprietary secrets. By
focusing on basic molecular modeling tools with broad application the company
has managed to find a 'generic' niche that is still state-of-the-art. Another
part of the formula for success is to let its own employees--not researchers
on loan from its member companies--do the work.
Biosym's style of narrowly-focused, do-it-yourself consortia appeals to
companies grown wary of costly, government-subsidized research collaborations
with fuzzy research aims and power struggles between members. Biosym's four
consortia--polymers, catalysts, potential energy functions and a materials
project--each have about 15 full-time programmers. The polymer consortium
charges each of its 51 industrial members about $80,000 a year. In exchange,
it gives them new software every nine months and asks them to vote on the
next project. The members get one year of exclusive access to the software,
after which Biosym can sell it to anyone. Universities may join by paying
15% of the commercial rate, but they have no vote in setting the direction
of research. Any company that joins late must pay all back fees. (Nature,
356:371) [Editor's note: Biosym has also sponsored the last two Foresight
nanotechnology conferences.]
Daniel Cohen, director of the Paris-based Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme
Humain (CEPH) and the driving force behind the Genethon, says he expects
to be able to extend the map of the human genome to cover 90% of the genome
by the end of the year. What has really caused a stir is the way that Cohen
has collected the data: instead of using scientists, he had technicians
running an array of automated gene machines that exist only as prototypes.
The Genethon demonstrates an almost blue-collar approach to biology. More
assembly line than ivory tower, the laboratory exists mostly to produce
genetic information that other scientists will use. The news that an industrial-scale
gene mapping facility was not only up and running but also pumping out data
faster than virtually any other group has caused US researchers to question
their approach. The Genethon itself is every bit as startling as its results.
The $10 million central facility is a large room ringed with 20 robots,
surrounding a central climate-controlled computer installation. The robots,
which automate the DNA fingerprinting process, were developed by the French
company Bertin as part of the European industrial collaboration Eureka Labimap
2000. Each robot can perform Southern blots--a technique to distinguish
DNA fragments by the characteristic bands they leave after gel electrophoresis.
Together, the machines have the potential to process more than 6,000 DNA
samples a day. Yet the entire operation requires only five technicians.
Cohen describes this as "no-risk" research that can be easily
scaled upwards. Plus, he says that the French genetics community did not
try to stop him. His success, he believes, lies in avoiding the kind of
politics that would probably sink such an effort in the US or Britain. (Nature,
357:525-527)
"There has been a steep decline in chemistry majors [in the last
decade]," says Sheila Tobias, a social scientist whose books and articles
on science education have urged many college science teachers to take a
critical look at their courses and teaching methods. Reform-minded chemists
and educators around the country are trying out innovative curricula and
courses in an effort to ensure a supply of future chemists, or at least
to increase chemical literacy by attracting and educating more students.
And the American Chemical Society has set up a Task Force on the General
Chemistry Curriculum that aims to bring some coherence to this reform movement
by offering professors guidelines and materials to help throttle up the
pace of change in introductory chemistry courses. The goal is to encourage
professors to teach fewer, more fundamental concepts while making their
presentation more lively, relevant, and exciting by hitching each course
module to a hot topic like the ozone hole or drug design. New conceptual
ingredients teach a handful of far-reaching concepts such as atomic and
molecular structure, electronic orbitals, stereoisomerism, and acidity and
basicity. The teacher then helps students connect these fundamentals to
problems in drug design, materials science, and environmental research.
(Science, 257:872)
The Human Frontier Science Program (Frontier), a Japanese initiative
supporting international research on the brain and molecular mechanisms
of biological functions, has reached a critical juncture. Funded largely
by Japan, the program is now attracting financial support from many countries.
The purpose of the program is to clarify the functions of living organisms
by a "molecular level" approach and by understanding brain functions.
Some participants and organizers of Frontier, unaware of (or disagreeing
with) this fundamental philosophy, have tried to narrow its priority fields
to conventional fields by claiming that 'molecular' fields are too broad
and that there are too many research proposals to review. However, the basic
approach of the Frontier is to provide opportunities to examine the complex
functions of live via an all-out effort of science and technology. Physics
or engineering technologies (computers, robotics, electronics, materials
science and so on) should provide powerful tools. Their contributions are
not limited to hardware: the mode of thinking in fields such as mathematics
and physics, information-science technology and engineering should stimulate
the creation of new concepts in biological research. This approach sees
biology as having entered a new phase in which it can develop with highly
sophisticated methodologies, and its progress can be quickly accelerated
by a balanced perspective which views science and technology as one entity.
(Nature, 357:356)
Dr. Jamie Dinkelacker serves on the Foresight Board of Advisors.
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