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Int'l bio expo to kick off in S. Korea this week
2014/09/24 11:46
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CHEONGJU, South Korea, Sept. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will open a large-scale international bio industry exposition in a central city this week to display state-of-the-art biotechnologies and to promote the city as a global mecca in the field, organizers said Wednesday.
Hosted by the government of North Chungcheong Province, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the local municipal government, the Osong International Bio Industry Exposition is set to kick off on Friday for a 17-day run in Osong, some 120 kilometers south of Seoul.
Under the theme of "The Secret of Life, Beautiful Future," the expo will showcase how the nation's bio industry has developed over the past decades and provide a glimpse into a future that employs many of the industry's finest innovations.
The expo would be the second of its kind ever to be held in the province and elsewhere in South Korea.
The provincial government successfully hosted the nation's first-ever bio expo 12 years ago as critics said it laid the ground for developing the traditionally agricultural province into the hub of the country's bio industry.
The event was also highly praised for marking a new epoch in biotechnology, ranging from hens that can lay eggs with high concentrations of cancer-fighting proteins to a full-length bodysuit made to copy the skin of shark and an artificial spider silk that is an extremely strong, light and stretchable fiber.
For many visitors to the 2002 expo, such products probably were literally nothing but a "dream," but this kind of dream has since come true.
A team of scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics succeeded in making spider silk significantly more tear-resistant and ductile through the addition of metals in 2009, only seven years after such an idea was showcased during the 2002 expo.
Earlier this month, South Korean researchers succeeded in producing a fluorescent cow through the use of recombinant protein and a bull calf with the capacity of producing antianemic components.
Also this month, a cloned puppy, "Donggyeong" was created by a veterinary professor at Seoul National University, Lee Byeong-cheon, and his team. She was created using cells from three female adult Donggyeong dogs, a kind of native Korean dog, without a father. The puppy will be shown at the upcoming Osong expo, according to the organizers.
Visitors will also experience diverse medical treatments with the latest technologies, such as the diagnosis of a [b[color=red]]disease from a drop of blood, which was also deemed an unrealistic technology" 12 years ago.
"Mankind's dream for good health and longevity and for being more beautiful is coming into reality with the help of biotechnology," said Lee Cha-young, secretary general of the expo's organizing committee. "Visitors can experience a variety of future technologies in the Osong expo."
