Asian Biotech

Download or read book Asian Biotech written by Aihwa Ong and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing the first overview of Asia’s emerging biosciences landscape, this timely and important collection brings together ethnographic case studies on biotech endeavors such as genetically modified foods in China, clinical trials in India, blood collection in Singapore and China, and stem-cell research in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. While biotech policies and projects vary by country, the contributors identify a significant trend toward state entrepreneurialism in biotechnology, and they highlight the ways that political thinking and ethical reasoning are converging around the biosciences. As ascendant nations in a region of postcolonial emergence, with an “uncanny surplus” in population and pandemics, Asian countries treat their populations as sources of opportunity and risk. Biotech enterprises are allied to efforts to overcome past humiliations and restore national identity and political ambition, and they are legitimized as solutions to national anxieties about food supplies, diseases, epidemics, and unknown biological crises in the future. Biotechnological responses to perceived risks stir deep feelings about shared fate, and they crystallize new ethical configurations, often re-inscribing traditional beliefs about ethnicity, nation, and race. As many of the essays in this collection illustrate, state involvement in biotech initiatives is driving the emergence of “biosovereignty,” an increasing pressure for state control over biological resources, commercial health products, corporate behavior, and genetic based-identities. Asian Biotech offers much-needed analysis of the interplay among biotechnologies, economic growth, biosecurity, and ethical practices in Asia. Contributors Vincanne Adams Nancy N. Chen Stefan Ecks Kathleen Erwin Phuoc V. Le Jennifer Liu Aihwa Ong Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner Kaushik Sunder Rajan Wen-Ching Sung Charis Thompson Ara Wilson

Download or read book Betting on Biotech written by Joseph Wong and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, several late-developing countries registered astonishingly high growth rates under strong state direction, making use of smart investment strategies, turnkey factories, and reverse-engineering, and taking advantage of the postwar global economic boom. Among these economic miracles were postwar Japan and, in the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Asian Tigers—Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—whose experiences epitomized the analytic category of the "developmental state." In Betting on Biotech, Joseph Wong examines the emerging biotechnology sector in each of these three industrial dynamos. They have invested billions of dollars in biotech industries since the 1990s, but commercial blockbusters and commensurate profits have not followed. Industrial upgrading at the cutting edge of technological innovation is vastly different from the dynamics of earlier practices in established industries. The profound uncertainties of life-science-based industries such as biotech have forced these nations to confront a new logic of industry development, one in which past strategies of picking and making winners have given way to a new strategy of throwing resources at what remain very long shots. Betting on Biotech illuminates a new political economy of industrial technology innovation in places where one would reasonably expect tremendous potential—yet where billion-dollar bets in biotech continue to teeter on the brink of spectacular failure.

Download or read book Fungible Life written by Aihwa Ong and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fungible Life Aihwa Ong explores the dynamic world of cutting-edge bioscience research, offering critical insights into the complex ways Asian bioscientific worlds and cosmopolitan sciences are entangled in a tropical environment brimming with the threat of emergent diseases. At biomedical centers in Singapore and China scientists map genetic variants, disease risks, and biomarkers, mobilizing ethnicized "Asian" bodies and health data for genomic research. Their differentiation between Chinese, Indian, and Malay DNA makes fungible Singapore's ethnic-stratified databases that come to "represent" majority populations in Asia. By deploying genomic science as a public good, researchers reconfigure the relationships between objects, peoples, and spaces, thus rendering "Asia" itself as a shifting entity. In Ong's analysis, Asia emerges as a richly layered mode of entanglements, where the population's genetic pasts, anxieties and hopes, shared genetic weaknesses, and embattled genetic futures intersect. Furthermore, her illustration of the contrasting methods and goals of the Biopolis biomedical center in Singapore and BGI Genomics in China raises questions about the future direction of cosmopolitan science in Asia and beyond.

Download or read book Applications of Biotechnology in Traditional Fermented Foods written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In developing countries, traditional fermentation serves many purposes. It can improve the taste of an otherwise bland food, enhance the digestibility of a food that is difficult to assimilate, preserve food from degradation by noxious organisms, and increase nutritional value through the synthesis of essential amino acids and vitamins. Although "fermented food" has a vaguely distasteful ring, bread, wine, cheese, and yogurt are all familiar fermented foods. Less familiar are gari, ogi, idli, ugba, and other relatively unstudied but important foods in some African and Asian countries. This book reports on current research to improve the safety and nutrition of these foods through an elucidation of the microorganisms and mechanisms involved in their production. Also included are recommendations for needed research.

Download or read book Biotechnology and Development written by Sachin Chaturvedi and published by Academic Foundation. This book was released on 2004 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biotechnology Is At The Heart Of Technology Revolution In Asia Today With Immense Potential In The Pharmaceutical And Agriculture Sectors. This Study Covers Economic And Policy Issues And The Experiences In Biotechnology In Japan, India, Malaysia, The Phillipines, Korea, Bangladesh, Thailand, China And Singapore And Also The International Cooperative Strategies Of Asean And In Europe. This Book Is A Valuable Resource For Governments, Multilateral Institutions, Academics And Practitioners In The Field Of Economic Development And Technology Policy Management.

Download or read book Beyond Technonationalism written by Kathryn C. Ibata-Arens and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biomedical industry, which includes biopharmaceuticals, genomics and stem cell therapies, and medical devices, is among the fastest growing worldwide. While it has been an economic development target of many national governments, Asia is currently on track to reach the epicenter of this growth. What accounts for the rapid and sustained economic growth of biomedicals in Asia? To answer this question, Kathryn Ibata-Arens integrates global and national data with original fieldwork to present a conceptual framework that considers how national governments have managed key factors, like innovative capacity, government policy, and firm-level strategies. Taking China, India, Japan, and Singapore in turn, she compares each country's underlying competitive advantages. What emerges is an argument that countries pursuing networked technonationalism (NTN) effectively upgrade their capacity for innovation and encourage entrepreneurial activity in targeted industries. In contrast to countries that engage in classic technonationalism—like Japan's developmental state approach—networked technonationalists are global minded to outside markets, while remaining nationalistic within the domestic economy. By bringing together aggregate data at the global and national level with original fieldwork and drawing on rich cases, Ibata-Arens telegraphs implications for innovation policy and entrepreneurship strategy in Asia—and beyond.

Download or read book Biotech in China written by ROLF. SCHMID and published by Jenny Stanford Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her quest for a global leadership in science and technology, the People's Republic of China has attained top ranks in the number of scientific publications, "hot papers," or national and international patent applications. This also pertains to fields such as biomedicine, agricultural and industrial biotechnology, as well as environmental monitoring and sanitation. However, analysis of the underlying structures and mechanisms is hindered by the sheer flood of data, by stringent government control of all media, including the internet; and by ambiguities inherent in translation from Chinese. This book tries to overcome these difficulties and provides a concise picture of the biotechnology-related research and development (R&D) in China. The book begins with brief accounts of China's geography, people, and their mindset; her political and administrational structure, economy, and finance; her infrastructure related to science and technology; and her educational system and R&D landscape. It then presents succinct accounts on structures and developments in biomedicine, diagnostics, agriculture, fermented food, bioindustry, and environmental biotechnology, with reference to government, industry, and academia. It finally attempts to predict next steps in Chinese biotechnology, both for the national agenda and in view of China's ambitious global development strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative.