U.S. President Barack Obama's lifting of limits on human embryonic stem cell research will make the already fierce global competition even fiercer in this area. And it should serve as a loud wake-up call for domestic scientists and policymakers long mired in a self-reproaching slump.
Obama's widely-anticipated move will of course run into vehement opposition from anti-abortionists and religious fundamentalists, resulting in another bout of noisy debates on life ethics. Lamentably but inevitably, however, the overall, cold-headed trend on this globe seems to put the health and well-being of people already born ahead of the right-to-life for the earliest forms of human beings.
It would be safe to assume, therefore, the United States will no longer risk being outdone by its competitors on this biotechnological front, which could provide remedies for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes, and form a $100-billion market in three years.
Already, Europe, Japan and even latecomer China have made massive investments into one of the world's most promising medical technologies to take advantageous positions in the ``stem cell war.'' The dominant front-runner is America, which has poured up to one trillion won ($670 million) into research and development of stem cells per year, even before President Obama gave the green light to draw from federal funds, followed by 139 billion won in Britain, 127 billion won in Japan and 63 billion won in France.
Compare these with Korea's 34 billion won last year, which accounts for just 3.5 percent of America's and 36 percent of Japan's. Little wonder this country, which was ranked seventh in the world in terms of competitiveness of stem cell technology in 2006, has since been driven out of the global big-10 in the number of related patents.
Also comparable ― or rather incomparable ― were the overall science and technology policies of the United States and Korea. Obama is moving toward sharply increasing the budget of the National Science Foundation and boosting investments into aerospace and green industries. Despite the severe U.S. and global recession, he is determined to create more high-quality jobs and develop new growth engines from these areas.
The slogan-loving Lee Myung-bak administration has also announced the ``5-7-7'' plan, which calls for spending 5 percent of the gross domestic product to develop seven major technologies and emerge as a member of the world's big-seven technological powers by 2012. Not only is this as impractical as the economic ``7-4-7'' plan, but the government has yet to announce any detailed action programs, including funding plans.
It instead is busy expanding spending on the large public works of building canals and refurbishing major rivers, in its haste to rapidly escape from the current recession, mostly through creating a number of ``spadework'' jobs.
The time is pressing for Korea to make up for the virtual loss of the past three years since 2006, when Prof. Hwang Woo-suk stunned the world by confessing to his fabrication of the evidence related with what he claimed as the successful cloning of human cells.
It is urgent for the government, scientific community and religious circles to re-establish guidelines and supervision concerning not just life ethics, but research ethics to regain the lost confidence in Korean researchers among international society ― and move forward.
The National Bioethics Committee recently withheld the approval of a research plan on embryonic stem cells submitted by Cha Hospital, mainly for ethical reasons. The state panel's prompt go-ahead to the supplemented research plan will be a good start for Korea to fully re-enter the race.