Oct 1, 2007: Taiwan produces students with some of the highest test scores in the world, especially in science, notes the TIMSS Science 2003 report from USA-based TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. Similarly, Swiss-based comparative analysis firm Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) in its Labour Force Evaluation Manifest, has ranked Taiwan third alongside Belgium and the US, just behind Singapore and Switzerland for two consecutive years 2003 and 2004, in terms of measure of labor force performance.

These reports showcase that Taiwan produces good human resource in the field of science. And this could be achieved only with the existence of good research infrastructure and research institutes in science and technology. 

Leading research institutes of Taiwan such as Industrial Technology Research Institute, Academia Sinica, the National Health Research Institute, and the Development Center for Biotechnology and others have been providing on-going training in life sciences. Also, in line with the government’s focus on the biotechnology industry, now many universities have established life sciences-related departments to ensure the supply of professionals that the industry needs. 

The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a not-for-profit R&D organization, is an application-oriented technology research powerhouse in Taiwan with 6,000 employees, of whom roughly 950 are PhDs and a number of them come with extensive work experience in top global institutes. ITRI is known for its pioneering effort in developing the semiconductor manufacturing technology. In addition to leading pioneering technologies, ITRI also has to its credit a string of spin-off companies such as TSMC and UMC among others.

In 1999, ITRI regrouped part of its resource to focus on biomedical technology development by establishing Biomedical Engineering Center (BMEC) and aspired to become the indispensable link in the global biomedical technology innovation and commercialization. To better serve the needs of both industry and market, BMEC in 2006 was again split up into two units: Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (BEL) and Medical Electronics and Device Technology Center (MED). The major focus of MED is to conduct application researches to grow Taiwan’s medical device industry and that of BEL, the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

BEL focuses on four main research areas—genomics, stem cells, biomaterials, and pharmaceuticals. Its key research projects include gene chip, bioinformatics, proteomics, biomarkers, cell therapy, tissue repair, biomaterials, targeted drug delivery, botanicals, drug design of NCE and new formulation development.

Initiatives & achievements
Besides focusing on research and development and setting up world class labs, BEL has been active in industry-academia interaction as well. BEL has signed up with domestic and foreign organizations to support the local researchers and industry in the last couple of years. The critical achievements of BEL include biomedical technology and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TMC).

According to Dr Chungcheng Liu, Vice President and General Director of Biomedical Engineering Research Lab, BEL’s progress in micro-array research was boosted recently by the identification of large number of microRNA candidate molecules in human genome sequences. MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules implicated in gene regulation at the pathway level discovered seven-eight years ago. A high-density microRNA micro-array is in the works and various paths to commercialize the microRNA discovery are currently being explored including the possibility of microRNA as potential targets for therapeutic intervention. “In addition to RNA, we have also developed proprietary platforms for identifying protein molecules that can serve as biomarkers for early detection of cancer and for pharmacogenomics applications,” he said.

On the development of molecular diagnostic applications, Dr Liu added, it was a spin-off of an arraying technology based on a proprietary high-density ink-jet printing head developed at ITRI. The company, namely Phalanx Biotech Group, is already marketing the product derived from this technology, a 30,000 spot oligo-nucleotide human whole-genome micro-array. It was in 2004 that BMEC designed and developed the human genome array “Human One Array” (HOA) prototype chip, containing more than 30,000 genes.

Another vital achievement of BEL is to modernize the application of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TMC). Before 1999, ITRI had worked with local pharma industry in improving the process of manufacturing generic compounds as well as in modernizing the TMC. Since the establishment of BMEC in 1999, the emphasis has been shifted to more value-added approaches such as optimizing the structure of an existing lead compound by chemical modification or by formulation with targeted delivery technology. The value added approach for TMC was to make it acceptable to the modern regulatory process. 

Considering the potential in cell therapy, BMEC has established Good Tissue Practice (GTP) Cell Production Laboratory in 2005 to conduct research concerning cell therapy and cell-related clinical technology. It has made some achievements in past couple of years such as the methodology of mass culture of human embryonic stem cell, the development of serum free medium, clinically applicable substratum, osteo-/chondrocytic induction from bone marrow stem cell. Also BEL has entered into an agreement with Vita Genomics, a pharmacogenomics-focused company based in Taipei, in 2007. The two organizations would be offering a range of services including pharmacogenomics study design and experiment planning, clinical sample collection, genotyping, expression profiling on both the RNA and protein levels, as well as statistical analysis. The alliance aims to use the state-of-the-art technologies and speedy solutions to meet the requirements of global clients.