S. Korean lab to take part in global tuberculosis research

By Lee Joon-seung
SEOUL, Sept. 21 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean biotech laboratory will take part in a
global research program to fight a virulent strain of tuberculosis (TB) that
kills over 1.5 million people worldwide each year, the government said Sunday.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said the Institute Pasteur
Korea has officially joined TB-VIR projects supported by the European Commission
under the Seventh Framework Program (FP7).
It said the laboratory's role is to screen the mutation of the W-Beijing
Mycobacterium, which is expected to yield key information that can be used to
combat the disease. It is to receive 335,000 euros from the European Union to
carry out the project.
The research facility plans to make full use of its ultra-fast, large-capacity
gene screening system and other high-tech testing equipment to draw accurate
data.
The institute is considered a success story in terms of the joint cooperative
effort between France's Pasteur laboratory, South Korea's education and science
ministries and Gyeonggi Province. It opened in April 2004 and has been lauded for
its numerous contributions to the advancement of biotechnology.
The latest joint endeavor, meanwhile, is expected to help South Korea expand ties
with key biotech institutes in France, Germany, Spain and China and help reduce
suffering for people around the world.
TB is estimated to affect a third of the world's population or 2 billion people,
with over 4,000 succumbing to the disease every day.
In South Korea 2,733 people, or 5.6 people out of 100,000, died from
complications caused by the disease in 2006.