Kwon Seok-yoon, president of the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), said, "We will lead the bioeconomy era through challenging research and development (R&D), open collaboration, and the spread of industrialization."
Kwon said this at a roundtable held at a restaurant in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 10th, saying, "As the global competition for dominance in bio intensifies, we will fundamentally change the domestic industrial structure, and KRIBB will secure clear global competitiveness."
KRIBB is one of the government-funded research institutes that develops and disseminates cutting-edge life science source technologies, with more than 650 researchers at work. Kwon, who took office in March as the 15th president, unveiled his management goals and research strategy for the next three years that day.
Kwon set four research goals: promoting innovative and challenging research and development (R&D), strengthening global capabilities in advanced bio, leading digital innovation based on artificial intelligence (AI) and bio, and accelerating the industrialization of bio technologies. He plans to strengthen research across diverse advanced bio fields, including synthetic biology, infectious diseases, plants, gene and cell therapy, gene editing, organoids (mini-organs), and the microbiome (gut microbes).
To that end, KRIBB will build a "public bio foundry" applying the contract semiconductor manufacturing model to support joint preclinical trials among industry, academia, and research. Like a foundry that means contract semiconductor manufacturing, the plan is to use AI to rapidly implement the complex processes required in synthetic biology.
KRIBB will also strengthen its management base. It plans to support the growth of bio corporations to industrialize research outcomes. At the same time, it will expand open innovation and global cooperation to foster next-generation talent. In May, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Chungnam National University to establish a joint AI-bio graduate school, and it has also begun developing a generative AI tentatively named "BioGPT."
It will also improve administrative and organizational systems so researchers can focus on research. It will strengthen its role as a national bio policy think tank and pursue institutional improvements alongside regulatory innovation.
As the government has begun phasing out the project-based system (PBS), which has been criticized for burdening researchers with excessive grant-winning pressure, KRIBB will transition to the Institution Strategy Development group (ISD) to carry out large-scale projects tied to national strategic agendas under the leadership of the government-funded research institutes. Budgets from completed commissioned projects will be reflected in the ISD. Kwon cited AI-based drug development, organoid-organ research, and development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as the ISD's core keywords.
Kwon said, "As the only government-funded research institute leading national bio R&D, KRIBB will become a key institution that protects public health and safety and leads the bioeconomy era."