The relationship and/or network of each biological molecule had well studied by the recent molecular biology development. On the other hand, progress of the computing technology deliver us remarkable performance for operating the massive database, and also advanced nucleic acid and protein synthesis technology has gradually advanced the study of artificial design and the construction of the biological molecule network in the model cell. This fielid, called as "Synthetic Biology", has promoted mainly in USA and EU.
USA intends to make engineering approach and material production study that is conscious of biz-exit relatively. Several strategic funding already started and the international competition held every year (since 2005) as International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) in MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) especially for young scientists with enlarged the international study community. Also the venture capitals are investing actively.
EU is following USA engineering style basically, and already started supporting Grant of 6th and 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP6 and FP7). Community section is set up for collaboration team constitution and pushes forward strategic networking.
Compare to USA and EU, fundamental researches activity is prosperous in Japan. Basic researchers has operating the community of " Japanese Society for Cell Synthesis Research " from 2007 for deepens and interchange their scientific knowledge in this field from different aspects.
Although Europe and USA have conducted plural funding, however, in Japan, there is no strategic funding in this area. As the stance to the field of synthetic biology in Japan is rather different from USA or EU, the funding agency in Japan may play important role for promotion of synthetic biology to complement USA and EU strength, with the aspect of long term investment.