AFOB NEWSLETTER 2023. Vol.19

2023 New Year’s Greeting from President and Secretary General

Takeshi Omasa

Professor, Department of Biotechnology,
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University

Choul-Gyun Lee

Professor, Department of Biological Engineering,
Inha University

Dear AFOB Members,

Wish you a wonderful very happy & healthy new year for all of you.

Biotechnology is a field that can greatly contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, which were adopted by the United Nations in 2015. These days more governments, industries and investors are paying attention to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and adopting ESG practices. The possibilities of biotechnology are endless, and it is a field that can make a significant contribution to every aspect of human society including energy, environments, healthcare, food and feedstocks. However, AFOB will have to follow the rapidly changing global trends. AFOB will be maintaining as the leading organization representing the biotechnology filed in Asia and will lead the 21st century, the century of biotechnology.

Successing the tradition of previous leaderships, AFOB will continue to grow and contribute to Asia and to the World in all areas of biotechnology. AFOB will emphasize and focus on the following activities: (i) promoting science-based collaboration between academic and industrial scientists in the Asia to advance the interdisciplinary research field of biotechnology to the industrial level; (ii) striving to increase public awareness and education, promote the exchange of people and ideas, and stimulate innovation and technology transfer toward the common goal of advancing biotechnology; (iii) developing the safe, sustainable, and beneficial use of natural resources in life science and biotechnology by science and engineering applications (iv) seeking to expand the network of scientists and organizations in the region, increase mobility among Asian countries, and promote the exchange of technologies and ideas; and (v) supporting the collaboration and network among young scientists/engineers, including YABECs and other networks.

Despite the long-lasting COVID-19 pandemic, we had successfully held our flagship event, ACB 2022, in Bali, Indonesia, last year. Unfortunately, we may not be able to host off-line meetings for either of the federations. This year, we are planning to have the first AFOB-EFB on-line Joint Symposium during March 28th & 29th, 2023. The proposed topics are (i) Carbon capture for energy; (ii) From waste and wastewater to valuable products; (iii) Biotechnology to mitigate climate change and global warming; (iv) Towards a circular bioeconomy: Progress and bottlenecks. This is continuing efforts for organizing joint symposia/sessions between AFOB and European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB), which has happened in every ACB and ECB in the recent years. Please keep an eye on upcoming AFOB events and actively participate in these events.

As all of you are aware of, YABEC-West and YABEC-South have been founded and had their first meetings recently. Each session will bring the different research groups with similar topics together during the 14th AFOB Regional Symposium (ARS 2023). The exact dates of ARS2023 hasn’t fixed yet but it will be held in New Delhi, India during April 2023.

Recently, AFOB has been focusing on Asian bioeconomy and collaboration with bioindustry. In continuing efforts to promote the academic-industrial collaboration, we will recruit more members from industrial sectors of each member region and let them to participate in proper divisions of AFOB.

ACB will be held again this year in Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City (BTHCMC), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, during October 15th through 20th, 2023. AFOB and EFB have agreed to held ACB and ECB, respectively, in alternating years biennially, resulting in hosting ACBs in every odd year while ECBs in every even year. This year the collaboration and coordination between the two societies will be further strengthened with much more joint AFOB-EFB sessions during ACB 2023 for almost all the Divisions of AFOB.

In addition, AFOB is currently communicating closely with EFB to cooperate in future journal activities. We may publish joint special issues for AFOB-EFB on-line Joint Symposium. We look forward to seeing more collaborations between AFOB and EFB at the Federation and Division levels.

The world is currently facing various urgent problems in many areas. Some problems have social nature, others may be regional, economic, environmental, and more. Most of these facing obstacles can be overcome by biotechnology. We can apply our technologies to the fields of agriculture, food, and medicine with the aim of enabling people all over the world to enjoy a better quality of life. Hope we can change the world step by step.

We may return to pre-CoViD-19 era to some extent, this year. We will still be disturbed by the unprecedented pandemic, but the time has come for biotechnology to do something for our future. Please join your efforts and time together so that we can solve some problems by encouraging each other and working together.

Hope every and each member stay healthy and see you soon.
Best wishes,

Takeshi Omasa, President of AFOB
Choul-Gyun (CG) Lee, Secretary General of AFOB

New Year’s Greeting from Japan

I took over the role of VP for Japan from Professor Masahiro Goto last October. I remember my first participation in an international conference was APBioChEC 1997 held in Beijing when I was a doctoral student. My session chair was Professor Shintaro Furusaki, and I remember how he kindly smiled and told me the intent of questions in Q&A session as I could not fully understand them in English. And I will never forget my first YABEC participation in Busan in 1999, where the get-together on the deck of a training ship remains in my mind as a vivid memory. At that time, I never imagined that I myself would be the Chairman of YABEC 2016 held in Miyazaki.

ACB2022 in Bali last October was my first participation to in-person international conference in almost three years, since ARS2020 in Yogyakarta, and I was excited about the birth of YABEC South. I sincerely hope that the YABEC spirit will be carried on and extend to develop the benefit of young biotech researchers in Asia.

Like all of you, I’ve felt that the role of biotechnology is certainly growing. I hope that AFOB will bring forth new concepts that will revolutionize bioscience and bioengineering so that future generations can enjoy a comfortable life with the benefits of biotechnology.
Again, I wish you all a wonderful year 2023!

Noriho Kamiya

New Year’s Greeting from Vietnam

Introduction:
I am Associate Professor Dr. Duong Hoa Xo - Former Director of the Biotechnology Center of Ho Chi Minh City Currently, I'm the Vice President of the Union of Science and Technology Associations of Ho Chi Minh City. I have just been nominated as Vice President of AFOB for the new term - representing Vietnam.

New year greeting
The new year 2023 is coming, on behalf of Vietnamese biotechnology scientists I would like to wish all AFOB colleagues and their families a happy, healthy and successful!

New Year’s Greeting from Singapore

Hi AFOB members,

My name is Boon Tong Koh, I am the Executive Director of Bioprocessing Technology Institute in A-Star, Singapore. I am very pleased to be join AFOB recently and take this opportunity to wish everyone a prosperous and happy New Year 2023. Look forward to greet and meet some of you all in the coming new year.

With best regards,
Boon Tong Koh

Nature, Tradition, and Collaborative Innovation in Biotechnology

Dr. Yew-Min Tzeng

Professor and President, National Taitung University
Honorary Chair Professor, Chaoyang University of Technology

Since the early stage of AFOB’s establishment, I have been working closely with researchers from member countries and/or regions across YABEC platform to pursue biotechnological innovation to meet the challenge of the contemporary world. One of the major concerns for me and my colleagues has been how to engage with the biodiversity heritages of natural products and traditional medicine for a sustainable development. Over the past two decades, I have joined both domestic, regional, and international research teams across YABEC and later AFOB platforms to work on those compounds derived from Antrodia camphorata, an indigenous fungus species in Taiwan, to promote the therapeutic application of traditional medicine. Recently, in face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we formed a task force turning our attention to Anisomeles indica (L.) Kuntze, another heritage herb widely used in traditional medicine, to develop antiviral compounds for promising therapeutical application against SARS-CoV-2.

Anisomeles indica, also known as Indian Catmint or “yu-chen-tsao” here in Taiwan, or “fang-feng-cao” in Mainland China, is a camphor-scented annual herb commonly found in Southeast Asia. This plant has wide distribution in Taiwan and Southern China, from the plains to low-altitude mountainous areas. The therapeutical benefits of this herb have been known for generations. The whole herb is edible in Taiwan, and is well-known for its antipyretic, detoxification, pain-relieving, and antibacterial efficacy.

Since the global pandemic of severe and special infectious pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus, pharmaceutical companies around the globe are actively conducting research into vaccines or drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2. Natural products have been highlighted as potential sources for the development of therapeutic agents because of their unparalleled structural diversity and complexity. The challenge is to produce a sustainable, bioavailable lead compound for the development of safe and secure therapeutics that has practical potency against the new coronavirus.

My colleague Prof. Zhen Yang at Peking University and I were inspired by the success of the traditional use of A. indica in treating various infectious diseases. We tried to identify the active ingredients in this herbal medicine to investigate their application in developing the treatment of COVID-19. We managed to extract and purify (–)-anisomelic acid and (+)-ovatodiolide from A. indica. Cytopathic effect assays showed that these two compounds have anti-SARS-CoV-2 properties, including Whu01, Delta, and Omicron variants. Subsequently, Prof. Yang succeeded to develop a semisynthetic approach to preparing optically pure (–)-anisomelic acid from naturally occurring germacranolides. It has been achieved, for the first time, an enantioselective semisynthesis of (−)-anisomelic acid from (+)-costunolide in five steps with a 27% overall yield. The successful synthesis of (−)-anisomelic acid encouraged us to explore the therapeutic potential of this compound and (+)-ovatodiolide in the treatment of COVID-19. We evaluated the effect of these two compounds in vitro against SARS-CoV-2 infection and replication. Notably, we found that the effects of both compounds were comparable to those achieved by drugs from Merck and Pfizer.

The rapid global spread of SARS-CoV-2 highlights the urgent need for coronavirus therapeutics. While advanced technology is readily available, ancestral wisdom found in traditional medicine can still offer precious inspirations. Our research confirmed that compounds extracted from a common herb A. indica can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in mice at levels similar to those achieved by modern drug such as Remdesivir. Given the fact that this herbal plant has traditionally been used for the treatment of various plagues in Chinese medicine for centuries, it is an ideal source, natural and sustainable, for a promising orally bioavailable lead compound for the development of therapeutics against COVID-19. It can foster opportunities for large-scale, cost-effective production.

My long-time experience working with YABEC/AFOB members has taught me that it is a vital platform for global innovation in biotechnology. It creates an invigorating channel for worldwide researchers to conduct interdisciplinary innovation. Moreover, it cultivates a regional and global research community to promote a working ethos that respects traditional wisdom, that hopes for a better, healthier future empowered by the beauty of nature and human collaboration.

Lastly, my colleagues and I share our findings¹ in National Science Review.* We demonstrate that natural products play crucial roles in drug discovery. In the coming post-pandemic world, I look forward to joining colleagues and fellow researchers from AFOB to engage ourselves with this dynamically emerging field, and to continue our common scientific fulfillment.

¹NSR article in issue/9/11 https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwac176
*NSR Cover of issue/9/11 https://academic.oup.com/nsr/issue/9/11

AFOB Newsletter

Cover Story

2023 New Year’s Greeting from President and Secretary General

New Year’s Greeting from Japan

New Year’s Greeting from Vietnam

New Year’s Greeting from Singapore

Nature, Tradition, and Collaborative Innovation in Biotechnology