composition, function, and operations of IEC in NTUH
is conducted according to ICH-GCP. The procedures
of review has been simplified in the past few years, so
that review time can be shortened.
181
200
150
106
81
100
57
61
application
50
0
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Figure 1: New application of Clinical trials in IEC-NTUH from 1997–2001
(Source: NTUH)
The number of clinical trials in NTUH has grown
from 57 to 181 in the last few years. A joint
administrative office for clinical trials will be
established in the future.
Clinical Trial Center in NTUH
Yang Chih-Hsin, Director
being developed in programs in cellular and molecular
medicine, molecular diagnosis, microsurgery, virology,
human genetics, and other important scientific fields.
Tel: +886-2-23123456 ext. 7511
An Independent Ethics Committee (IEC) safeguards
the rights, safety, and well-being of all trial subjects. The
Website: http://med.mc.ntu.edu.tw/~clinmed/
ntuhcmrd/ctc.html/
Fax: +886-2-23710262
Eamil: chjyang@ha.mc.ntu.edu.tw
Biotechnology in
National Cheng Kung University
N
ational Cheng Kung University (NCKU)
has been renown for its strong affiliation
with industries in Taiwan for decades. Over
years NCKU has been the major driving force for Taiwan’s
industry with uninterrupted supply of technologies and
top-quality, professional human resource. Biotechnology
is considered one of the most promising industries for
next ten to twenty years. In order to prepare the industry
for future substantial demand of creative research ideas
and people, the Institute of Biotechnology in NCKU has
been established in 1998, and currently composed of
thirteen faculties with diverse research interests from
agriculture to medicine, all in application fields.
The southwestern region of Taiwan, where the NCKU
campus locates, produces most of the island’s crops and
exports economic plants and products to the world. The
traditional agriculture has been extensively developed
for hundreds of years in this area. With Taiwan’s
agriculture becoming less competitive in a global
perspective, one of the missions of Institute of
Biotechnology in NCKU is to revive the traditional
Huey-Lang Yang, Ph.D.
Chair, Biotechnology Institute
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
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www.asiabiotech.com
agriculture with a touch of modern biotechnology. In
collaboration with nearby agriculture-related research
organizations, such as Asian Vegetable Research &
Development Center (AVRDC), Taiwan Sugar Research
Institute, Taiwan Livestock Research Institute, Tainan
Agricultural Improvement Station and Taiwan Fisheries
Research Institute, several inter-campus research teams
are formed to study plants, poultries, livestock and
aquaculture in genetic levels. Transgenic applications
are the focus of those studies. Some research topics in
the agriculture category are as followed:
Fish Vaccine – Dr. Huey-Lang Yang
The theme of Dr. Yang’s research activity is
concentrated on exploring the immune mechanism and
the development of vaccine for Taiwan important farm
fish, such as grouper and cobia. Molecular methods are
employed to analyze the development process of
immune system, from embryonic to the larvae stage of
fish.
Understanding the maturation of immune system
in multiple dimensions helps perfecting the vaccination
program. Several bacterial and viral vaccine products
have been developed, and among them the Nervous
Necrosis Virus (NNV) vaccine is already in testing stage.
Oral vaccination technology is another crucial
breakthrough of this lab, cutting down cost and raising
the survival rate of fish finglings significantly.
artificial incubation of treated embryos. These
techniques will be applied in next three years to develop
the gene transfer technology of chickens. First is the
production of germline chimeric chickens from transfer
of blastodermal cells in Stage X eggs between White
Leghorn and Native chicken. Secondly the in vivo
electroporation of chicken blastodermal cells with GFP
marker gene to develop the methods of introducing
foreign DNA through in vivo electro poration of chicken
germ cells.
Sugar Signal Transduction and Regulation in
Plants – Dr. Su-May Yu
Sugar signal transduction and regulation of gene
expression are central control mechanisms that mediate
energy homeostasis, carbohydrate distribution, and
growth and development of plants. The focus of our
study is to identify components in the sugar signal
transduction pathway and to study the interactions
between the cis-regulatory promoter elements and the
transcription factors for sugar regulation. Three novel
transcription factors have been identified; they mediate
sugar and hormonal regulation of gene expression.
Another discovery is a protein kinase involved in
sugar signal transduction pathway. We have also found
transcriptional enhancers direct sugar- and hormonedependent and tissue-specific expression of promoters
in transgenic rice.
Production of Transgenic Poultry –
Dr. Chein Tai
Protein Engineering using Baculovirus –
Dr. Yu-Chan Chao
The development of non-viral methods for
producing transgenic poultry has been studied since
1999 in Dr. Tai’s laboratory. The first approach for the
generation of transgenic poultry has been the production
of germline chimera by transfer of primordial germ cells
(PGCs).
In order to study the molecular mechanisms of
baculovirus gene expression and how the virus can
better express a foreign protein, our efforts were divided
into two aspects. The first aspect is to promote strong
early expression of foreign proteins. The second aspect
is the establishment of the nonlytic baculovirus
expression vector system to improve both the
purification process and the quality of the engineered
proteins using baculovirus.
Besides the germline chiremic ducks obtained in
these studies, some technologies of transgenic poultry
have been established in past two years in this laboratory
through the conduction of the projects of “Production
of germline chimeric ducks by transfer of primordial
germ cells” and “Long-term proliferation and
transfection efficiency of duck primordial germ cells”.
They are the isolation, purification, and short-term
culture of PGCs, as well as the microinjection of duck
embryos, electroporation of PGCs with GFP-gene, and
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Fish Vaccine – Dr. Tzong-Yueh Chen
The research of Dr. Chen’s laboratory has focused
on two projects: 1) using Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE)
to develop vaccines and DNA delivery system; 2)
studying genomics and functional genomics for
aquaculture fish and their pathogens.
A novel receptor-mediated gene delivery system
has been developed. Based on the known functional
property of each Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE) domain
and human DNA Topo I, the receptor binding and
membrane translocation domains of PE was fused with
a highly positively charged DNA binding region of the
N-terminal 198 amino acid residues of human DNA
Topo I. The results showed that this DNA delivery
protein was a general DNA delivery vehicle without
DNA sequence, topology, and cell-type specificity. The
DNA delivery protein could be used to target DNA into
fish cells for the DNA vaccine delivery.
Another research focus is biomedical-related study.
Covering several disciplines in tissue engineering,
cardiovascular disease, cancer studies, drug design,
herbal medicine, the strong engineering background and
experiences of NCKU particularly provide a solid base
for the development of biotech-specific equipments and
experimental methods. NCKU together with its
university hospital own one of the three national new
drug clinical trial centers and a top-grade animal
laboratory.
Three topics of the biomedical category are
introduced here:
Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering –
Dr. Lynn L. H. Huang
Dr. Huang’s laboratory aims on the development
of porous scaffolds for tissue engineering and related
biomedical subjects. Some achievements include the
developments of collagen-hyaluronan wound dressings,
novel genipin-gelatin biological adhesives, collagen
patches and microspheres for controlled drug delivery,
a simple quantified method for collagen by capillary
electrophoresis, etc.
Currently, the non-contractible porous collagen —
glycosaminoglycan scaffolds either from purified
materials or directly from connective tissues were
established and are in the process of patent applications.
The interaction of various cells with the scaffold
materials and the incorporation of some angiogenic
factors as well as morphogens in the scaffolds are under
investigation.
for therapeutic purpose.
Currently, two novel proteins have been
constructed and expressed. One is the human
prourokinase mutant that can selectively lyse pathogenic
blood clot and the other is an angiostatin analog which
is more potent than angiostatin in its anti-angiogenic
activity. Evaluation of the in vivo activities of these two
proteins is in progress.
In addition, the lab is recently developing protein
chips for proteomic research and drug screening. The
special feature of the protein chips is retaining the
activity and proper orientation of the proteins
immobilized on chip.
Protein Structure – Dr. Mei-Fen Jeng
The laboratory of structural biology has aimed on
investigation of disease-related (asthma-related) proteins
and genes using proteomic, molecular biology, and
spectroscopic strategy.
It has also interest in structure determination and
is studying structure-function relationship of proteins
using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy,
computer simulation and modeling. Through the threedimensional structures of these disease-related proteins
and/or their complexes, the structure-based rational
drug design will be conducted to develop therapeutic
agent to treat disease.
The idea of this mission-oriented research institute
is to create continuous research power for Tainan
Science-based Industrial Park (TNSIP) and Tainan
Technology Industrial Park (TTIP), where most
biotechnology companies and laboratories will be
located in near future. These two science parks are
designed specifically to host biotechnology companies,
and well equipped with from standard facilities to
animal labs to field labs.
National Cheng Kung University
No.1, Ta-Hsuieh Rd, Tainan City, Taiwan
Tel : +886-6-2757575
Fax : +886-6-2766505
Biopharmaceutical Research Laboratory –
Dr. Shyh-Yu Shaw
http: //www.ncku.edu.tw/~biotech/
The research interest is focus on the development
of biopharmaceutical products especially using CHO
cell expression system to express recombinant proteins
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