• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-43
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• 2012

This paper examines the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU)'s recent legal challenge on patents held by Myriad Genetics on two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) associated with a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Instead of analyzing the ACLU's objections to the BRCA patents in terms of its legal technicalities and normative ethical principles, this paper seeks to situate this legal case in the broader historical context of the shifting understanding of the relationship between private ownership, economic development, and the public interest in academic sciences. This paper first briefly chronicles a series of scientific developments and key legal decisions involving patenting of life forms, including genetically engineered micro-organisms animals and biological materials of human origins like cell cultures and genes, that led to the US Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO)'s official guidelines on human gene patenting in 2001. At another level, this paper analyzes the expansion of the scope of intellectual property rights in the life sciences in terms of shifting economic and legal assumptions about public knowledge and its role for economic development in the 1970s. I then show how these economic, legal, and ethical ideas that linked private ownership and the public interest have been challenged from the 1990s, calling for revisions in intellectual property laws regarding a wide array of life forms. The tragedy of the anticommons in human gene patenting, according to ACLU, has severely undermined creative scientific activities, medical innovations, access to health care and rights to life among cancer patient groups. ACLU's objection to human gene patenting on several US-constitutional grounds in turn suggests issues regarding intellectual property are critically linked to vital issues pertinent to the creative communities in arts and sciences, such as free exchange of ideas, censorship and monopoly, and free expression and piracy etc.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.3-15
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• 2003

Recently more than 450 incidents of oil spill a year have occurred in nearshore of Korea, which caused unmeasurelable losses in fisheries and severe damage in marine ecosystem. Two approaches remain paramount in any response to marine oil spill : the enhancement of natural dispersion of the oil by using dispersants, and mechanical recovery using booms and skimmers. A technique currently receiving fresh attention is the enhancement of the natural bioremediation of oil through the application of micro-organisms and/or nutrient. Oil, like many natural substances, will biodegrade over a period of time into simple compounds such as carbon dioxide, water and biomass. Bioremediation is the term used to describe a range of processes which can be used to accelerate natural biodegradation. More specifically biostimulation is the application of nutrients, and bioaugremetation or seeding is the addition of microbes specially selected to degrade oil. Bioremediation is an economically attractive method for the clean-up of oil-contaminated area. Bioremediation has been demonstrated to be an effective oil spill countermeasure for use in cobble, sand beach, salt marsh, and mud flat environment.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.164-170
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• 2007

The concept of innate immunity in insects which refers to the first line of host defense constitutes the humoral and cellular components which are involved in recognition and actively participate in the elimination of the intruding foreign micro- or macro-organisms. Several recent studies suggest that juvenile hormone (JH) modulates the cellular immune reactions in response to pathogen. In this study, pyriproxyfen (a JH agonist as an insect growth regulator) was tested in its any inhibitory effect on the immune reactions of the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua. To this end, five different hemocyte morphotypes of final instar S. exigua were identified by phase contrast microscopy. Plasmatocytes and granular cells, which constitute about 90% of the total hemocyte count, were prominently distinguished based on their basophilic/acidophilic nature using Giemsa stain. The role of pyriproxyfen on the functional ability of hemocytes was analyzed using FITC-labeled Providencia vermicola for the phagocytic potential of the hemocytes. Both granular cells and plasmatocytes exhibited phagocytosis behavior. Pyriproxyfen significantly inhibited the phagocytosis of both cell types, proposing its novel action as an immunosuppressant.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.160-163
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• 2006

Brown rice contains rice bran and germ with higher nutritional value and dietary fiber content compared with the polished rice. However, brown rice has a limitation of poor digestion. fermented brown rice could be better nutritional source and improve digestibility. Therefore, we tried to select good fermentative microorganisms which have nutritional values with high amylase and protease activities, and probiotic effects. Nineteen micro-organisms, including eight Bacillus strains isolated from Chongkukjang and 11 lactic acid bacteria, were screened for the fermentation ability and enzyme production. The liquid broths containing 2.5%(w/v) of raw brown rice powder as a sole nutritional source were used for culture media. Among the strains tested, all of the Bacillus strains and two lactic acid bacteria (Leuconostoc gelidum and Pediococcus pentosaceus) showed increase in cell population and enzyme activities. The viable cell counts of all the Bacillus strains and two lactic acid bacteria exceeded $10^7 CFU/mL$. The maximal enzyme activities produced by Bacillus sp. Bl, Bacillus sp. B2, Bacillus sp. B11, L. gelidum and P. pentosaceus were 17.85, 17.50, 17.10, 17.10 and 3.24 U/mL for amylase and 22.48, 22.04, 23.76, 12.13, and 3.4 U/mL for pretense, respectively. Therefore, the results of this study demonstrated that the above strains could be potential starters for the fermentation of raw brown rice.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.45-52
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• 2012

T cells induce immune responses and thereby eliminate infected micro-organisms when peptides from the microbial proteins are bound to HLAs in the host cell surfaces, It is known that the more stable the binding of peptide to HLA is, the stronger the T cell response gets to remove more effectively the source of infection. Accordingly, if peptides (HLA binder) which can be bound stably to a certain HLA are found, those peptieds are utilized to the development of peptide vaccine to prevent infectious diseases or even to cancer. However, HLA is highly polymorphic so that HLA has a large number of alleles with some frequencies even in one population. Therefore, it is very inefficient to find the peptides stably bound to a number of HLAs by testing random possible peptides for all the various alleles frequent in the population. In order to solve this problem, computational methods have recently been developed to predict peptides which are stably bound to a certain HLA. These methods could markedly decrease the number of candidate peptides to be examined by biological experiments. Accordingly, this paper not only introduces a method of machine learning to predict peptides binding to an HLA, but also suggests a new prediction model so called 'knowledge-based genetic algorithm' that has never been tried for HLA binding peptide prediction. Although based on genetic algorithm (GA). it showed more enhanced performance than GA by incorporating expert knowledge in the process of the algorithm. Furthermore, it could extract rules predicting the binding peptide of the HLA alleles common in Koreans.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.413-420
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• 2015

The skin is one of the largest organs in our body and participates in many of the human organism's physiological and pathological events. Skin function were known for self-maintenance and self-repair, mechanical and chemical stress protection, protection against UV and environmental pathogenic micro-organisms, production of vitamin D, and social and psychological function through the physical aspect. The aim of this study was to evaluate the variation of biophysical parameters and to find relation with skin biomarkers in different anatomical site and age in Korean women. About 70 healthy volunteers in age range 20 to 49 were participated in this test. Test areas were the forearms and the cheek. Investigation to determine biophysical parameters on human skin, was carried out using various non-invasive methods. For analysis to skin biomarkers, we studied to examine various biomarkers for the quantitative determination of cortisol, fibronectin, keratin-1, 10, and 11, involucrin, and keratin-6 in human face and forearm. And we measured to skin biophysical parameters for skin anatomical site and age difference with non-invasive methods. As results of measuring site, some parameters were have following significant difference, stratum corneum hydration, trans epidermal water loss and skin color (L and a value). As results of age difference, skin colors were had only significant difference with age. For cortisol, keratin-6, fibronectin, keratin-1, 10, 11 contents, there were no significant difference in age and site. However, involucrin level in the cheeks were the highest for age group 30 ~ 39 compared to other age groups. These results suggest that in individual skin condition may explain detailed skin state variation.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.324-330
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• 2020

Ozone (O₃) is a general disinfectant to remove micro-pollutants in water treatment system. Previous studies have reported effect of ozone to bacteria and pathogens removal, but its effect to the relatively large organisms has little known. In this study, we investigated potential effects of ozone toxicity to the non-bite midge larvae (Glyptotendipes tokunagai) with accumulate mortality, coloration change and expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70). The accumulate mortality rate of G. tokunagai increased in a dose-time dependent manner and the highest mortality rate was observed to 75% at 30 minute of exposure duration with 2.0 ppm of ozone concentration. Exposure to ozone was a factor increasing body color of the larvae. The tendency of HSP70 mRNA expression showed up-regulation in ozone exposure at 20 minute. After that time, the expression of HSP70 in exposed group decreased to a similar level of control group. Our results clearly showed that ozone toxicity affects physical and molecular activity of G. tokunagai, implying the potential hazardous of ozone in the aquatic ecosystem including macroinvertebrates.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.196-206
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• 2023

Benthic attached diatoms (BADs), a major primary producer in lotic stream and river ecosystems are micro-sized organisms and require a highly magnified microscopic technique in the observation work. Thus, it is often not easy to ensure accuracy and precision in both qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study proposed a new technique applicable to improve quality control of aquatic ecosystem monitoring and assessment using BADs. In order to meet the purpose of quality control, we developed a permanent mounting slide technique which can be used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses simultaneously. We designed specimens with the combination of grid on both cover and slide glasses and compared their efficiency. As a result of observation and counting of BADs, the slide glass designed with the color-lined grid showed the highest efficiency compared to other test conditions. We expect that the method developed in this study could be effectively used to analyze BADs and contributed to improve the quality control in aquatic ecosystem health monitoring and assessment.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2010

We were successfully reared young marine ornamental larva fish in a unique process of microalgae blooming culture tank. The marine fish larva was grown and survived in this method. Generally, we called this method as natural mixed culture. Observed planktonic microalgae were 34 species with 19 diatoms (Detonula pumila, Nitzschia sp., Fragilaria oceanica, Chaetoceros curvisetus, Stephanodiscus sp., Chaetoceros decipies, Chaetoceros sp., Thalassiosira rotula, Eucampia zodiacus, Diploneis splendica, Nitzschia longissima, Surirella cuneata, Asterionella glacialis, Nitzschia spp., Chaetoceros debile, Thalassionema nitzschioides, Nitzschia closterium, Skeletonema costatum and Licmophora sp.), 14 flagellates (Euglena, sp., Gonyaulax sp., Pyramimonas sp., Protoperidinium sp., Eutreptia sp., Parapedinella sp., unidentified micrc-flagellate, Gyrodinium sp., Scrippsiell trochoidea, Gymnodinium sanguineum, Chrysochromulina sp., Gymnodinium sp., Prorocentrum triestinum and Micromonas sp.) and 1 ciliate (Mesodinium rubrum) in this culture tank. Dominant microalgae were Chrysochromulina sp. during the larval rearing periods. Blooming condition maintained continuously and stably from 10 to 60 days in this microcosm.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.319-326
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• 1999

Recently, it is continuously rising to concern about the health risk being induced by microorganisms in food such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes. Various organizations and regulatory agencies including U.S.FPA, U.S.DA and FAO/WHO are preparing the methodology building to apply microbial quantitative risk assessment to risk-based food safety program. Microbial risks are primarily the result of single exposure and its health impacts are immediate and serious. Therefore, the methodology of risk assessment differs from that of chemical risk assessment. Microbial quantitative risk assessment consists of tow steps; hazard identification, exposure assessment, dose-response assessment and risk characterization. Hazard identification is accomplished by observing and defining the types of adverse health effects in humans associated with exposure to foodborne agents. Epidemiological evidence which links the various disease with the particular exposure route is an important component of this identification. Exposure assessment includes the quantification of microbial exposure regarding the dynamics of microbial growth in food processing, transport, packaging and specific time-temperature conditions at various points from animal production to consumption. Dose-response assessment is the process characterizing dose-response correlation between microbial exposure and disease incidence. Unlike chemical carcinogens, the dose-response assessment for microbial pathogens has not focused on animal models for extrapolation to humans. Risk characterization links the exposure assessment and dose-response assessment and involve uncertainty analysis. The methodology of microbial dose-response assessment is classified as nonthreshold and thresh-old approach. The nonthreshold model have assumption that one organism is capable of producing an infection if it arrives at an appropriate site and organism have independence. Recently, the Exponential, Beta-poission, Gompertz, and Gamma-weibull models are using as nonthreshold model. The Log-normal and Log-logistic models are using as threshold model. The threshold has the assumption that a toxicant is produce by interaction of organisms. In this study, it was reviewed detailed process including risk value using model parameter and microbial exposure dose. Also this study suggested model application methodology in field of exposure assessment using assumed food microbial data(NaCl, water activity, temperature, pH, etc.) and the commercially used Food MicroModel. We recognized that human volunteer data to the healthy man are preferred rather than epidemiological data fur obtaining exact dose-response data. But, the foreign agencies are studying the characterization of correlation between human and animal. For the comparison of differences to the population sensitivity: it must be executed domestic study such as the establishment of dose-response data to the Korean volunteer by each microbial and microbial exposure assessment in food.