The Stem Cell

China—an economic brute with a massive workforce and market—could take a deep bite out of Western dominance in high technology. Its manufacturing and technical strengths are seemingly limitless. However, its reputation for playing fast and loose with intellectual property and human rights cause concern that it could become the Wild, Wild East of modern medicine. Oversight for the use of embryos and protections of human research subjects is poorly enforced. Part of China’s approach is due to its cultural norms: the embryo does not have a significant moral status, the root cause of ethical rupture in the West.

But how does China fare in the basic sciences? Signs are encouraging. In 2005, China received the highest National Institutes of Health award for any foreign country, $13.12 million. Its commitment to stem cell research is small, between $2 and $6 million per year during 2000-2005. But officials announced plans to increase the levels to between $6.6 and $32M (depending on reviews of productivity) through 2011. What isn’t mentioned in the economic reports is that the money is concentrated on a handful of high quality labs, giving them a decent shot at success.

China has a way to go before it can assert itself in one of the most complicated and fraught fields of modern biology. Like India, China trains thousands of its scientists in American and European laboratories. But most of them never return, surpassed only by India’s chronic brain drain.