News
KIST Europe and KIT Launch Joint Research Lab (2017.06.08)
- Date : 2017-09-14
- Views : 4746
-
Writer
International Cooperation Team
-
Att.
KIST Europe and KIT Launch Joint Research Lab
- For strategically responding to global chemical regulations
On June 7, at the Korea Institute of Toxicology (KIT) in Daejeon, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology’s European branch (KIST Europe) and KIT held a plate-hanging ceremony to commemorate the launching of the KIST Europe-KIT Joint Research Center for Alternative & Predictive Toxicology (JRC-APT), which was organized to conduct research via animal testing alternatives.
KIST Europe was established in 1996 to acquire and quickly transfer advanced technologies to domestic businesses. It has also used its extensive knowhow to serve as a bridgehead for helping domestic firms comply with strict chemical regulations when entering European markets.
Such regulation of chemical substances has tightened following the implementation of EU REACH*, which went into effect in 2007 and generated demand for systematic strategies that businesses could use to achieve regulatory compliance, as well as for animal testing alternatives that would result in accurate, conclusive data.
* EU REACH: The European Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals
In July 2016, KIST Europe and KIT signed a Memorandum of Understanding for research cooperation and have promoted joint research ever since. The new joint research center is expected to play a key role in promoting strategic responses to domestic/international chemical regulations and facilitating related R&D.
By combining KIST Europe’s knowledge of chemical regulations and toxicity evaluations with KIT’s toxicology research capabilities, the two organizations hoped to be able to support businesses by providing them with an easy-to-follow template for achieving regulatory compliance.
Dr. Choi Kuiwon, director-general of KIST Europe; Dr. Chung Moon-Koo, chief of KIT; and other important researchers attended the plate-hanging ceremony and discussed how cooperation between the two organizations could be further increased.
The joint research lab enables the organizations to promote, both in Korea and in Europe, the joint proposing/operation of internal R&D projects and personnel exchanges.
Dr. Choi underscored the crucial role of government-funded research institutes in lending support to Korean firms. For the joint research center’s first task, he proposed conducting global convergence research that would carry on KIST Europe’s previous investigations into chemical toxicities and integrated methods for predicting levels of exposure. He also emphasized that the center’s ultimate goal is to apply the fruits of this research toward helping domestic firms more easily comply with current regulation―and, in so doing, indirectly support the Korean chemical industry.