A plate of worms; a blood-pressure cuff sitting on a table near a housing project; an endoscope used to peer into the stomach. All are emblematic of the wide variety of Asian research I got a glimpse of in four days of interviews here. Why do so many scholars think that the 21st century will be the Asian century? The answer isn’t just that many Asian universities are racing to be research powerhouses. Depending on the country, there’s as much stumbling as there is running.
A different answer is that the focus of biomedical research, by virtue of population alone, will have to shift to Asia. About 4.1-billion of the planet’s roughly seven-billion people live in Asia. Demographic shifts in the Asian population will shape research: China’s one-child policy and family-planning programs promoted in many other Asian countries, for instance, have led to a larger proportion of the Asian population being elderly, with fewer young people to take care of them.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Biomedical Research Will Become Asian Research - Planet Academe - The Chronicle of Higher Education
