AS FUEL prices keep going up, so do the prices of life-saving drugs. The reason is simple—production cost is soaring, supply is low yet demand is very high.

The good news is that a Korean scientist has found a faster way to produce valuable plant resources that can produce mineral resources essential for the production of all-important bio-fuel and medicine from herbs such as ginseng— thanks to biotech.

Dr. Sung Ho Son, Ph. D, president of VitroSys Incorporated and professor of Dong Yang University’s latest biotech project—the "airlift bioreactor"—can accelerate the growth of plant cells and produce millions of seedlings to assure an abundant supply of mineral resources for in-demand products like biofuel and medicine.

Dr. Sung is offering his plant’s technology and expertise to prospective investors to put up a US $1-million bioreactor for plant tissue culture for commercial production in the Philippines.

VitroSys Incorporated is running the biggest bioreactor plant in South Korea and has tested it on ginseng, probably the most famous Chinese herb used in Asia for centuries.

The airlift bioreactor maximizes at a very fast pace the development of plant tissues and cells using oxygen and carbon dioxide. It creates a sufficient amount of plant mineral resources many times over the conventional stirred tank reactors.

The airlift bioreactor was first introduced in 1996 by Dr. Sung. In 2002, he developed the full-auto airlift bioreactor which he now used for increased productivity of biotech-medicine, one of the many fields of biotechnology.

Korean Mountain Ginseng, for instance, takes about a hundred years to mature and harvest to produce life-saving drugs. But when processed by an "airlift bioreactor"—the waiting time could be reduced to just up to two months.

"This means lower production cost for medicine and [subsequently] cheaper medicine," Dr. Sung said.

Using an airlift bioreactor, Dr. Sung estimates that production cost of medicine could be reduced from 100 to 1,000 percent, thus allowing the research and development of cures to various diseases that could help prolong life.

VitroSys Incorporated is presently conducting a Research Cooperative Program with various agencies in the Philippines, such as the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARD) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).

He revealed that two Filipino scientists will visit their bioreactor plant in South Korea to explore the possibility of entering into a partnership with VitroSys Incorporatedfor the construction of a similar facility in the Philippines.

The objective is to come up with an adequate supply of valuable plant resources through the plant tissue culture of herbs for possible importation of life-saving drug ingredients by various drug companies; or come up with an alternative source of fuel owing to the skyrocketing cost of petroleum products in the world market.

He said VitroSys Incorporated has been successfully producing plant cells for life-saving drugs for the past two years and currently has a 20-ton airlift bioreactor plant, the biggest in the world, for plant tissue and seedling culture.