The 21st century will be called the century of life science. In fact, an enormous amount of money has already been reinvested for research in this field on a global scale. A representative example is the human genome project, which is closing in on the complete deciphering of human DNA. In addition, there was a technological breakthrough toward the end of the 1990s in the field of embryological engineering such as cloning of mammals. There is a sign that the fruit of these studies will spread to the sphere of basic research and medicine.
Much has been said about future applications: diagnosis of detailed hereditary characteristics of individuals, development of tailor-made medicine based on such diagnosis, production of new drugs that utilize the functions of various genes.
Because it has become possible to extract from humans embryonic stem cells that develop into any kind of tissue, there has emerged the possibility of obtaining any type of desired cell through culturing. Cell injection treatment for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease is now being talked about.