An attempt to quantify government funding for synthetic biology suggests that the United States has spent around US$430 million on the sector since 2005, whereas the European Union and three European countries (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany) have spent a total of around $160 million (see chart).rnBut the main lesson from the analysis, released on 4 June by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, is that transparent and accurate numbers are hard to come by. "Although governments are funding synthetic biology, there is no easy way to determine the total amount of resources, both human and financial, that are being dedicatedrnto it," the report notes. Analysts combed federal research grant databases for the term 'synthetic biology', and hope that research agencies will now be spurred to provide more comprehensive information than they could when first asked, says Todd Kuiken, a research associate at the Wilson Center.
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