The increasing global awareness of the importance of biological genetic resources is leading to a renaissance of interest in wild flowers and plants common in the mountains and fields. AMOREPACIFIC has for years sought to discover and restore Korean-native biological genetic resources in order to preserve their value. White chrysanthemum is described in the ancient Korean medical book Donguibogam as being part of the nation's heritage that we must preserve. For this article, we met Hwang Kyeong-hwan, whose work preserving the white chrysanthemum led him to win the grand prize in the sustainability category at the ABC Awards, an in-house innovation contest.

The Nagoya Protocol (ABS), which was officially enacted last October, recognizes the national right to biological resources. It states that the benefits from using biological resources must be shared. Biological resources here encompass animals, plants, microorganism and traditional knowledge of biological resources as well. I think countries will begin to wage quasi-commercial war for biological genetic resources. Bio companies using biological genetic resources will also need to prepare themselves and take appropriate action.

Most ingredients in skincare products are extracted from plants. If we lose the rights to our biological resources to other countries, we will have to pay royalties on Korean-native plants in order to use them in our own products. Securing the rights to biological resources will benefit not only the nation, but also improve the competitiveness of AMOREPACIFIC. That's why we have focused on restoring indigenous biological genetic resources based on Korean traditional knowledge and making them into our own assets. It's important to discover the value of restored indigenous biological resources and develop them on a commercial scale in order to help gain a social consensus.

While there are indeed many plant resources, it's chrysanthemum that has the longest history of any ornamental plant found in the East. Moreover, there is considerable controversy over its origin. It's also really edible and often used for medicinal purposes. We drew inspiration for our choice from the Korean medicinal book masterpiece Donguibogam, where it's written that white chrysanthemum is the best of all species of chrysanthemum.

The habitat of the chrysanthemum was disturbed due to the careless introduction of exotic species into Korea over the past 5 years. This made it even more difficult to actually find the white chrysanthemum. We had to crisscross mountains known to be the habitat of white chrysanthemum in order to collect wild white chrysanthemum flowers. We then selected 200 species showing good signs of early growth and then refined the choice down to two species that could be representative of Korean-native white chrysanthemum thanks to their distinctive fragrance, shape and color. It had seemed like we were close to reaching our goal, but the restoration process was not straightforward. We went through many iterations in order to attain pure white chrysanthemum, and spent another whole year seeing the result through to cultivation.

Today, the biological genetic resources of Korea represent barely 1% of worldwide biological genetic resources. This reality leaves Korean bio companies with no choice but to use foreign biological genetic resources. Yet, the Korean-native white chrysanthemum that we restored has gone on to gain recognition from the Korea Seed & Variety Service, giving us the national right to it. Plus, we verified and confirmed that restored Korean-native white chrysanthemum is effective in whitening the skin. It means that we proved the traditional knowledge of white chrysanthemum being the best of all chrysanthemum species in a scientific way.

When I was young I dreamed of being a scientist. Now that I work as a researcher for AMOREPACIFIC, my work gives me a sense of satisfaction and I take pride in what I do. Developing our own unique ingredients from Korean-native biological genetic resources is the foundation for improving the competitiveness of our products and an integral part of innovation. We will continue to research strategic Korean ingredients such as ginseng, green tea and beans, as well as rare ingredients indigenous to Korea peninsula, for example, those found in Baekdu Mountain in North Korea in order to develop them into special ingredients of AMOREPACIFIC with our own technology.