Kazakhstan is making a play to become the regional biotechnology leader, according to this article in Science, and as described by open-source biologist Rob Carlson. Carlson quotes from the article: The government has approved plans and is now reviewing financing for a $50 million Life Science and Biotech Center of Excellence, supported in part by the World Bank. SciDev.Net has some additional details -- the project will be headed up by Erlan Ramanculov, a Kazakhstan-born researcher who worked in the US for over a decade, specializing in viruses.