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“It’s Okay to Disagree”: KAIST Suggests That a Secure Sense of Attachment Can Help Groups Make Better Decisions
When everyone in a meeting voices the same opinion, an organization can miss important warning signs and new ideas. A research team from KAIST suggests that when members feel securely accepted within their group, they can express dissenting opinions in greater detail and more persuasively, and other members may be more willing to use those opinions in decision-making.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 27 that a research team led by Professors Sujin Lee and Seungwon Jeong from the School of Business and Technology Management, working jointly with Professor Zoe Kinias from the Ivey Business School at Western University in Canada, presented research findings suggesting that “group attachment security” can promote the expression and acceptance of minority opinions within groups.
Group attachment security refers to a psychological state where a person perceives the group they belong to as a secure source of support. Members develop group attachment security when they receive emotional and relational support from the group and feel recognized as valued members. The more secure this attachment, the more members come to believe that voicing a different opinion will not lead to rejection or exclusion within the group.
People with dissenting opinions often hesitate to speak up due to potential backlash, even when holding crucial insights. This difficulty can be even greater within one’s own organization, where members face stronger expectations to align with the majority view.
The researchers reasoned that when feeling secure in a group calms relationship worries, members focus on the best outcome instead of other people's reactions. To test this, the team conducted two experiments using hypothetical decision-making scenarios, examining the perspectives of both minority opinion holders and the majority members who receive their opinions.
In the first experiment, participants were assigned to a group primed with attachment security or one that was not, and then asked to express their opinions in a scenario where they held a minority view.
The results showed that participants primed with group attachment security produced more elaborated and persuasive arguments than those in the neutral condition. The research team also confirmed that this difference occurred because the participants focused more on the problem and the content of their opinion itself.
In the second experiment, participants took the perspective of a majority member and evaluated selected arguments written by minority opinion holders in the first experiment. The research team found that participants rated arguments from the secure attachment condition as more persuasive than those from the neutral condition. Overall, participants reported less perceived expectancy violation and a greater willingness to use minority opinions from the secure condition.
In both experiments, the research team further distinguished minority members as either ingroup or outgroup members based on whether they shared a group identity with the majority opinion holders. This exploratory analysis was designed to examine whether group attachment security reduces relational concerns in expressing dissent. The researchers reasoned that minority members who shared a group identity with the majority might be less likely to dissent than outgroup minority members, because ingroup members are generally expected to share similar opinions.
Most interactions between group attachment security and ingroup/outgroup membership were not statistically significant, with expectancy violation in the second experiment being the only exception. Exploratory analyses, however, revealed a consistent pattern only among ingroup minorities; group attachment security shaped the quality of minority opinions through greater task focus in the first experiment, and the majority’s higher willingness to use minority opinions through both reduced expectancy violation and greater perceived persuasiveness in the second experiment.
This finding suggests that belonging to the same organization does not necessarily make it easier to voice dissenting opinions. In fact, ingroup members may feel greater pressure to conform to the group’s shared assumptions or majority opinion, making it harder for them to point out problems with current practices or offer negative feedback. In such cases, confidence that expressing a different opinion will not jeopardize one’s relationships or standing within the group can help ease this burden.
This research also has practical implications for organizations that rely on external consulting or audits because members do not speak up enough about problems or suggest improvements. If members who are closest to an organization’s problems remain silent out of concern for damaged relationships or negative evaluations, the organization cannot fully draw on their knowledge or act on the warning signs they identify. To encourage members to speak up, organizations need to provide opportunities for members to speak and build an environment in which those members a stable, secure attachment to the group.
The findings also suggest that simply gathering members from diverse backgrounds into one organization is not enough to realize the benefits of diversity. Diversity can contribute to decision-making and innovation only when members can safely express opinions that differ from the majority, and when other members treat those opinions as useful information rather than as conflict or a challenge to the organization.
These findings could inform efforts to develop organizational cultures and leadership practices that reduce groupthink and make better use of members’ knowledge and perspectives at companies, research institutions, and public organizations. Examples include leaders openly inviting counterarguments, recognizing the contributions of minority opinions, and consistently reassuring members that voicing a different opinion will not harm their relationships or result in unfavorable evaluations within the organization.
Professor Sujin Lee and Seungwon Jeong explained, “Simply giving members the opportunity to voice a different opinion is not enough. Members need to be confident that they won’t be excluded from the organization for holding a different opinion, so they can explain their thoughts in greater detail and more persuasively, and the majority can receive that opinion as useful information for reaching a better decision rather than as conflict.”
The study, with Tae Hyun Kim, a doctoral candidate in the School of Business and Technology Management, as first author, was published online in the international journal Scientific Reports on August 4.
Paper title: The role of group attachment security in minority opinion expression in decision making groups,
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-65147-7
Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-65147-7
This research was supported by the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (No. RS-2024-00397663 and No. IITP-2022(2026)-RS-2022-00156435), and by Samsung Electronics (No. IO251218-14849-01).
2026.09.28 View 1029 -
KAIST’s World-First Full-Course Robot Marathon Completion Published in Nature
A quadruped robot ran 42.195 km, a distance that is not easy even for humans to complete, without replacing its battery. KAIST researchers have developed this world-first achievement into design principles for long-distance operation, published the results in Nature, and are now moving toward commercializing robots that can be used in real industrial environments.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on the September 24 that the long-distance running technology of RAIBO2, a quadruped robot developed by a research team led by Professor Jemin Hwangbo from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the results of its actual marathon completion were published in the international journal Nature.
This is the first time that robotics research conducted in Korea has been published in the main journal of Nature. Even globally, it is extremely rare for robotics research to be published in Nature, making this achievement an important demonstration of both the technological capability and academic level of Korean robotics research.
RAIBO2 completed the full 42.195 km course of the Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon held in November 2024 in 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 52 seconds without charging or replacing its battery. It was the world’s first case of a quadruped robot completing the full course of an actual marathon event.
The core significance of this paper does not lie simply in the record of a robot running 42.195 km. In the global robotics industry, competition has recently intensified over the running speeds and obstacle-negotiation capabilities of quadruped robots and humanoids. However, to operate robots for long periods in real industrial environments, it is necessary to secure not only momentary locomotion performance but also energy efficiency, thermal management, battery performance, and actuator stability.
The research team approached long-distance operation not as a performance issue involving individual components such as batteries or motors, but as a “whole-robot system problem” in which mechanical structure, electrical systems, and locomotion control are closely interconnected.
Quadruped robots lose energy in multiple areas – including actuators, electrical systems, and mechanical components – as they repeatedly move their legs. Improving the efficiency of only one component makes it difficult to achieve both fast and stable locomotion performance and long travel distances at the same time.
The research team systematically analyzed energy losses throughout the entire robot and jointly designed the mechanical, electrical, actuation, and control systems so that energy consumption could be reduced while maintaining high locomotion performance. Through this approach, the researchers presented specific design principles for which factors must be considered together to enable quadruped robots to move stably for extended periods.
In particular, the research team went beyond short-distance laboratory running tests or maximum travel distances estimated through calculations and validated the technology on an actual full marathon course.
During the marathon, the team recorded the robot’s internal voltage, current, temperature, and battery status in real time and synchronized the data with position, speed, and altitude information measured by GPS. RAIBO2 was officially registered as a participant, allowing formal split times to be recorded, while the researchers ran alongside the robot and filmed the entire journey, lasting more than four hours from the starting line to the finish.
While the 42.195 km completion record demonstrated RAIBO2’s performance, the data accumulated throughout the process provided scientific evidence showing how that performance was made possible and how it was maintained in a real-world environment. The research team developed a single impressive demonstration into research results based on system design principles and actual measurement data that can be analyzed and revalidated.
The research team’s next challenge is to transfer the performance achieved with a single research robot into a product that can be used repeatedly in industrial environments.
RAIBO2 is a research robot that was designed and built by hand by the researchers themselves. To develop it into a product that can be deployed in real industrial environments, the same performance must be achieved reliably across multiple robots while also reducing production costs. The product must also meet industrial reliability requirements, including water and dust resistance, operation across a wide temperature range, durability against shock and vibration, and electromagnetic interference and compatibility requirements (EMI/EMC).
Raion Robotics, a KAIST faculty startup that originated from Professor Hwang’s laboratory, is responsible for connecting the research results to actual products. During the development of RAIBO2, Raion Robotics’ manufacturing technology also contributed to maintaining the high energy efficiency and locomotion performance achieved in the laboratory for more than four hours during the actual marathon.
The research team and Raion Robotics developed not only the mechanical and electrical systems, software, and artificial intelligence but also the motor drivers that precisely control the robot’s motors, allowing them to optimize the entire system.
Currently, Raion Robotics is using this systems-design capability to develop commercialization and mass-production technologies for quadruped robots that can operate for extended periods in real environments, going beyond research prototypes. The goal is to reproduce the world-class performance demonstrated by a single laboratory robot across multiple products and enable stable operation in a wide variety of environments.
Professor Jemin Hwang said, “This study goes beyond demonstrating how far a quadruped robot can run. Using actual marathon data, we demonstrated how the entire robot must be designed to achieve both high locomotion performance and energy efficiency,” adding, “We will connect the world-class performance achieved in the laboratory to products that anyone can use reliably in industrial environments.”
Dr. Choongin Lee and students Donghoon Youm and Jeongsoo Park of the KAIST Department of Mechanical Engineering participated in the study as co-first authors, and the research results were published in the international journal Nature on September 23 (local time).
Paper title: A quadruped robot designed to complete a marathon on a single battery charge, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11102-5
Related photos and videos:
Comprehensive photo/video collection on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ye82tTr2dCK2Bt7Ih0hSgWqkgqlVXk6X?usp=sharing
Full video of the marathon completion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HMFoa3g9nA
The entire process of RAIBO2 completing the marathon can be viewed in the YouTube video.
2026.09.28 View 2343 -
KAIST Finds a Way to Redirect Cell Fate with Just a Single Stimulus
Which genes need to be controlled to guide a stem cell toward a desired cell type, or to modulate an immune cell's inflammatory response? A Korean research team has developed a general-purpose computational framework that identifies the key targets needed to steer a cell toward a desired state with a single temporary intervention, without permanently altering its genes.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 23 that a research team led by Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has developed NUDGE, a foundational technology that redirects cell fate in a desired direction through a minimal, temporary intervention by harnessing the gene regulatory dynamics already present within cells.
Technologies that redirect cell fate have drawn attention as key tools for treating intractable diseases and advancing regenerative medicine, since they can be used to differentiate stem cells into cells with specific functions or to return diseased or aged cells to a near-normal state. Differentiation, for example, refers to the process by which a stem cell becomes a specific cell type with a distinct function, such as a cardiomyocyte or a neuron.
However, existing methods for controlling cell fate have relied mainly on permanent intervention like keeping specific genes locked in an "on" or "off" state. While this approach can produce the desired cell state, it has a limitation. It can reduce plasticity, the flexibility that allows cells to adapt to future changes in their environment, and it can also give rise to abnormal cell states that do not exist in nature.
Rather than forcing a cell into a fixed state, the research team devised a new strategy that lets the cell reach the desired state on its own through a single temporary stimulus. The approach nudges the gene regulatory dynamics already present inside the cell toward the target direction, much like briefly clearing a blocked channel and letting the water find its own course.
NUDGE (natural dynamics control of gene regulatory networks), the technology the team developed, uses a computational logic model to examine how key genes inside a cell influence one another and to determine which state the cell ultimately reaches as a result. It then mathematically decomposes the logical functions that describe these gene interactions to identify the minimal combination of control factors needed to convert a cell from its current state to the desired one.
For example, if the goal is to differentiate a stem cell into a cardiomyocyte, NUDGE functions as a "blueprint for minimal intervention" that identifies which molecular targets need to be temporarily activated or inhibited.
A key strength of the framework is that its exact method is mathematically guaranteed to identify all minimal control combinations that lead to the desired phenotype within the model. The team also presented an efficient approximation method that extends the framework to large-scale molecular networks.
NUDGE does more than identify which factors to stimulate. It can also analyze which pathways a stimulated cell follows to reach the target state and how stably that state is maintained once reached, making it possible to anticipate whether unexpected states might emerge during the transition.
The researchers assessed permanent control in 63 published biological network models where fixing a single node was sufficient to achieve the target phenotype; 55 showed reduced plasticity or attractors absent from the uncontrolled network. Separately, NUDGE's approximation achieved an average intervention error below 0.01 in more than 90 percent of 552 control problems across 69 large biological networks. Error measured the fraction of simulated converged states with the undesired phenotype. Of the minimum-sized, error-free interventions pooled from the three methods for each problem, NUDGE found an average of 83 percent, compared with 59 percent for IBMFA and 53 percent for LDOI.
To assess how well NUDGE explains real biological phenomena, the researchers applied it to three distinct processes: cardiomyocyte differentiation, fate determination in mast cells involved in allergic responses, and the conversion of macrophages, a type of immune cell, into an anti-inflammatory state.
In cardiomyocyte differentiation, the framework reproduced the known pattern in which MESP1, a gene important for heart development and regeneration, is briefly active early in differentiation but inactive in mature cardiomyocytes. The model shows how a single temporary intervention involving MESP1 and another regulatory target can guide differentiation without keeping MESP1 continuously active.
The team also identified GATA2 and GATA1 as key regulators of cell fate during mast cell formation. In the macrophage model, the team derived optimal strategies for a single temporary intervention, including one using IL-4, to induce anti-inflammatory M2 states while preserving the capacity to transition between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory phenotypes and among M2 subtypes.
The significance of this technology lies in providing a general-purpose framework that identifies where a single temporary intervention can guide a cell to a desired state, provided that a stable state with the desired phenotype exists in the network's uncontrolled dynamics. It is expected to find broad application, from guiding normal stem cells to differentiate into specific cell types such as cardiomyocytes, to normalizing diseased or aged cells, regenerating damaged tissue, modulating immune responses, and designing cancer reversion therapies that return cancer cells to a near-normal state.
Professor Cho said, "NUDGE is not a technology limited to returning a specific cell to a healthy state, but a general-purpose cell-control technology that guides a cell from its current state to a desired state through a single minimal stimulus." He added that the technology is expected to serve as a foundational tool for designing new control strategies across stem cell differentiation, aging, autoimmune disease, regenerative medicine, and cancer reversion therapy.
The study was conducted by Ferio Brahmana, who holds a master's degree, and Corbin Hopper, a PhD student, both in KAIST's Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, who contributed equally as co-first authors, with PhD student Woojeong Lee as a co-author. The findings were published online on September 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Paper Title: Uncovering minimal control of cell fate by natural dynamics,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2604777123
This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea grants funded by the Korea Government, the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (RS-2023-NR077224, RS-2024-00405360, RS-2025-17652976, and 2021M3A9I4024447 [Bio & Medical Technology Development Program]). It was also supported by a grant of the Korea Dementia Research Project through the Korea Dementia Research Center, funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare and the Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea (RS-2025-02264017) and by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Quantum+X Convergence R&D Project and KAIST Grand Challenge 30 Project.
2026.09.23 View 3546 -
KAIST Extends Lifespan of Graphite-Free Anode-Free Batteries That Could Make EV Batteries Smaller and Lighter
Korean researchers have developed a technology that could make electric-vehicle (EV) batteries smaller and lighter while helping EVs travel farther on a single charge. A KAIST research team has proposed a new solution to a persistent problem in anode-free batteries, which reduce weight and volume by eliminating anode materials such as graphite that normally store lithium during charging. In these batteries, lithium can grow into sharp, spike-like structures that shorten battery life. The key lies in using nanofabrication techniques employed in semiconductor manufacturing to create uniform sites for lithium deposition and promote the formation of a robust protective layer.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 22 that a joint research team led by Professors Jinwoo Lee and Hee-Tae Jung from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, working with researchers from Kyungpook National University (President Heo Young-woo) and the National NanoFab Center (President Park Heung Soo), has developed a new technology that extends the lifespan of anode-free batteries by applying the ultrafine fabrication processes used in semiconductor device manufacturing to batteries.
Conventional lithium-ion batteries store lithium in an anode material such as graphite during charging. Anode-free batteries, by contrast, deposit lithium directly onto a thin copper foil without a separate anode material. Because they eliminate the weight and volume that the anode material would otherwise occupy, they are drawing attention as a next-generation technology capable of packing more energy into a battery of the same size.
However, repeated charging and discharging cause lithium to deposit unevenly on the copper foil, growing into branch- or spike-like structures known as dendrites. The protective layer over the lithium also becomes unstable, causing the battery’s performance and lifespan to deteriorate rapidly. This is one of the most significant obstacles standing in the way of commercializing anode-free batteries.
Some previous approaches to extending the lifespan of anode-free batteries involved adding excess lithium or applying a thick protective layer to the surface. These methods provide extra lithium to compensate for losses during use or coat the surface with a protective film. However, adding more material makes the battery heavier and thicker, undercutting the very advantage of a small, lightweight anode-free battery.
To minimize added weight and volume, the research team modified the copper foil on which lithium is deposited. Much like marking out closely spaced parking bays in a flat lot, the team created an array of microscopic tube-shaped structures on the copper surface so that lithium spreads out and deposits evenly rather than concentrating in one spot.
To do this, the team used a process called secondary sputtering lithography (SSL), used for the precise micromachining of semiconductors. Fabricating microscopic tubes about 300 nanometers in diameter and 150 nanometers in height on the copper foil increased the surface area available for lithium deposition to about four times that of flat copper foil, helping to reduce localized, spike-like lithium growth.
The team then coated the copper foil with a roughly 10-nanometer-thick layer of MXene, a two-dimensional material, forming an ultrathin film only a few thousandths the thickness of a human hair. Rather than serving as a finished protective layer itself, the MXene acts like a primer that draws together the components needed to form one. In the LiPF6-based electrolyte used in the study, the MXene surface promotes the formation of a robust protective layer rich in lithium fluoride (LiF) as the battery operates.
This protective layer reduces unwanted reactions between the lithium and the electrolyte and also suppresses the spike-like growth of lithium. By examining electrode surfaces and cross sections while minimizing air exposure, the research team confirmed that a nanoscale protective layer forms uniformly along the MXene and identified the mechanism behind its formation. The analysis employed X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), among other techniques.
Professor Jinwoo Lee said, “This study shows how ultrafine fabrication techniques used in semiconductor manufacturing can create both uniform sites for lithium deposition and a stable protective layer without changing the bulk electrolyte formulation or adding excess lithium.” He added that the technology is expected to serve as a foundation for accelerating the commercialization of high-energy anode-free batteries by extending battery life while minimizing increases in weight and volume.
KAIST researchers Eunji Kim, Hyunju Jung, and Jinuk Kim participated as co-first authors on the study. The findings were published online in the international journal Advanced Functional Materials on September 1.
Paper title: Anion-Interactive Anode Interfaces for Stable Anode-Free Lithium Metal Batteries,
DOI 10.1002/adfm.77931
Author information: Eunji Kim (KAIST/National NanoFab Center, co-first author), Hyunju Jung (KAIST, co-first author), Jinuk Kim (KAIST, co-first author), Hee-Tae Jung (KAIST, corresponding author), Yonghee Lee (Kyungpook National University, corresponding author), Jinwoo Lee (KAIST, corresponding author)
This research was supported by the Nano&Material Technology Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT (RS-2026-25542167), as well as the Global Semiconductor Advanced Fab Utilization Project through the National Nano Fab Center (NNFC). This work was also supported by Semiconductor-Secondary Battery Interfacing Platform Technology Development Project of NNFC.
2026.09.22 View 3081 -
KAIST Develops Smartphone AI That Uses Past Solutions to Tackle Similar Problems
A new AI technology has been developed that retains and reuses knowledge, much like writing down a solution in a notebook and applying it to similar problems rather than asking an expert for help each time. Researchers at KAIST have developed a way for small AI models running on smartphones to store and reuse knowledge from a large server model. The approach reduced server calls by an average of 55.61% compared with a non-cumulative approach while maintaining high accuracy, suggesting that mobile AI could make faster decisions with less server support as it encounters similar problems.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 21 that a research team led by Professor Jae-Gil Lee from the School of Computing has developed CURE (Cumulative Knowledge Reuse), a technology that enables a small AI model on a device to work efficiently with a large model on a server.
Smartphones have limited processing power and memory, so they typically use small, lightweight AI models. These models can handle simple tasks quickly but may be less accurate when identifying complex or unfamiliar images.
Sending every input to a powerful server model can improve accuracy, but transferring data and waiting for a response takes time. It also adds to network traffic and the server’s computational workload, increasing delays for users and operating costs for service providers.
Researchers have explored a collaborative approach in which the on-device model assesses each input first and sends only difficult cases to the server. Without a way to retain the server’s knowledge, however, the device uses each answer once and may need the same help when a similar input appears. This is much like a student who fails to write down the solution to a difficult problem and has to ask for help again when faced with another of the same kind. The team set out to turn these one-time answers into knowledge the device could continue to use.
CURE first checks whether the on-device model can handle an input reliably. If it cannot, the system consults knowledge previously obtained from the server and stored on the device. It contacts the server only if that knowledge is also insufficient. The process follows three steps, moving from solving a problem independently to consulting previous lessons and, when necessary, asking an expert.
For example, an on-device model that cannot identify a car model in a photo may turn to the server for help. CURE uses the server’s prediction and the image’s features to update the device’s knowledge store. When the device later receives a photo of a similar car model, it can use that knowledge to identify it locally.
CURE does not keep a collection of the original photos processed by the server. Instead, it stores a summary of their shared features and differences. This is like noting a car’s distinguishing features, such as its body shape or headlight design, rather than memorizing the entire photo. The stored knowledge can therefore help the system recognize not only images it has already seen but also similar images it encounters for the first time.
The team tested CURE using vision-language models, which connect images with text to understand visual information. These models link what they see to language, much as people do.
The researchers used MobileCLIP2 on the device and EVA-CLIP, which has 18 billion parameters, on the server. Parameters are numerical values within a model that encode information learned during training. They help the model distinguish objects and identify relationships between them.
In tests on a range of image classification datasets, CURE achieved accuracy close to that of an approach that sends every input to the large server model. It also made an average of 55.61 percent fewer server calls than a device-server collaboration baseline that does not retain knowledge from previous server responses.
In end-to-end tests that included communication time, CURE ran up to 2.80 times as fast as the non-cumulative device-server collaboration baseline and up to 3.67 times as fast as the approach that sends every input to the server. Making fewer server calls reduced the time spent transferring data and waiting for responses.
CURE requires no retraining of either the on-device model or the server model. It leaves both models unchanged and adds a separate store for knowledge obtained from the server, making it adaptable to a range of AI models and services.
The technology could reduce repeated data transfers and server computation image recognition. This could mean shorter waits for users and lower operating costs for service providers.
Potential applications also include robots and wearables that need to recognize their surroundings with limited computing resources. Robots operating over slow or unreliable networks, for example, could use previously acquired knowledge to make more decisions locally without waiting for a server response.
The benefits in practice will depend on the device’s processing power and storage capacity, network conditions, and the characteristics of the input data. Further testing across different devices and environments is therefore needed.
“CURE allows a small on-device AI model to remember and reuse knowledge it has already obtained, rather than repeatedly asking the server the same question,” said Professor Jae-Gil Lee. “By maintaining high accuracy while reducing communication demands and response times, we expect it to help smartphones, robots, and wearables use powerful AI models more efficiently.”
Dr. Youngjun Lee, a postdoctoral researcher from the KAIST Institute of Information Electronics, was the study’s first author, and Professor Jae-Gil Lee from the School of Computing was the corresponding author. Co-authors were Doyoung Kim from Amazon, Junhyeok Kang from LG AI Research, and Professor Hwanjun Song from the KAIST Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The findings were presented on September 10 at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2026), a leading international computer vision conference held in Malmö, Sweden, from September 8 to 12.
Paper title “CURE: Cumulative Knowledge Reuse for Efficient Device-Server Hybrid Inference in Vision-Language Models”,
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-37627-5_21
Author information — Dr. Youngjun Lee (postdoctoral researcher, KAIST Institute of Information Electronics, first author), Doyoung Kim (KAIST graduate, now at Amazon, co-author), Junhyeok Kang (KAIST graduate, now at LG AI Research, co-author), Professor Hwanjun Song (KAIST Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, co-author), Professor Jae-Gil Lee (KAIST School of Computing, corresponding author)
This work was supported by Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. RS-2020-II200862, DB4DL: High-Usability and Performance In-Memory Distributed DBMS for Deep Learning, 50% and No. RS-2022-II220157, Robust, Fair, Extensible Data-Centric Continual Learning, 40%), the InnoCORE pro-gram of the Ministry of Science and ICT (AI Meta-Scientist, N10260110, 10%), and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.(IO251216-14634-01).
2026.09.21 View 2470 -
KAIST Develops a Strategy to Balance Radical Generation and Catalyst Regeneration, Enabling Challenging Chemical Reactions
Radicals, atoms or molecules that readily react with other substances to form new bonds, are useful tools for building complex substances such as pharmaceuticals. But even when a radical is generated efficiently, the reaction cannot continue unless the catalyst returns to its original state. A KAIST research team has developed a new strategy that balances radical generation and catalyst regeneration, broadening the possibility of using even substrates that are difficult to activate to synthesize the complex molecules needed for pharmaceuticals and other applications.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 20 that a research team led by Professor Sarah Yunmi Lee from the Department of Chemistry has developed a method that uses a ligand, a molecule that attaches to a metal catalyst and controls its properties, to effectively regulate the process by which a copper catalyst generates a radical and then returns to its original state.
The team used a cyclopropenimine (CPI)-based ligand to tune the copper catalyst’s redox behavior, helping it generate radicals and return to its active state.
In this study, the team used tertiary alkyl halides, compounds where bromine or chlorine is attached to a tertiary carbon center, as starting materials. When the copper catalyst breaks this bond, a highly reactive radical is generated, and this radical then forms a new carbon–carbon bond with another part of the same molecule, creating a ring-shaped structure. The process is similar to tying the two loose ends of a string together to form a loop. This is called a radical cyclization reaction.
When the team compared several types of ligands, they found that that generating more radicals did not necessarily lead to more of the desired product. Some ligands were very effective at generating radicals but produced almost none of the final product.
The best-performing CPI-based ligand, however, allowed radical generation and catalyst regeneration to proceed in balance. If the catalyst is compared to a worker performing a task repeatedly, the CPI ligand acts as a helper that lets the worker move on to the next task without stopping after finishing one.
As a result, the team synthesized in high yields 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles, compounds with a ring framework relevant to medicinal chemistry used in pharmaceuticals and bioactive substances.
Notably, substrates bearing bromine reacted efficiently even at room temperature. The team also succeeded in reacting substrates with strong carbon-chlorine bonds that do not break easily. This demonstrated that even tertiary alkyl chlorides, which had previously been difficult to handle, can now be used to synthesize a range of oxindole compounds that were difficult to make before.
The key finding of this study is that generating radicals well is not enough on its own. Rather than simply raising the reactivity of a single step, the team showed that balancing the entire catalytic cycle, including both radical generation and catalyst regeneration, makes it possible to design more efficient catalysts and extend the approach to new reactions.
This principle could expand the range of challenging substrates available for chemical synthesis. It may also help researchers develop more efficient methods for constructing complex molecules relevant to pharmaceuticals and other bioactive compounds under milder conditions.
Professor Sarah Yunmi Lee said, " This study shows that efficient radical generation alone is not sufficient and that the different processes within a catalytic cycle must proceed in balance." She added, "We expect this approach can be applied to the development of new radical-based catalytic reactions that make use of challenging substrates that have previously been difficult to activate."
The study, with Sarah Jang, a student in the integrated master’s–PhD program in the Department of Chemistry at KAIST, and Seongryeol Jeung, who earned a master’s degree at Yonsei University, as co-first authors, and with Sumin Kim, an integrated master's and PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at KAIST, also participating, was published online on August 3 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), an international journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Paper title: Cyclopropenimine-Enabled Redox Control in Copper-Catalyzed Radical Cyclization to 3,3-Disubstituted Oxindoles
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6c09015
Author information: Sarah Jang (KAIST, co-first author), Seongryeol Jeung (Yonsei University, co-first author), Sumin Kim (KAIST, third author), Sarah Yunmi Lee (KAIST, corresponding author)
This research was supported by the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation under Project SSTF-BA2202-06.
2026.09.21 View 2510 -
KAIST Technology Behind Toothbrushes and Sportswear Advances into High-Performance Graphene Fiber Research
KAIST’s discovery of graphene oxide liquid crystals in 2011 has laid the foundation for 15 years of research worldwide, leading to technologies for producing graphene fibers with high strength and thermal conductivity. The fundamental materials research that helped bring antibacterial toothbrushes and functional sportswear to market is now advancing into materials for thermal management.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 18 that Professor Sang Ouk Kim’s team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has published a commentary in the News & Views section of Nature Materials, highlighting recent advances in high-performance graphene fibers based on graphene oxide liquid crystals and their scientific significance.
Graphene oxide consists of graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure, with oxygen functional groups attached. Graphene is strong and conducts heat and electricity well, but its poor dispersibility in common solvent makes it difficult to process in liquid form. By contrast, the oxygen functional groups allow graphene oxide to disperse readily in water and other solvents, making it easier to formulate into inks, apply as coatings, or spin into fibers.
In 2011, Professor Kim’s team was the first in the world to report that graphene oxide dispersed in water above a certain concentration spontaneously forms a liquid-crystalline state in which its thin sheets align in a common direction.
Above critical concentration conditions, graphene oxide sheets randomly dispersed in water align like a scattered deck of cards arranged to face the same direction. This alignment allows graphene oxide to be drawn into long fibers while maintaining the sheets’ orientation along the fiber axis.
Following this discovery, researchers worldwide have developed methods for producing graphene fibers from graphene oxide liquid crystals. Conventional methods, however, have faced problems such as breaks in the liquid filament during drawing and insufficiently aligned or loosely packed graphene sheets, which leave voids and defects within the fibers. These problems have limited efforts to improve strength and thermal conductivity simultaneously.
In their commentary, Professor Kim’s team discussed recent research addressing these limitations and analyzed how research on graphene oxide liquid crystals could lead to technologies for manufacturing high-performance fibers.
Researchers at Zhejiang University in China recently dispersed graphene oxide in highly viscous glycerol, giving the dispersion viscoelastic properties similar to those of a polymer solution. This enabled “ultrahigh-ratio drawing” during wet spinning, allowing the graphene oxide dispersion to be stretched much further than before.
During this process, the graphene oxide sheets become more closely aligned along the fiber axis, reducing internal voids and defects. Subsequent heat treatment at high temperatures promotes the growth of large, aligned graphitic crystallites, producing lightweight, strong graphene fibers with high thermal and electrical conductivity.
The graphene fibers produced in this recent study were reported to have a tensile strength of up to 5.9 gigapascals (GPa) and a thermal conductivity of up to 1,720 watts per meter per kelvin (W/(m·K)). In simple terms, the fibers resist breaking when pulled and transfer heat quickly. These results show how denser packing and better alignment of graphene oxide sheets can improve both strength and thermal conductivity.
In the commentary, Professor Kim’s team highlighted how research on graphene oxide liquid crystals has progressed from observing a fundamental phenomenon to processing a two-dimensional material through flow and stretching, much like a polymer solution.
KAIST's core technology related to graphene oxide liquid crystals has already moved beyond the laboratory into consumer products. Antibacterial graphene toothbrushes incorporating technology from Materials CreationCo., Ltd., a faculty startup founded by Professor Kim, have sold more than 14 million units since their 2023 launch. Functional fibers made with GrapheneTex material were used in the uniforms of the Taekwondo demonstration team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. More recently, the material has been applied to functional golf apparel, other sportswear, and bedding, as the company pursues expansion into global markets.
“Since its discovery in 2011, graphene oxide liquid crystal has provided a foundation for research over worldwide that has now led to strong, high-performance graphene fibers that conduct heat efficiently,” said Professor Kim. “What makes this significant is that a single line of basic research has led to applications ranging from consumer products such as toothbrushes and functional clothing to advanced materials for electronics, mobility, and aerospace.”
The commentary was written by PhD candidates Jin Hyo Kim and Sujin Cha and Professor Sang Ouk Kim, all of KAIST’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and was published in the News & Views section of Nature Materials on September 8. (END)
Commentary title: Processing graphene fibres by viscous flow
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-026-02735-y
2026.09.18 View 3083 -
KAIST Develops Microbially Produced Adhesive Materials from Glucose Instead of Petroleum
KAIST researchers have demonstrated the potential of using microorganisms to produce a bio-based alternative to petroleum-derived materials for hot-melt adhesives. These heat-activated glues are widely used in packaging, furniture, electronics, and automobiles. Using Escherichia coli, the team produced a new polymer from glucose and demonstrated adhesive performance and thermal properties that support its potential use as a hot-melt adhesive.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 17 that a research team led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering developed a microbial cell factory by engineering E. coli to produce the new aromatic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) polymers from glucose for adhesive applications.
The research team applied systems metabolic engineering, an approach that redesigns a microorganism's overall metabolism to produce a target compound, to re-engineer the metabolic pathways of E. coli. Through this approach, the researchers successfully produced two new adhesive materials from glucose, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) and poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA), both belonging to the PHA family of biodegradable polymers.
Adhesives are essential materials used in a wide range of industries, including packaging materials, electronics, automobiles, and construction materials. In particular, hot-melt adhesives (HMAs) are solid adhesives that are melted with heat for bonding and then solidify as they cool. Because they do not require separate organic solvents and enable rapid bonding, they are widely used in industry.
However, most hot-melt adhesives currently in use are based on petroleum-derived polymers such as ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA). Although they offer excellent adhesive performance, most do not readily degrade in nature and can cause waste and microplastic problems. In particular, even when biodegradable packaging materials are used, if the adhesive does not degrade, the biodegradability and recyclability of the entire product may be reduced.
To address this problem, the research team focused on PHA, a type of biodegradable plastic produced by microorganisms. PHA can be produced by microorganisms using renewable feedstocks such as glucose. It also has the advantage that properties such as polymer flexibility, strength, and heat resistance can be adjusted in various ways depending on which components are included and in what proportions.
Using this principle, the research team incorporated 4-hydroxybutyrate (4HB) and phenyllactate (PhLA) into a single polymer. 4HB contributes to the material’s softness and adhesion, while PhLA increases the material’s rigidity and heat resistance. When the research team varied the relative proportions of the two components, the thermal properties and adhesive performance of the polymers also changed. In particular, polymers containing approximately 24–34 mol% 4HB showed excellent adhesive performance.
The research team designed intracellular metabolic pathways so that E. coli consumes glucose, produces 4HB and PhLA on its own, and then links them together into polymers.
To address metabolic imbalances that arise when multiple monomers are produced simultaneously, the team adjusted the strength and timing of gene expression, added a CoA transferase to facilitate the reactions, and used a genome-scale metabolic model to identify and optimize metabolic pathways associated with insufficient precursor supply and production bottlenecks.
As a result, through fed-batch fermentation, in which nutrients are continuously supplied during microbial cultivation, the team successfully produced 10.2 g of poly(4HB-co-PhLA) per liter of culture medium. By additionally introducing a biosynthetic pathway for producing 3HB, the team successfully produced up to 52.8 g/L of poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA).
The research team also tested whether the produced polymers could be used as hot-melt adhesives.
In a lap shear adhesion test using stainless steel as the substrate, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) recorded a lap-shear strength of 4.58 MPa. This is higher than the 4.20 MPa achieved by a commercial EVA adhesive. Poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA) also showed performance comparable to EVA in a wood adhesion test.
In addition, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) retained a substantial level of adhesive strength even after repeated melting and rebonding. The incorporation of the PhLA component improved heat resistance.
Furthermore, after treatment with lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fats, surface damage to the polymers was observed, while the molecular weight and overall mass of the polymers also decreased. These results indicate that the newly developed aromatic PHA can be degraded by enzymes.
This study is significant not only for the development of an eco-friendly adhesive but also for demonstrating the potential of metabolic engineering to produce functional materials with tunable properties. Going forward, this approach could be extended into a biomanufacturing technology that tunes polymer properties, such as adhesion strength, flexibility, and heat resistance, to meet specific application needs, and produces such materials using microorganisms.
The approach also makes it possible to produce functional polymers that have traditionally been produced through petrochemical processes, from renewable feedstocks such as glucose instead. This is expected to serve as a sustainable production technology not only for adhesives but for a wide range of functional polymer materials going forward.
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee said, “This study demonstrates that by engineering microbial metabolism, it is possible to go beyond simply producing polymers and directly produce functional materials,” adding, “In the future, by utilizing various non-natural monomers and microbial cell factories, this approach could be expanded into biomanufacturing technologies for the sustainable production not only of petroleum-based adhesive alternatives but also of a wide range of functional polymers.”
The study, co-authored by Ph.D. student Minju Kang, Dr. Youngjoon Lee, and Dr. Gi Bae Kim of the KAIST Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was published online on July 20 in the international journal Nature Communications.
Paper title: Synthesis of poly(4HB-co-PhLA) and poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA) as sustainable hot-melt adhesives using engineered Escherichia coli
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-75809-9
Author information: Minju Kang (KAIST), Youngjoon Lee (KAIST), Gi Bae Kim (KAIST), Sang Yup Lee (KAIST, corresponding author)
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea through a grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (Grant No. 2022M3J5A1056117).
2026.09.17 View 4479 -
KAIST Robot That Follows Verbal Directions and Checks Its Own Work Takes First and Second Place in International Competitions
A robot that can follow a single verbal instruction, navigate an unfamiliar building, and verify that it has reached the correct destination has earned top honors in two international competitions.
KAIST (President Chungsik Bae) announced on September 11 that a team led by Professor Hyun Myung of the Urban Robotics Lab in the School of Electrical Engineering took first place in an international challenge held in conjunction with ECCV 2026, a leading computer vision conference, and second place in a challenge at RSS 2026, a leading robotics conference.
The team’s technology goes beyond conventional navigation. It enables robots to interpret their surroundings and independently verify whether they have made the right decision.
Both competitions focused on embodied AI—the ability of a robot to understand human language, perceive its surroundings through cameras, make decisions, and act on them. Unlike AI systems that operate solely in the digital realm, embodied AI interacts directly with the physical world.
Professor Myung’s research team joined forces with the Field Robotics Research Section of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) to form the “URL-FRRS” team. The team placed first among 112 teams worldwide in the VLNVerse Challenge, a vision-language navigation competition held at the ECCV 2026 EMR Workshop in Malmö, Sweden on September 9.
The competition tested whether a robot could reach the correct destination based solely on a stated goal, such as “Find the blue sofa in the living room,” or a multistep instruction, such as “Turn right at the end of the hallway and enter the second door.”
When the research team analyzed why existing robots were failing, they found that, surprisingly, the more common cause was not an inability to find the route, but the robot mistakenly concluding it had “arrived” at the wrong location. A robot might, for example, pass the actual destination or mistake a similar-looking room for the target.
To address this problem, the team developed CoRe-VLN, short for Coverage-based Recovery for Vision-Language Navigation. The technology prompts the robot to verify its location whenever it is about to stop, essentially asking itself, “Is this really the destination?”
Once the robot determines that it may have reached its destination, it scans its surroundings again. An AI model capable of interpreting both text and images then checks whether the robot is in the correct room, whether the target object matches the specified color and shape, and whether the object is actually nearby. The process is similar to a person checking a sign or looking around after arriving at a meeting point to make sure they are in the right place.
If the robot determines that it has stopped at the wrong location, it plans a new route and resumes its search. Because CoRe-VLN can be added to an existing navigation system without further training, it gives the robot a self-verification and recovery capability that can be readily applied in unfamiliar environments.
The team achieved an average success rate of 90.7% across the two competition tasks. Although it tied with the runner-up in success rate, it secured first place by submitting its results earlier. The third-place team recorded a success rate of 89.7%.
The KAIST team also took second place in the NaviTrace Challenge at the RSS 2026 OWN Workshop, held in Sydney, Australia, in July.
In this competition, a robot was given only a single photograph and a brief command, such as “Drive into the parking lot,” and had to determine the correct direction of travel.
When entering a parking lot, people instinctively distinguish the entrance from the exit by interpreting road markings and observing the direction of other vehicles. These cues, however, are not explicitly stated in the command. To navigate spaces shared with people, robots must be able to infer such implicit rules directly from the scene before them.
The team addressed this challenge by developing PRISM-Nav, a system in which multiple AI agents divide the work instead of relying on a single AI model to make every decision.
One agent locates the destination, another identifies hazards such as stairs and curbs, and a third recognizes socially significant features such as sidewalks and crosswalks. A final agent integrates their findings and determines the direction of travel. The approach resembles a group where one person checks the route, another watches for hazards, and a third interprets traffic rules before they jointly choose the safest path.
The researchers also streamlined communication among the AI agents. Instead of describing locations through lengthy text or numerical coordinates, the agents mark destinations and hazardous areas directly on an image and share the annotated image with one another, much like handing someone a marked-up map rather than explaining the route verbally. PRISM-Nav can also be deployed in new environments without retraining the AI models.
The team scored 53 points in the competition, finishing second behind a joint team from Nanjing University and FiveAges.
Notably, the team used multiple instances of the relatively inexpensive and lightweight Gemini 3 Flash model to outperform Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, the more powerful model used by the organizers as a benchmark. The result demonstrated that coordinating several lightweight AI models can deliver better performance and cost efficiency than relying on a single, more expensive model to handle every task.
“We are delighted that the potential of our technology has been recognized in a competition with research teams from around the world. This achievement demonstrates that AI can make decisions and act independently in unfamiliar environments without additional training.” said Professor Myung.
He added, “We plan to extend this approach beyond navigation to tasks such as identifying, picking up, and moving objects, ultimately developing robots that can verify and correct their own decisions.”
As the technology advances, robots may move beyond simply executing human commands. Before acting, they could independently ask, “Is this the right place?”, “Is this the right object?”, or “Is this action safe?” Such capabilities could benefit not only delivery and guide robots but also robots operating alongside people in logistics centers, factories, hospitals, and other shared environments.
Professor Myung’s laboratory also took first place in international challenges held at ICRA 2026, a leading robotics conference, and CVPR 2026, a leading computer vision conference, in June. The laboratory is now expanding its expertise in spatial cognition into the field of physical AI.
This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP). (END)
2026.09.16 View 3180 -
Single Material Enables Efficient Charge Injection into Two Types of Ultrathin Semiconductors, Paving the Way for Smaller, More Energy-Efficient AI Chips
A new approach could help make future AI chips smaller and more energy-efficient. A KAIST-led research team has used a single material to address one of the major obstacles facing atomically thin semiconductors, the difficulty of efficiently injecting charge. The technology could contribute to next-generation AI and low-power semiconductor devices in which multiple ultrathin layers are vertically integrated to increase device density and performance.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 16 that a research team led by Professor Joonki Suh from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has developed a ‘universal van der Waals tunneling injector’ based on tin diselenide (SnSe2). The single-material injector efficiently supplies charge to two different types of atomically thin semiconductor channels.
The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from Yonsei University, the Beijing Computational Science Research Center in China, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Hanyang University, the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), and Samsung Electronics.
A transistor is a microscopic switch that controls the flow of electric current. Nearly every semiconductor chip, from those used in smartphones and computers to advanced AI processors, contains vast numbers of transistors.
Transistors can be broadly classified as n-type or p-type. In n-type transistors, ‘electrons’ carry the current, while in p-type transistors, current is carried by ‘holes’, which are empty electron states that act as positive charge carriers. Modern semiconductor chips combine these two types in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, or CMOS, circuits, which enable fast operation while minimizing power consumption.
Two-dimensional semiconductors, which can be less than a nanometer thick, have recently emerged as promising materials for making chips smaller and more energy-efficient. Their atomically thin structure also makes it possible to stack multiple device layers vertically, potentially allowing more transistors to be integrated within the same footprint.
A persistent challenge, however, has been injecting charge efficiently into such ultrathin semiconductors. Depositing a conventional metal electrode directly onto a two-dimensional semiconductor can damage its delicate atomic structure during fabrication. The resulting interface can also create an energy barrier that obstructs the injection of electrons or holes.
In atomically thin semiconductors, the ‘entry point’ for electrical charge has been a major bottleneck limiting transistor performance. Complicating matters further, n-type and p-type channels generally require different contact conditions and have therefore relied on separately optimized electrodes.
The research team addressed this problem using a single material: tin diselenide (SnSe2), a layered semiconductor composed of tin (Sn) and selenium (Se). Instead of forming strong chemical bonds with the semiconductor channel, SnSe2 can be placed in contact with it through weak interatomic attractions known as van der Waals forces. This approach preserves the atomically thin channel and creates a clean, uniform interface.
Crucially, SnSe2 provides a different but favorable charge-injection pathway depending on the semiconductor with which it is paired.
When combined with p-type tungsten diselenide (WSe2), SnSe2 forms a type-III, or ‘broken-gap’, band alignment that enables efficient band-to-band tunneling. In this process, charge carriers pass through an energy barrier quantum mechanically rather than having to acquire enough energy to travel over it. When combined with n-type molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), the same SnSe2 injector forms a different junction. An applied gate field reshapes and narrows the electron-injection barrier, allowing electrons to tunnel through it.
In other words, whereas n-type and p-type transistors previously required separately optimized charge-injection contacts, SnSe2 serves as a single, shared injector that adapts to both channel polarities through different tunneling mechanisms.
The resulting performance improvements were substantial. In p-type WSe2 transistors, the SnSe2 injector increased the maximum drive current by more than 1,000 times compared with conventional nickel electrodes. Drive current refers to the maximum current that a transistor can deliver when switched on.
In n-type MoS₂ transistors, the SnSe2 injector enabled steep switching and an on/off current ratio exceeding one billion (109). This means that the device conducts current effectively in its on state while strongly suppressing current in its off state.
The team also fabricated a CMOS inverter, a basic building block of digital circuits that combines n-type and p-type transistors, and confirmed that it operated reliably in response to repeated input signals.
The key contribution of this research is that it demonstrated a single material can efficiently supply charge to both types of ultrathin semiconductors, moving beyond the conventional approach of using separate electrodes for n-type and p-type devices.
With further advances in direct growth, large-area fabrication, and device integration, two-dimensional semiconductors could eventually be stacked in multiple layers to form three-dimensional chips. Such architectures could accommodate more transistors within the same footprint and perform more functions while consuming less power, contributing to the development of next-generation AI processors and ultra-low-power electronic devices.
“This study demonstrates that efficient charge injection, one of the most challenging bottlenecks in monolayer two-dimensional semiconductors, can be addressed using a single material platform,” said Professor Joonki Suh. “With further advances in direct growth and large-area processing technologies, this approach could accelerate the practical implementation of low-power two-dimensional CMOS integrated circuits.”
The study was led by KAIST PhD candidate Hanbin Cho as first author, with Professor Kyungmin Ko from Yonsei University and Professor Joonki Suh from KAIST serving as co-corresponding authors. The paper was published online on August 12 in the international journal Advanced Materials.
Paper title: “A Universal van der Waals Tunneling Injector for Monolayer CMOS”
DOI: 10.1002/adma.74597Authors: Hanbin Cho of KAIST, first author; Professor Kyungmin Ko of Yonsei University and Professor Joonki Suh of KAIST, co-corresponding authors
This work was primarily supported by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. It also received support from Korean funding agencies, including the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education.
2026.09.16 View 2681 -
KAIST Researchers Uncover How Neurons Deliver RNA to Where It Is Needed
Much like a courier reading an address on a package, neurons must deliver RNA to the precise locations where it is needed. A KAIST research team has discovered how a small chemical modification on RNA acts as a “delivery tag,” helping selected RNAs travel to distant regions of neurons.
The findings provide a basis for investigating RNA “delivery errors” in brain disorders—cases in which RNA is produced normally but fails to reach its intended destination—and may ultimately inform the development of new therapeutic strategies.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 14 that a research team led by Professor Ki-Jun Yoon of the Department of Biological Sciences has identified a mechanism through which N6-methyladenosine, or m6A, facilitates the transport of specific RNAs to distal axons, the long, cable-like projections of neurons.
Unlike most other cells, neurons have long, highly branched extensions. Axons transmit signals to other neurons, while dendrites receive incoming signals. For the brain to develop and function normally, these structures must grow properly and form appropriate connections.
Because neurons can extend over considerable distances, RNA produced in the cell body may be needed far away, including at the growing tip of an axon. Neurons must therefore identify particular RNAs among thousands of candidates and transport them to the correct subcellular locations.
Just as producing a package does not complete its delivery—the package must also reach the correct address—producing RNA is only part of the process. RNA must arrive at the right place at the right time. However, the mechanisms through which neurons select and transport RNAs over long distances have remained incompletely understood.
The research team found that m6A, a small chemical modification added to RNA, plays an important role in this process. m6A is a modification of adenosine, one of the building blocks of RNA, and is known to influence several aspects of RNA metabolism, including stability and translation. The new study shows that m6A can also function as a molecular “delivery tag” that promotes the transport of specific RNAs to distal regions of neurons.
The researchers first examined mice in which Mettl14, a component of the enzyme complex that installs m6A on RNA, was deleted from developing neurons. In the absence of normal m6A modification, the neurons exhibited impaired axon projection and neurite development. These findings confirmed that m6A plays an important role in the early development of neurons.
The team then used a high-resolution technique known as m6A-SAC-seq to map the precise locations of m6A modifications in RNA from the developing mouse brain at single-nucleotide resolution. The resulting map revealed that RNAs associated with axon development and synapse organization were among those marked by m6A.
The researchers also identified how this “delivery tag” is recognized and connected to the cellular transport machinery. They found that YTHDF2, a protein that recognizes m6A-modified RNA, works with the RNA-binding protein FMRP and the motor protein KIF5C to facilitate the transport of RNA along neuronal processes.
In the delivery analogy, m6A serves as the tag attached to the RNA, YTHDF2 reads the tag, and FMRP and KIF5C help connect the RNA to the cellular machinery that carries it toward its destination.
YTHDF2 has previously been studied primarily for its role in promoting the degradation of RNA that is no longer needed. This study reveals an additional function: in developing neurons, YTHDF2 also helps transport specific RNAs to distal locations rather than simply directing them toward degradation.
The findings offer a new perspective on the study of brain disorders. Research has traditionally focused on whether RNA is produced and maintained correctly. The new results suggest that researchers should also consider whether normally produced RNA is delivered to the correct location within a neuron.
In other words, neurological dysfunction may potentially arise not only from defects in RNA itself, but also from problems with the molecular tags or transport machinery that determine where the RNA travels.
Future studies could investigate whether such RNA delivery errors occur in neurodevelopmental or neurodegenerative disorders and whether they contribute to neuronal dysfunction or disease onset. If such links are established, the findings could eventually support the development of therapeutic approaches that regulate RNA transport and restore the delivery of specific RNAs to their intended locations.
The high-resolution m6A map of the developing nervous system generated in this study may also serve as a valuable resource for examining how RNA modification and intracellular transport change during brain aging and neurodegenerative disease.
“Our study shows that a small chemical modification on RNA does more than regulate RNA stability—it also plays an important role in delivering specific RNAs to the locations where they are needed within neurons,” said Professor Yoon. “We hope these findings will provide a foundation for understanding why RNA may fail to reach its intended destination in brain disorders and for exploring new therapeutic possibilities.”
Bonsang Koo, Dr. Ajeet Kumar, and Huiseon Hwang of the KAIST Department of Biological Sciences contributed equally to the study as co-first authors. The paper was published in Nature Communications on July 30.
Paper title: The m⁶A reader YTHDF2 regulates mRNA transport and axon outgrowth in developing neurons
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-76161-8
Author information: Co-first authors (Bonsang Koo, Ajeet Kumar, Huiseon Hwang); Contributing authors (Minyeong Park, Sung-Min Lee, Ki-Heon Lee, Ji-Hoon Moon, Jaewon Yang, Chan-Woo Park, Saebom Lee, Hee-Jung Jo, Woo-il Kim, Eunji Cho, Hagyeong Lee, Chang-Won Lee, Jae-Sung Woo, Jong Hyuk Yoon, Yoon Ki Kim); Corresponding author (Ki-Jun Yoon)
This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants (2020M3A9E403967022, RS-2024-00332454, RS-2024-00440778, and RS-2026-25488918 to K.-J.Y.) funded by the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, and Future Planning (MSIP), the POSCOScience Fellowship from the POSCO TJ Park Foundation (to K.-J.Y.), the Young Investigator Grant from the Suh Kyungbae Foundation (to K.-J.Y.), the Korea Brain Research Institute (KBRI) Basic Research Program through the Korea Brain Research Institute, funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) (24-BR-02-03 to J.H.Y).
2026.09.14 View 3983 -
KAIST and KIOM Develop a Wearable Microneedle Electroceutical for Personalized Pain Management
A "wearable electroceutical" has been developed that could reduce the need to visit a hospital or rely on painkillers every time pain occurs. When attached to the skin, it modulates pain through electrical stimulation and can be remotely controlled via smartphone even across long distances, such as between Korea and the United States.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 13 that a joint research team led by Professor Jae-Woong Jeong from the School of Electrical Engineering at KAIST and Dr. Sanghun Lee from the KIOM (Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, President Sung-Kyu Kho) has developed a wearable electroceutical platform that combines a wireless microneedle (fine needles that adhere to the skin) electroceutical with Internet of Things (IoT)-based remote control technology.
The key feature of this research is that a single small skin-attached device integrates stable electrical stimulation, smartphone-based remote control, and automatic stimulation based on the body's physiological state. Once its efficacy and safety are validated with actual patients, the technology may be used for personalized pain management at home or in daily life.
The need for such an approach is particularly relevant for chronic pain management. Painkillers are widely used to treat chronic pain, but long-term medication use raises concerns about side effects and dependency. In particular, opioid analgesics used for conditions such as cancer pain carry an increasing risk of tolerance and misuse with prolonged use, which has spurred research into "electroceuticals", devices that modulate nerves through electrical stimulation as an alternative to drugs.
However, existing electroceuticals have limitations. Implantable devices require surgery, and skin-attached electrodes may fail to deliver electrical current properly depending on skin conditions such as sweat or dead skin cells. A concentrated current at specific sites can also raise skin temperature or pose a risk of burns.
To address these issues, the research team developed a temperature-responsive, conductive, and adhesive microneedle electrode (a fine needle electrode that conducts electricity well while adhering to the skin).
Because the microneedles penetrate the highly resistive stratum corneum, the device can deliver stable electrical stimulation while reducing the influence of sweat and dead skin cells. The team also coated the electrode with a conductive hydrogel (a gel-like material that retains a large amount of water) so that current spreads evenly rather than concentrating at the needle tips.
In addition to improving electrical performance, the electrode was designed with a built-in thermal safety mechanism. When skin temperature rises abnormally, the electrode's adhesion weakens and it detaches from the skin on its own, helping reduce the risk of skin burns that could occur during electrical stimulation.
Beyond the skin interface itself, the research team integrated the device with IoT-based remote management. Using a smartphone and cloud server, a healthcare provider can control the device's operating time and electrical stimulation in real time or on a scheduled basis, even when located far from the patient. The team confirmed that the device could be remotely controlled even across long international distances, such as between Korea and the United States.
Following future clinical validation, this could develop into a home-based or remote pain management approach in which patients use the electroceutical under medical supervision without needing to visit a hospital.
The platform further extends beyond remote control by enabling automatic operation based on the body's physiological state. Using a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor (a technology that measures pulse and blood flow changes using light), the team detected pain-related stress states and, based on this, implemented a closed-loop (a method that automatically adjusts treatment while continuously checking the body's condition) therapy function that automatically triggers electrical stimulation.
The researchers evaluated the performance of the platform in both animal experiments and a small-scale human study. In animal experiments, current was delivered more effectively than with conventional gel electrodes, and pain-relieving effects were also confirmed. In a small-scale study involving healthy adults, changes in skin sensory pain thresholds (the level of stimulation at which pain begins to be felt) following electrical stimulation were observed to assess the potential for application in humans.
However, direct analgesic effects in this study were confirmed only through animal experiments. The research team noted that further clinical studies are needed to confirm therapeutic efficacy and the safety of long-term use in actual chronic pain patients.
Professor Jae-Woong Jeong from the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering said, "By combining a stable skin interface with IoT-based remote management, we have expanded the potential for wearable electroceuticals in daily life. We hope that, following future clinical validation, this approach can evolve into a personalized digital healthcare platform that enables pain management tailored to each patient's condition."
Dr. Sanghun Lee from the KIOM said, "We hope this research will be integrated with future wearable acupuncture technologies to contribute to the development of a new non-pharmacological pain management approach that stimulates acupoints through electrical stimulation."
The study, co-first-authored by Heesoo Kim, a PhD student at KAIST, and Dr. Se Kyun Bang from the KIOM, was published in the international journal Nature Communications on August 28th.
Paper title: Wireless IoT-Enabled Microneedle Electroceutical for Personalized and Connected Pain Management, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-76527-y
Author information: Heesoo Kim (KAIST, co-first author), Se Kyun Bang (KIOM/UST, co-first author), Sanghun Lee (KIOM, co-corresponding author), Jae-Woong Jeong (KAIST, corresponding author), and 10 others
Demonstration video: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/zrglys1t1c49l5u1xo08e/AJsbboH3sQMFag-6aO6sSSs?rlkey=dnux0jj80bdczws22u0dq7ugx&e=1&dl=0
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2022-NR067853, RS-2025-02218624, RS-2024-00335066), and by the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (KSN2511012 and KSN2511013).
2026.09.14 View 3363