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Professor Jae Kyoung Kim Receives the 2017 HSFP Award
The Human Frontier Science Program (HSFP), one of the most competitive research grants in life sciences, has funded researchers worldwide across and beyond the field since 1990. Each year, the program selects a handful of recipients who push the envelope of basic research in biology to bring breakthroughs from novel approaches. Among its 7,000 recipients thus far, 26 scientists have received the Nobel Prize. For that reason, HSFP grants are often referred to as “Nobel Prize Grants.”
Professor Jae Kyoung Kim of the Mathematical Sciences Department at KAIST and his international collaborators, Professor Robert Havekes from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Professor Sara Aton from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the United States, and Professor Matias Zurbriggen from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, won the Young Investigator Grants of the 2017 HSFP.
The 30 winning teams of the 2017 competition (in 9 Young Investigator Grants and 21 Program Grants) went through a rigorous year-long review process from a total of 1,073 applications submitted from more than 60 countries around the world. Each winning team will receive financial support averaging 110,000-125,000 USD per year for three years.
Although Professor Kim was trained as a mathematician, he has extended his research focus into biological sciences and attempted to solve some of the most difficult problems in biology by employing mathematical theories and applications including nonlinear dynamics, stochastic process, singular perturbation, and parameter estimation.
The project that won the Young Investigator Grants was a study on how a molecular circadian clock may affect sleep-regulated neurophysiology in mammals. Physiological and metabolic processes such as sleep, blood pressure, and hormone secretion exhibit circadian rhythms in mammals. Professor Kim used mathematical modeling and analysis to explain that the mammalian circadian clock is a hierarchical system, in which the master clock in the superchiasmatic nucleus, a tiny region in the brain that controls circadian rhythms, functions as a pacemaker and synchronizer of peripheral clocks to generate coherent systematic rhythms throughout the body.
Professor Kim said, “The mechanisms of our neuronal and hormonal activities regulating many of our bodily functions over a 24-hour cycle are not yet fully known. We go to sleep every night, but do not really know how it affects our brain functions. I hope my experience in mathematics, along with insights from biologists, can find meaningful answers to some of today’s puzzling problems in biological sciences, for example, revealing the complexities of our brains and showing how they work.”
“In the meantime, I hope collaborations between the fields of mathematics and biology, as yet a rare phenomenon in the Korean scientific community, will become more popular in the near future.”
Professor Kim received his doctoral degree in Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics in 2013 from the University of Michigan and joined KAIST in 2015. He has published numerous articles in reputable science journals such as Science, Molecular Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature Communications.
Both the Program Grants and Young Investigator Grants support international teams with members from at least two countries for innovative and creative research. This year, the Program Grants were awarded to research topics ranging from the evolution of counting and the role of extracellular vesicles in breast cancer bone metastasis to the examination of obesity from a mechanobiological point of view.
The Young Investigator Grants are limited to teams that established their independent research within the last five years and received their doctoral degrees within the last decade. Besides Professor Kim’s study, such topics as the use of infrasound for navigation by seabirds and protein formation in photochemistry and photophysics were awarded in 2017.
Full lists of the 2017 HFSP winners are available at: http://www.hfsp.org/awardees/newly-awarded.
About the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP):
The HFSP is a research funding program implemented by the International Human Frontier Science Program (HFSPO) based in Strasbourg, France. It promotes intercontinental collaboration and training in cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research specializing in life sciences. Founded in 1989, the HFSPO consists of the European Union and 14 other countries including the G7 nations and South Korea.
2017.03.21 View 10261 -
A KAIST Alumnus Receives the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships
Dr. Je-Kyung Ryu, a graduate of the Physics Department at KAIST in 2014, received the 2017 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship.
Established in 1996, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships support young scientists in or outside Europe to help them grow as independent researchers. The recipients are recognized to have the highest potential to make a difference in science and technology and work on research and innovation.
Dr. Ryu is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Cees Dekker Lab in the Department of Bionanoscience at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands.
He was among six international researchers at TU Delft who were awarded this research grant.
The grant of 177,000 euros will be offered for two years from March 2017 to February 2019 to cover his salary and research expenses.
For a news article published by TU Delft on the award, please click below:
QN and BN Successfully Attract Young Scientific Talent
February 1, 2017
2017.02.22 View 6707 -
Dr. Sung-Chul Shin Selected 16th President of KAIST
(President Sung-Chul Shin)
The KAIST Board of Trustees elected Professor Sung-Chul Shin of the Department of Physics the 16th president of KAIST on February 21. Professor Shin succeeds President Sung-Mo Kang whose four-year term will end on February 23. He is the first KAIST alumnus to serve as its president.
The Board of Trustees announced, “We believe that Professor Shin’s scientific achievement, outstanding leadership, and clear vision will serve KAIST faculty, students, and staff very well. He will be the best person to help KAIST leap forward in the four years ahead.”
The newly-elected president said, “I am humbled and honored to have been elected to lead such a prestigious institute of Korea. Aiming to be one of the top ten global universities, KAIST will continue to innovate its systems.” Previously, Dr. Shin led the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) for six years as president since 2011.
Professor Shin joined the KAIST faculty in 1989. He graduated from Seoul National University and then earned his MS degree in condensed matter physics at KAIST in 1977. After earning his Ph.D. in material physics at Northwestern University in 1984, he worked at Eastman Kodak Research Labs as a senior research scientist for five years.
Before heading to DGIST, President Shin held key administrative positions at KAIST from the early 1990s including dean of planning, dean of the international office, and vice-dean of student affairs. During President Robert Laughlin’s tenure, the first foreign president at KAIST, he served as vice-president for two years from 2004. He also served on the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology of the Korean government as vice chairperson from 2015 to 2016.
A renowned scholar in the field of nanoscience, President Shin’s research focuses on the artificial synthesis and characterization of nonmagnetic materials, magnetic anisotropy, and magneto-optical phenomena. He leads the Laboratory for Nanospinics of Spintronic Materials at KAIST and has published in 290 journals while holding 37 patents.
A fellow in the American Physical Society (APS) since 2008, he was the president of the Korean Physical Society from 2011 to 2012. He has been on the editorial board of J. Magnetism and Magnetic Materials from 2009 and was the first Korean recipient of the Asian Union of Magnetics Societies (AUMS) Award, which recognizes outstanding scientists in the field of magnetics.
President Shin envisions making KAIST’s research and education more competitive through continuing innovation. His innovation efforts will extend to the five key areas of education, research, technology commercialization, globalization, and future planning.
Among his priorities, he emphasizes multidisciplinary studies and leadership training for students. He plans to focus on undeclared major courses for undergraduates to help them expand their experience and exposure to diverse disciplines. This approach will help create well-rounded engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs by enabling them to develop skills while leveraging a strong connection to the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
To better respond to Industry 4.0, which calls for convergence studies and collaborative work, he proposed establishing a ‘Convergence Innovation System’ by strategically selecting 10 flagship convergence research groups. In order to accelerate the technology commercialization and ecosystem of start-ups, he will strengthen entrepreneurship education, making it a prerequisite requirement for students. President Shin said he will spare no effort to incubate and spin-off ventures in which KAIST technology is being transferred. For globalization efforts, he plans to increase the ratio of foreign faculty from 9 percent to 15 percent, while doubling the current foreign student enrollment ratio of 5 percent. For future strategic innovation, he will implement a long-term innovation strategic plan dubbed ‘Vision 2031.’
2017.02.22 View 10996 -
KAISTian of the Year 2016: Professor Hee-Sung Park
Professor Hee-Sung Park of the Department of Chemistry has been named the KAISTian of 2016. President Sung-Mo Kang awarded him at the New Year ceremony on January 2, 2017.
The KAISTian of the Year recognizes the most outstanding professor whose research and scholarship made significant achievements for the year. The Selection Committee announced that Professor Park was chosen as the 16th awardee in recognition of his developing new methods to incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins.
Earning his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at KAIST in 2000, Professor Park has been a professor at KAIST since 2009. His research focuses on the production of synthetic proteins and the generation of diverse protein functions as well as the designing and engineering of new translation machinery for genetic code expansion, and the application of synthetic biology techniques for basic cell biology and applied medical science.
He developed a tool to engineer designer proteins via diverse chemical modifications, providing a novel platform for investigating numerous diseases such as cancer and dementia. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are constantly taking place during or after protein biosynthesis. PTMs play a vital role in expanding protein functional diversity and, as a result, critically affect numerous biological processes. Abnormal PTMs have been known to trigger various diseases including cancer and dementia. Therefore, this technology, that enables proteins to reproduce with specific modifications at selected residues, will significantly help establish experimental strategies to investigate fundamental biological mechanisms including the development of targeted cancer therapies.
Professor Park’s research results appeared in the September 28, 2016 edition of Science. For more on Professor Park's research, please visit:
http://kaistcompass.kaist.ac.kr/?issues=fall-2016&magazine=a-chemical-biology-route-to-site-specific-authentic-protein-modifications
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/09/28/science.aah4428
http://www.kaist.ac.kr/html/en/news/podcast.html (Podcast: Season 6 Episode 7: When good proteins go bad )
2017.01.10 View 8104 -
Nobel Laureate Dr. John Michael Kosterlitz Speaks at KAIST
KAIST’s Department of Physics will invite one of three co-recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016, Professor John Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University, on January 9, 2017, to speak about the exotic states of matter, which is entitled “Topological Defects and Phase Transitions.”
Professor Kosterlitz shares the Nobel award with two other researchers, David Thouless and Duncan Haldane. He is considered one of the pioneers in the field of topological phases. In the early 1970s, along with Thouless, he demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and explained the mechanism behind, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.
Over the last decade, topological materials and their applications have been widely studied with the hope of using them in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers. Details of the lecture follow below:
Distinguished Lecture Series by KAIST’s Physics Department
· Speaker: Professor John Michael Kosterlitz of the Physics Department,
Brown University
· Topic: “Topological Defects and Phase Transitions”
· Date: January 9, 2017, 4:00 PM
· Place: Lecture Hall (#1501), College of Natural Sciences (E6-2)
2017.01.06 View 7287 -
Dr. Ryu of KAIST Receives the S-Oil Outstanding Paper Award
Dr. Je-Kyung Ryu of KAIST’s Department of Physics has been awarded the S-Oil Outstanding Paper Award for his doctoral dissertation’s originality and applicability.
Professor Tae-Young Yoon of Physics is his doctoral advisor.
The award ceremony took place on November 25, 2015 at the Press Center in Seoul.
This S-Oil Outstanding Paper Award, jointly sponsored by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and the Scholastic University Presidential Association, was established to foster young talented scientists in basic science and to advance the field.
The award is given every other year for each of the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and earth sciences.
With the award, Dr. Ryu received a research grant of USD 8,600.
He discovered, for the first time in the world, how NSF (N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor), a protein involved in a vesicular transport in cellular activities, disassembles a SNARE (soluble NSF attachment protein receptor) complex, using a unimolecular biophysics method.
Unlike the existing studies, he proposed a model in which NSF disassembles SNARE complexes at one step, and as a result, provided evidence of how the SNARE complex influenced the fusion of biological membranes.
His research was published in the scientific journal Science issued on March 27, 2015. The title of the paper is “Spring-loaded Unraveling of a Single SNARE Complex by NSF in One Round of ATP Turnover.”
2015.11.27 View 9151 -
Professors Sukbok Chang and Jang-Wook Choi Receive the 2015 Knowledge Award from the Korean Government
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MISP) of the Republic of Korea announced the 2015 Knowledge Awards on October 20, 2015. Two KAIST professors received the award.
Established in 2009, the awards are presented to Korean scientists whose publications have contributed to the international science community. Specifically, the MISP used the two biggest science databases, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Scopus, to identify ten highly cited papers ranked in the top 1% by total citations in the past ten years.
Professor Sukbok Chang of Chemistry (left in the picture below) is a global authority in the field of catalytic hydrocarbon functionalization. His paper entitled “Palladium-catalyzed C-H Functionalization of Pyridine N-Oxides: Highly Selective Alkenylation and Direct Arylation with Unactivated Arenes,” which was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2008, was once selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the “Most Influential Research Papers of the Month.” In 2011, the American Chemical Society included his paper in the list of the top 20 research papers that were most frequently cited in the last three years.
Professor Jang-Wook Choi of the Graduate School of EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability) has been known for his leading research in rechargeable battery, supercapacitor, and materials chemistry. In particular, his work on secondary fuel cells attracted significant attention from academia and industry in Korea. Professor Choi developed a super-thin flexible lithium-ion battery this year, thinner than a credit card, which lasts longer than the existing batteries and with greater performance. He also developed new electrode materials for next-generation sodium-ion and magnesium secondary fuel cells.
Professor Sukbok Chang (left) and Professor Jang-Wook Choi (right)
2015.10.23 View 11672 -
Dr. Se-Jung Kim Receives the Grand Prize at the International Photo and Image Contest on Light
Dr. Se-Jung Kim of the Physics Department at KAIST received the Grand Prize at the 2015 Photo and Image Contest of the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies.
The United Nations has designated the year 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies.
The Optical Society of Korea celebrated the UN’s designation by hosting an international photo and image contest on the theme of light and optics related technology.
Dr. Kim presented a photo of images taken from a liquid crystal, which was entitled “A Micro Pinwheel.” She took pictures of liquid crystal images with a polarizing microscope and then colored the pictures. The liquid crystal has self-assembled circle domain structures, and each domain can form vortex optics. Her adviser for the project is Professor Yong-Hoon Cho of the Physics Department.
Her work was exhibited during the annual conference of the Optical Society of Korea, which was held on July 13-15, 2015 at Gyeong-Ju Hwabaek International Convention Center. It will also be exhibited at the National Science Museum in Gwacheon and the Kim Dae-Jung Convention Center in Gwangju.
Picture: A Micro Pinwheel
2015.07.31 View 9929 -
Professor Sangyong Jon Appointed Fellow of AIMBE
Professor Sangyong Jon of the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST has been appointed a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) fellowship.
Established in 1991, AIMBE is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2% of medical and biological engineers. AIMBE provides policy advice and advocacy for medical and biological engineering for the benefit of humanity. It has had about 1,500 fellows over the past 25 years. Among the members, only 110 are non-American nationalities.
Following the appointment of Dr. Hae-Bang Lee, the former senior researcher at the Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technology, and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST, Professor Jon is the third Korean to become an AIMBE fellow. He had an induction ceremony for the appointment of his fellowship at the AIMBE’s Annual Event held on March 15-17, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
An authority on nanomedicine, Professor Jon has developed many original technologies including multi-functional Theranostics nano particles for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. He received the Most Cited Paper Award from Theranostics, an academic journal specialized in nanomedicine, last February.
Additionally, Professor Jon is a leading researcher in the field of translational medicine, using a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative, “Bench to Bedside” approach for disease treatment and prevention. He created a biotechnology venture company and transferred research developments to the industry in Korea.
2015.03.12 View 12530 -
The Number of KAIST Doctoral Graduates to Reach Over Ten Thousands
The ten-thousandth doctoral graduate received her degree in the commencement ceremony on February 13, 2015.
KAIST has contributed to the development of science, technology, and industry in Korea by fostering talents in advanced science and engineering.
Since its establishment forty-four years ago, more than ten-thousand KAIST alumni have received their doctorates. This year’s graduation ceremony took place on February 13, 2015, at the Sports Complex on campus, awarding the ten-thousandth doctoral degree.
Dr. Sun-Mi Cho of the Department of Biological Sciences received the ten-thousandth doctoral degree. A graduate of Jeon-Nam Science High School, Dr. Cho also received her Bachelor of Science degree from KAIST.
Dr. Cho wrote a dissertation entitled “GABA from reactive astrocytes impairs learning and memory in Alzheimer disease.” Her dissertation adviser was Professor Daesoo Kim of the Department of Biological Sciences.
Dr. Cho, who will be a post-doctorate researcher at the Biological Sciences Department, said, “It was my childhood dream to receive a doctorate from KAIST. I cannot believe that I’m the ten-thousandth doctoral graduate, for which I’m very grateful.” She continued, “I hope to become a neuroscientist where I can be of help to the sick.”
In 1978, KAIST only had two doctoral graduates, but since 1987 there have been more than one hundred graduates each year, two hundred since 1994, and four hundred since 2000. In 2015, 522 doctoral students graduated.
One of the first doctoral graduates, Dong-Yol Yang (class of 1978 in the Mechanical Engineering Department), became a professor at the same department of KAIST. Professor Yang expressed his thoughts on the news, “There was a trend in Korea to go overseas for Ph.D. degrees in the early 1970s, but it changed when KAIST began to select candidates for Master’s degrees in 1973 and Doctoral degrees in 1975. Talented Korean students came to KAIST laboratories, and its graduates were known for their knowledge and skills. Now, we see that the talent is coming from overseas.”
At the 2015 Commencement, KAIST conferred 522 Doctoral, 1,241 Master’s, and 915 Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees.
Since its inception in 1971, KAIST has granted 10,403 doctor's, 26,402 master's, and 51,412 bachelor's degrees.
In the picture below, Professor Dong-Yol Yang (left) seats next to Dr. Sun-Mi Cho (right), the recipient of 10,000th doctoral degree.
2015.02.16 View 10226 -
Professor Eunjoon Kim Is KAIST's Person of the Year 2014
KAIST announced that it has named Chair Professor Eunjoon Kim of the Department of Biological Sciences as its “Person of the Year 2014.” The award ceremony took place at the auditorium on campus on January 5, 2014.
Established in 2001, the award has been presented to a KAIST faculty member who has made great achievements in research and education, thereby contributing to the advancement of KAIST.
Professor Kim was the first to identify the mechanism of synapse formation between neurons during his post-doctoral program at Harvard Medical School in 1995. The research was published in Nature.
In 2011, Professor Kim discovered that the lack of protein GIT1, a neuronal synapse in the brain, caused ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). He is widely recognized for his work concerning synapse proteins and brain disease related research that set the foundation for future medical developments.
In his award speech, Professor Kim said, “Whenever a research finding concerning a new drug therapy or research is published, I receive many inquiries from the parents of children with ADHD or autism. As a scientist, I would like to focus my research ultimately to help those in pain, rather than just pursuing research excellence or reputation.”
2015.01.06 View 10443 -
Professor Mikyoung Lim Receives the MediaV Young Researcher Award
Professor Mikyoung Lim of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at KAIST received the MediaV Young Researchers Award at the International Conference on Inverse Problems and Related Topics that took place at the National Taiwan University, Taiwan, on December 15-19, 2014.
The Conference established the MediaV Young Researcher Award in 2010 to recognize distinguished scholars who are age 40 or younger and have made important contributions to the field of inverse problems. This year, two recipients were chosen for the award.
Professor Lim has focused her research on the incremental reading of incomprehensible materials’ imaging and the effect of invisibility cloaking.
The other awardee was Kui Ren, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
2014.12.27 View 10937