-
Using Light to Deliver Drugs to the Brain
The cerebral blood vessels have a unique blood-brain barrier. Using this unique structure, Professor Choi Chul Hee (Department of Bio-Brain Engineering) developed a technique to deliver drugs safely to the brain using lasers to alter the diffusivity of the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier allows the entry of only those drugs related to metabolic functions which made the entry of other drugs difficult.
Due to this property it was difficult to administer the drug to a patient and have it affect the patient. Therefore the question was is it possible to maintain the effectiveness of the drug and allow it to pass through the barrier?
The conventional method was to actually alter the structure of the drug or drill of small hole in the head and administering the drug directly, but these methods proved to be high risk and expensive.
Professor Choi’s team used an ultra-short frequency laser beam on the barrier for 1/1000th of a second on the barrier to temporarily inhibit its function thereby allowing the drug to enter the brain safely.
2011.06.20 View 8415 -
Biomimetic Carbon Nanotube Fiber Synthesis Technology Developed
The byssus of the mussel allows it to live in harsh conditions where it is constantly battered by crashing waves by allowing the mussel to latch onto the seaside rocks. This particular characteristic of the mussel is due to the unique structure and high adhesiveness of the mussel’s byssus.
KAIST’s Professor Hong Soon Hyung (Department of Material Science and Engineering) and Professor Lee Hae Shin (Department of Chemistry) and the late Professor Park Tae Kwan (Department of Bio Engineering) were able to reproduce the mussel’s byssus using carbon nanotubes.
The carbon nanotube, since its discovery in 1991, was regarded as the next generation material due to its electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. However due to its short length of several nanometers, its industrial use was limited.
The KAIST research team referred to the structure of the byssus of the mussel to solve this problem.
The byssus is composed of collagen fibers and Mefp-1 protein which are in a cross-linking structure. The Mefp-1 protein has catecholamine that allows it to bind strongly with the collagen fiber.
In the artificial structure, the carbon nanotube took on the role of the collagen fibers and the macromolecular adhesive took on the role of the catecholamine. The result was a fiber that was ultra-light and ultra-strong.
The results of the experiment were published in the Advanced Materials magazine and is patent registered both domestically and internationally.
2011.06.20 View 11736
-
Yonhap News, Scientists Develop Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Supercapacitor, June 6, 2011
Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s wire news agency, reported that KAIST’s research team developed “a new type of power storage technology using nitrogen and graphene.”
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=591725
2011.06.08 View 8598
-
New Scientist: Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping, June 2, 2011
Researchers from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, KAIST, released their research results in Smart Materials and Structures on ways to “harness strange properties of turbulent airs.” They built a prototype that produces energy using a specific type of unstable airflow called “wake galloping.” New Scientist wrote an article about the paper, which appeared on June 2, 2011. For the article, please follow the link below.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.700-wind-power-harnesses-the-energy-of-galloping.html?full=true&print=true
2011.06.04 View 8050
-
The Atlantic, 10 Essential Books for Thought-Provoking Summer Reading, May 31, 2011
The Atlantic, a reputable monthly magazine published in the US, has released a list of summer reading that includes a cross-disciplinary selection of the 10 most interesting, though-provoking books to read. For the list and a brief introduction about each book, please visit the website below:
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/print/2011/05/10-essential-books-for-thought-provoking-summer-reading/239657/
2011.06.01 View 7673
-
Professor Choi Han Lim receives Automatica Applications Paper Price
Professor Choi Han Lim of the Department of Aerospace received ‘Automatica Applications Paper Prize’ for the first time ever for a Korean.
Professor Choi published a paper in the Automatica magazine with the topic of ‘Continuous Trajectory Planning of Mobile Sensors for Informative Forecasting’.
Professor Choi dealt with most efficient measuring methods for mobile sensor platforms thereby improving the performance of anticipating environmental changes and proposed key theories for problem solving and also an efficient algorithm.
The research was conducted in cooperation with MIT Department of Aerospace Professor Jonathan How with the support of the National Science Foundation.
Automatica
Journal published by the International Federation of Automatic Control and has been awarding the Automatica Paper Prize every three years.
2011.05.31 View 7768
-
Displaybank, KAIST Develops Flexible Display Metal Wiring Technology, May 27, 2011
On May 26, Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIST) announced that team of Prof. Yang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering developed flexible display metal wiring manufacturing-technology. For the article, please follow the link,
http://www.displaybank.com/eng/info/sread.php?id=5877
2011.05.31 View 8260
-
President Seo Nam Pyo receives DTU Gold Medal
President Seo Nam Pyo receives DTU Gold Medal on the 6th of May in the DTU Annual Commemoration Day Ceremony.
The DTU has recognized the achievements, innovative ideas, and great effort made by President Seo in heightening the world level of engineering education and his success in improving the status of science and technology of Korea.
The Technical University of Denmark was established in 1829 and is known as the best engineering university in Scandinavia and awards a gold medal annually to a person that is recognized for their accomplishment in the field of science and technology.
2011.05.31 View 7858
-
Professor Hwang Kyu Young Receives Outstanding Contributions Award from DASFAA
Professor Hwang Kyu Young received the 2011 Outstanding Contributions Award from the International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA).
Professor Hwang was the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Executive, etc. of the DASFAA Steering Committee for the past 12 years and has been leading the development in the field of database in the Asia/Pacific Region. He was also the editor in chief of The VLDB Journal which is the leading magazine in the field of database and the member of ACM SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation Award Committee, VLDB 10-year Best Paper Award Committee, and IEEE ICDE Influential Paper Awards Committee. He receives the Outstanding Contributions Award for ensuring high standards in world database research.
2011.05.31 View 8594
-
Research Conducted on the Development Policy of Medical Researchers in United States
The topic dealt in the paper was “The Vietnam War and Medical Research: Untold Legacy of the U.S. Doctor Draft and the NIH ‘Yellow Berets’” and basically deals how a Doctor Draft made a positive impact on improving the basic research of clinical medicine.
Professor Park received his Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and came to KAIST in 2007.
Summary of Dissertation
From the start of the Korean War in 1950 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 a large number of medical school graduates were drafted to the army. Of those drafted, 100 personnel were chosen annually to focus on researching in the National Institute of Health who developed into leaders of the field.
For example, those who worked as a researcher at the National Institute instead of their armed services were 1.5 times more likely to become a tenured professor, 2 times more likely to be promoted to Dean of the department, and 3 times more likely to be the Dean. In addition, 9 out of 50 Nobel Prize winners in fields of natural sciences between 1985 and 2007 were from the same pool of researchers, and 10 out of 76 recipients of National Medal of Science were also from the same pool of researchers.
They were named the ‘Yellow Berets’ like the special forces ‘Green Berets’ and made great contribution to the field in implementing and executing the bench to beside culture that involves development in laboratories to clinical testing.
Professor Park maintains that there has to be improvements made in current policies to encourage research work in medical graduate schools.
2011.05.31 View 10367
-
South Korean scientists use laser to inject drugs into brain by Bernama.com, May 26, 2011
Bernama.com, the Malaysian national news agency, reported on the recent development by a KAIST research team of a safe and cheap treatment method for various neurological diseases. For details, please follow the link:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=589195
2011.05.31 View 9168
-
Korea Times on Mobile Harbor, May 29, 2011
The Korea Times mentioned KAIST’s Mobile Harbor in its recent article entitled “Korea-UAE partnership making big strides” dated May 29, 2011. While talking about the ongoing partnership efforts being made between Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in many areas of industry, economy, and education, the paper picked the mobile harbor as an example of Korea’s green growth technology being developed by KAIST. For the article, please copy and paste the link.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/include/print.asp?newsIdx=87873
2011.05.30 View 9765