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New Catalyst Recycles Greenhouse Gases into Fuel and Hydrogen Gas
< Professor Cafer T. Yavuz (left), PhD Candidate Youngdong Song (center), and Researcher Sreerangappa Ramesh (right) > Scientists have taken a major step toward a circular carbon economy by developing a long-lasting, economical catalyst that recycles greenhouse gases into ingredients that can be used in fuel, hydrogen gas, and other chemicals. The results could be revolutionary in the effort to reverse global warming, according to the researchers. The study was published on February 14 in Science. “We set out to develop an effective catalyst that can convert large amounts of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane without failure,” said Cafer T. Yavuz, paper author and associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of chemistry at KAIST. The catalyst, made from inexpensive and abundant nickel, magnesium, and molybdenum, initiates and speeds up the rate of reaction that converts carbon dioxide and methane into hydrogen gas. It can work efficiently for more than a month. This conversion is called ‘dry reforming’, where harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, are processed to produce more useful chemicals that could be refined for use in fuel, plastics, or even pharmaceuticals. It is an effective process, but it previously required rare and expensive metals such as platinum and rhodium to induce a brief and inefficient chemical reaction. Other researchers had previously proposed nickel as a more economical solution, but carbon byproducts would build up and the surface nanoparticles would bind together on the cheaper metal, fundamentally changing the composition and geometry of the catalyst and rendering it useless. “The difficulty arises from the lack of control on scores of active sites over the bulky catalysts surfaces because any refinement procedures attempted also change the nature of the catalyst itself,” Yavuz said. The researchers produced nickel-molybdenum nanoparticles under a reductive environment in the presence of a single crystalline magnesium oxide. As the ingredients were heated under reactive gas, the nanoparticles moved on the pristine crystal surface seeking anchoring points. The resulting activated catalyst sealed its own high-energy active sites and permanently fixed the location of the nanoparticles — meaning that the nickel-based catalyst will not have a carbon build up, nor will the surface particles bind to one another. “It took us almost a year to understand the underlying mechanism,” said first author Youngdong Song, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST. “Once we studied all the chemical events in detail, we were shocked.” The researchers dubbed the catalyst Nanocatalysts on Single Crystal Edges (NOSCE). The magnesium-oxide nanopowder comes from a finely structured form of magnesium oxide, where the molecules bind continuously to the edge. There are no breaks or defects in the surface, allowing for uniform and predictable reactions. “Our study solves a number of challenges the catalyst community faces,” Yavuz said. “We believe the NOSCE mechanism will improve other inefficient catalytic reactions and provide even further savings of greenhouse gas emissions.” This work was supported, in part, by the Saudi-Aramco-KAIST CO2 Management Center and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Other contributors include Ercan Ozdemir, Sreerangappa Ramesh, Aldiar Adishev, and Saravanan Subramanian, all of whom are affiliated with the Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability at KAIST; Aadesh Harale, Mohammed Albuali, Bandar Abdullah Fadhel, and Aqil Jamal, all of whom are with the Research and Development Center in Saudi Arabia; and Dohyun Moon and Sun Hee Choi, both of whom are with the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory in Korea. Ozdemir is also affiliated with the Institute of Nanotechnology at the Gebze Technical University in Turkey; Fadhel and Jamal are also affiliated with the Saudi-Armco-KAIST CO2 Management Center in Korea. <Newly developed catalyst that recycles greenhouse gases into ingredients that can be used in fuel, hydrogen gas and other chemicals.> Publication: Song et al. (2020) Dry reforming of methane by stable Ni–Mo nanocatalysts on single-crystalline MgO. Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6479, pp. 777-781. Available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aav2412 Profile: Prof. Cafer T. Yavuz, MA, PhD yavuz@kaist.ac.kr http://yavuz.kaist.ac.kr/ Associate Professor Oxide and Organic Nanomaterials for the Environment (ONE) Laboratory Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability (EEWS) Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) http://kaist.ac.kr Daejeon, Republic of Korea Profile: Youngdong Song ydsong88@kaist.ac.kr Ph.D. Candidate Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) http://kaist.ac.kr Daejeon, Republic of Korea (END)
2020.02.17
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Rachmaninoff the most innovative of 18th and 19th century composers according to network science
Rachmaninoff, followed by Bach, Brahms and Mendelssohn, was the most innovative of the composers who worked during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras of music (1700 to 1900) according to a study published in the open access journal EPJ Data Science. A team of researchers from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), calculated novelty scores for 900 classical piano compositions written by 19 composers between approximately 1700 and 1900. The scores were based on how musical compositions differed from all prior pieces of piano music and how they differed from previous piano works by the same composer. The authors found that composers from the Romantic era (1820 to 1910) tended to have high novelty scores. The authors from the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST created a computer model which divided each composition into segments called ‘codewords’. Each ‘codeword’ consisted of all of the notes played together at a given time. Sequences of ‘codewords’ were then compared between compositions. The similarities between the sequences were used to create novelty scores for each composer and to determine the extent to which composers influenced each other. Juyong Park, the corresponding author, said: “Our model allows us to calculate the degree of shared melodies and harmonies between past and future works and to observe the evolution of western musical styles by demonstrating how prominent composers may have influenced each other. The period of music we studied is widely credited for having produced many musical styles that are still influential today.” The model distinguished each new musical period from the one before it by the rise of newly dominant and highly influential composers that indicated dramatic shifts in musical styles. The authors found that compositions from the Classical period (1750 to 1820) tended to have the lowest novelty scores. During this period Haydn and Mozart were highly influential but were later overtaken by Beethoven during the Classical-to-Romantic transitional period. The most innovative composer, indicated by the highest combined novelty score, was Rachmaninoff. His work during the Romantic era was novel when compared to the compositions of the other 18 composers included in the study, and his later works were novel compared to his earlier works. Lower novelty did not necessarily correlate with low influence. Beethoven was ranked in the lower half of novelty scores yet was the most influential composer during the Romantic period (1820 to 1910) and is widely considered one of the greatest composers of all time. Dr. Park said: “While novelty is necessary in a creative work it cannot account for all the creative and artistic qualities that go into creating melodies and harmonies that spread to later generations of composers. That may be why being more novel did not necessarily result in composers being more influential.” The authors suggest that their method could be applied to narrative or visual artworks by creating codewords from groups of words or colours and shapes. However, they caution that as only piano compositions were included in their analysis, it is unknown whether including all works by the 19 composers would have resulted in another composer being identified as the most original. Profile: Prof. Juyong Park, PhD juyongp@kaist.ac.kr Graduate School of Culture Technology (CT) Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) https://www.kaist.ac.kr Daejeon 34141, Korea (END)
2020.01.31
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Enhanced Natural Gas Storage to Help Reduce Global Warming
< Professor Atilhan (left) and Professor Yavuz (right) > Researchers have designed plastic-based materials that can store natural gas more effectively. These new materials can not only make large-scale, cost-effective, and safe natural gas storage possible, but further hold a strong promise for combating global warming. Natural gas (predominantly methane) is a clean energy alternative. It is stored by compression, liquefaction, or adsorption. Among these, adsorbed natural gas (ANG) storage is a more efficient, cheaper, and safer alternative to conventional compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage approaches that have drawbacks such as low storage efficiency, high costs, and safety concerns. However, developing adsorptive materials that can more fully exploit the advantages of ANG storage has remained a challenging task. A KAIST research team led by Professor Cafer T. Yavuz from the Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability (EEWS), in collaboration with Professor Mert Atilhan’s group from Texas A&M University, synthesized 29 unique porous polymeric structures with inherent flexibility, and tested their methane gas uptake capacity at high pressures. These porous polymers had varying synthetic complexities, porosities, and morphologies, and the researchers subjected each porous polymer to pure methane gas under various conditions to study the ANG performances. Of these 29 distinct chemical structures, COP-150 was particularly noteworthy as it achieved a high deliverable gravimetric methane working capacity when cycled between 5 and 100 bar at 273 K, which is 98% of the total uptake capacity. This result surpassed the target set by the United States Department of Energy (US DOE). COP-150 is the first ever structure to fulfil both the gravimetric and volumetric requirements of the US DOE for successful vehicular use, and the total cost to produce the COP-150 adsorbent was only 1 USD per kilogram. COP-150 can be produced using freely available and easily accessible plastic materials, and moreover, its synthesis takes place at room temperature, open to the air, and no previous purification of the chemicals is required. The pressure-triggered flexible structure of COP-150 is also advantageous in terms of the total working capacity of deliverable methane for real applications. The research team believed that the increased pressure flexes the network structure of COP-150 showing “swelling” behavior, and suggested that the flexibility provides rapid desorption and thermal management, while the hydrophobicity and the nature of the covalently bonded framework allow these promising materials to tolerate harsh conditions. This swelling mechanism of expansion-contraction solves two other major issues, the team noted. Firstly, when using adsorbents based on such a mechanism, unsafe pressure spikes that may occur due to temperature swings can be eliminated. In addition, contamination can also be minimized, since the adsorbent remains contracted when no gas is stored. Professor Yavuz said, “We envision a whole host of new designs and mechanisms to be developed based on our concept. Since natural gas is a much cleaner fuel than coal and petroleum, new developments in this realm will help switching to the use of less polluting fuels.” Professor Atilhan agreed the most important impact of their research is on the environment. “Using natural gas more than coal and petroleum will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We believe, one day, we might see vehicles equipped with our materials that are run by a cleaner natural gas fuel,” he added. This study, reported in Nature Energy on July 8, was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants ( NRF-2016R1A2B4011027, NRF-2017M3A7B4042140, and NRF-2017M3A7B4042235). < Suggested chemical structure of COP-150 > < Initial ingredients (left) and final product (right) of COP-150 synthesis > < Comparison of highest reported volumetric working capacities > (END)
2019.08.09
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KAIST-THE Innovation & Impact Summit Touts New Roles of Higher Education
Global leaders from 115 institutions across 35 countries reaffirmed that the roles of universities are evolving to become much broader and more diverse, and redefined the impact of higher education last week at KAIST. During the THE Innovation and Impact Summit hosted by KAIST in partnership with the Times Higher Education, global leaders in higher education, industry, and government all agreed that universities should respond better in order to have a lasting and sustainable impact on society. In an effort to encourage social responsibility and boost the impact of universities, the THE first launched the University Impact Rankings based on the Sustainable Developed Goals declared during the 2015 UN summit. The THE’s University Impact Rankings are the first global attempt to evaluate universities’ impact on society, rather than only focusing on research and teaching performance. The new metrics include universities’ policies and outcomes based on 11 of the 17 UN SDGs. More than 500 institutions from 75 countries submitted data for the new rankings. The top three scores from ten of the SDGs were combined with SDG 17 to calculate the final score. The University of Auckland placed first in this new ranking while KAIST ranked fourth in the category of SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. President Shin said, “KAIST has dedicated itself to producing knowledge that could serve as a growth engine for national development over the past half century. Now, taking on the UN’s 17 SDGs as new indicators, we will do our utmost to become a leading university in creating global value and better serving the world.” (Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer of THE) Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at THE said, “I would like to applaud KAIST for being a pioneer, taking a new way of looking at university excellence. KAIST’s performance was strong overall, but especially outstanding in SDG 9. Its data proves that the university is fully engaged in knowledge creation and entrepreneur activities.” Keynote speakers all shared their views on disruptive knowledge and how to adjust to the new AI technology-driven, socio-economic culture. (from left: Lino Guzzella, former ETH Zurich President and Sung-Chul Shin, KAIST President) Lino Guzzella, former ETH Zurich President, argued in his keynote speech that there has been amazing growth in university enrollments, coupled with a substantial mismatch between what universities teach and what society needs. He went on to say that universities should look beyond the classical university model and find a way to train the next generation in a way that ensures society has a role for them. “The likelihood of each generation having a higher income at the age of 30 than their parents has diminished dramatically,” he said. He provided data that showed that middle-income professions have been declining, and between 2000 and 2010 the number of very high-skilled jobs and very low-skilled jobs doubled, whereas the number of those in the middle increased far more slowly. He expected that this trend will continue, saying that universities should focus on instilling critical thinking, interdisciplinary studies, and ‘productive failure’ to students in the new era. He also shared the secret recipe for the reduced youth unemployment statistics in Switzerland. He said that the education system in Switzerland was designed so that only 20 percent of an age cohort undertakes a classical university education, while 80 percent do vocational training run by companies. They learn what is really needed by industry and society from the early stages of their careers, so no mismatch exists. (Young Suk Chi, chairman of Elsevier) Meanwhile, Young Suk Chi, chairman of Elsevier, claimed in his keynote speech that universities should stop evaluating researchers only on their publication and citation counts. He said that doing so was driving academics to turn out multiple papers based on a single study in a practice called ‘salami publishing.’ Chi said, “It’s a responsibility we bear together, and we certainly, as industry associates, have to work hard to educate the world that publishing isn’t everything, but the impact is. But the impact is not just citations, either.” Chi said that there is a global ‘tech-lash’ that has arisen due to falling trust in major IT companies. On the other hand, universities are trustworthy. People perceive that universities are not merely seeking profits, and they can take advantage of it for fostering next generation researchers and CEOs, which can stand for ‘Chief Ethics Officers’. “Universities are collaborative,” said Chi. Universities’ research will flourish with more collaboration at a global scale. Collaborative research shows higher citation and impact rates. Instead of competing against one another, universities and industries should collaborate for advancing research. He argued further saying, “If they can uphold this reputation, universities, not companies, will be the institutions that people trust to influence and educate the next generation. Universities, in contrast to industry, have long-term vision, can facilitate collaborative research, and are trustworthy.” (President Joseph Aoun, Northeastern University) In the last day’s keynote speech, President Joseph Aoun of Northeastern University said that higher education risks becoming obsolete if it does not fully embrace lifelong learning. He also talked about preparing learners to succeed in the AI age. He said that lifelong learners made up 74 percent of learners in the US, and only 34 percent of universities in the country fill their seats, but higher education has not yet incorporated lifelong learning as part of its core mission. He said that lifelong learning is going to require that we listen to the needs of society, of both individuals and organizations. He also called for institutions to create curricula based on what he termed ‘humanics’ – the integration of technological literacy, data literacy, and human literacy, and said that this should be combined with experiential learning. (from left: So Young Kim, Guohua Chen, Aqil Jamal, Mooyoung Jung and Max Lu) (from left: Hubo and Duncan Ross, chief data officer of THE)
2019.04.09
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New Catalyst for Synthesizing Chiral Molecules Selectively
(from left: Dr. Yoonsu Park and Professor Sukbok Chang from the Department of Chemistry) Molecules in nature often have “twin” molecules that look identical. In particular, the twin molecules that look like mirror images to each other are called enantiomers. However, even though they have the same type and number of elements, these twin molecules exhibit completely different properties. Professor Sukbok Chang and Dr. Yoonsu Park from the Department of Chemistry developed a new catalyst capable of selectively synthesizing only one of the two enantiomers. Using this catalyst, the have succeeded in manufacturing the chiral lactam, an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, from a hydrocarbon compound. Enantiomerism or chirality is considered very important for drug development. Biomaterials, such as DNAs and proteins also have chiral properties, but they exhibit different physiological activities depending on the types of drugs. One type of the enantiomer could be useful while the other is toxic. Hence, the technology for selective synthesizing (i.e. asymmetric synthesis) is required, but it is still regarded as a great challenge faced by modern chemistry to date. The researchers solved this problem by developing a new catalyst. Earlier they presented their research on developing an iridium catalyst that converts hydrocarbons into high value γ-lactam compounds, and published it in Science in March 2018. However, the developed catalyst still had a limitation that both types of enantiomers are obtained without selectivity. In this study, they found that among dozens of other catalyst candidates, iridium catalysts with chiral diamine scaffolds were able to select the correct enantiomer with a selectivity of 99% or more. This novel catalyst can be used to synthesize the various chiral γ-lactam as required. A left-handed γ-lactam and a right-handed γ-lactam can be produced using a left-handed iridium catalyst and a right-handed iridium catalyst, respectively. They analyzed the reason for the high selectivity through computational chemistry simulations. They identified that temporal hydrogen bonding occurred between the chiral diamine catalysts and the hydrocarbon compound during the reaction. As a result of the hydrogen bonding, the formation of the left-handed lactam was boosted. With their new catalyst, they also succeeded in synthesizing chiral lactam compounds with different structures. By using inexpensive and readily available feedstock hydrocarbons, the researchers produced a group of chiral lactams in different shapes. As their chirality and diverse structures enable lactams to function as an active compound in the body for antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, or anti-tumoral functions, this study may facilitate the development of potential drugs in a more efficient and cheaper way. Professor Chang said, “We hope that our research on selectively producing core units of effective drugs will lead to developing new drugs that demonstrate fewer side-effects and higher efficacy. There are also economic advantages of this research because it uses hydrocarbon compounds, which can be abundantly found in nature, to produce high-value raw materials. This research was published in Nature Catalysis(10.1038/s41929-019-0230-x) on February 19, 2019. Figure 1. Asymmetric formation of chiral γ-lactam Figure 2. Outline of research outcome
2019.03.05
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President Shin Speaks on Closing the Skills Gap at the WEF
(President Shin poses (far right) with the National University of Singapore President Tan Eng Chye (center) along with Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee in Davos last week.) President Sung-Chul Shin shared his ideas on how reskilling is a critical element of growth, dynamism, and competitiveness for countries during a session titled “Closing the Skills Gap: Creating a Reskilling Revolution” at the World Economic Forum on January 24 in Davos. While discussing a reskilling imperative alongside French Labor Minister Muriel Penicaud, he presented how the Korean government and KAIST are responding to the socio-economic transformation of workforces in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. After their presentation, Minister of Economy and Enterprise of Spain Nadia Calvirno Santamaria, Minister of Commerce and Industry of Oman Ali bin Masoud bin Ali Al Sunaidy, and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development, and Entrepreneurship of India Dharmendra Pradhan shared their views on the course of decision making regarding the proactive practices and policies they have applied for closing the gaps from their countries’ perspectives. President Shin presented how to upskill and reskill SMEs and startups, the real players who will jumpstart the economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He explained that the government is striving to change the existing structure of the economy, which is dominated by a few giant conglomerates. He added that the Korean government is trying to support SMEs and startups in terms of both funding and technology reskilling in order to rejuvenate the economy. To better align itself with the government’s efforts, KAIST has introduced SME 4.0. SME 4.0 proposes to innovate the production process through the creation of a partnered platform between KAIST and SMEs across the country. With this platform, KAIST assists local SMEs for standardizing and systemizing all their processes of production, delivery, and management with enterprise resources planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES). In addition, SME 4.0 offers retraining and re-tooling programs by linking the data generated through this platform in real time to better facilitate SMEs’ smart business. (President Shin shakes hands with H.E.Mohammed Al-Tuwairi, Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia before holding a bilaterla meeting in Davos.) President Shin also explained about upskilling the leading corporations’ technological competitiveness, partnering with major leading corporations for upskilling their advanced technologies. He also held a series of bilateral meetings with dignitaries attending the WEF annual meeting to discuss partnerships and collaborations. He also attended the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF), a community composed of 28 presidents from the world’s top universities on January 23. President Shin, who is on the advisory board of the Center for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), also participated in the board meeting and discussed the upcoming launching of the Korea C4IR, which will open at KAIST in March.
2019.01.28
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Technology to Control Near-Field Thermal Radiation
(from left clockwise: Professor Seung Seob Lee, Professor Bong Jae Lee, PhD Mikyung Lim and PhD candidate Jaeman Song) A KAIST research team succeeded in measuring and controlling the near-field thermal radiation between metallo-dielectric (MD) multilayer structures. Their thermal radiation control technology can be applied to next-generation semiconductor packaging, thermophotovoltaic cells and thermal management systems. It also has the potential to be applied to a sustainable energy source for IoT sensors. In the nanoscale gaps, thermal radiation between objects increases greatly with closer distances. The amount of heat transfer in this scale was found to be from 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the blackbody radiation heat transfer, which was once considered the theoretical maximum for the rate of thermal radiation. This phenomenon is called near-field thermal radiation. With recent developments in nanotechnology, research into near-field thermal radiation between various materials has been actively carried out. Surface polariton coupling generated from nanostructures has been of particular interest because it enhances the amount of near-field thermal radiation between two objects, and allows the spectral control of near-field thermal radiation. This advantage has motivated much of the recent theoretical research on the application of near-field thermal radiation using nanostructures, such as thin films, multilayer nanostructures, and nanowires. Nevertheless, thus far, most of the studies have focused on measuring near-field thermal radiation between isotropic materials. A joint team led by Professor Bong Jae Lee and Professor Seung Seob Lee from the Department of Mechanical Engineering succeeded in measuring near-field thermal radiation according to the vacuum distance between MD multilayer nanostructures by using a custom MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems)-device-integrated platform with three-axis nanopositioner. MD multilayer nanostructures refer to structures in which metal and dielectric layers with regular thickness alternate. The MD single-layer pair is referred to as a unit cell, and the ratio of the thickness occupied by the metal layer in the unit cell is called the fill factor. By measuring the near-field thermal radiation with a varying number of unit cells and the fill factor of the multilayer nanostructures, the team demonstrated that the surface plasmon polariton coupling enhances near-field thermal radiation greatly, and allows spectral control over the heat transfer. Professor B. J. Lee said, “The isotropic materials that have so far been studied experimentally had limited spectral control over the near-field thermal radiation. Our near-field thermal radiation control technology using multilayer nanostructures is expected to become the first step toward developing various near-field thermal radiation applications.” This research, led by PhD Mikyung Lim and PhD candidate Jaeman Song, was published in Nature Communications on October 16. Figure 1. Experimental setup for measuring near-field thermal radiation between MD multilayers Figure 2. Investigation of manipulated near-field heat flux by modifying the surface conditions with MD multilayers
2019.01.04
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Skin Hardness to Estimate Better Human Thermal Status
(Professor Young-Ho Cho and Researcher Sunghyun Yoon) Under the same temperature and humidity, human thermal status may vary due to individual body constitution and climatic environment. A KAIST research team previously developed a wearable sweat rate sensor for human thermal comfort monitoring. Furthering the development, this time they proposed skin hardness as an additional, independent physiological sign to estimate human thermal status more accurately. This novel approach can be applied to developing systems incorporating human-machine interaction, which requires accurate information about human thermal status. Professor Young-Ho Cho and his team from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering had previously studied skin temperature and sweat rate to determine human thermal comfort, and developed a watch-type sweat rate sensor that accurately and steadily detects thermal comfort last February (title: Wearable Sweat Rate Sensors for Human Thermal Comfort Monitoring ). However, skin temperature and sweat rate are still not enough to estimate exact human thermal comfort. Hence, an additional indicator is required for enhancing the accuracy and reliability of the estimation and the team selected skin hardness. When people feel hot or cold, arrector pili muscles connected to hair follicles contract and expand, and skin hardness comes from this contraction and relaxation of the muscles. Based on the phenomenon of changing skin hardness, the team proposed skin hardness as a new indicator for measuring human thermal sensation. With this new estimation model using three physiological signs for estimating human thermal status, the team conducted human experiments and verified that skin hardness is effective and independent from the two conventional physiological signs. Adding skin hardness to the conventional model can reduce errors by 23.5%, which makes its estimation more reliable. The team will develop a sensor that detects skin hardness and applies it to cognitive air-conditioning and heating systems that better interact with humans than existing systems. Professor Cho said, “Introducing this new indicator, skin hardness, elevates the reliability of measuring human thermal comfort regardless of individual body constitution and climatic environment. Based on this method, we can develop a personalized air conditioning and heating system that will allow affective interaction between humans and machines by sharing both physical and mental health conditions and emotions.” This research, led by researchers Sunghyun Yoon and Jai Kyoung Sim, was published in Scientific Reports, Vol.8, Article No.12027 on August 13, 2018. (pp.1-6) Figure 1. Measuring human thermal status through skin hardness Figure 2. The instrument used for measuring human thermal status through skin hardness
2018.10.17
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Enhanced PDT to Cure Cancer with Fewer Side Effects
(From left: PhD candidate Ilkoo Noh and Professor Yeu-Chun Kim) A KAIST research team developed near-infrared fluorophores-based photodynamic therapy (PDT) that reduced the downside of existing PDTs. PDT is a way to cure wounds with lasers instead of drug treatment. When a laser irradiates a targeted site, a photosensitizer (PS) absorbs light energy and then converts oxygen to singlet oxygen or free radicals, leading to programmed cell death. This treatment has been used widely in clinical fields, especially for skin disease because it allows noninvasive treatment. However, the existing PDTs have limitations for first-line therapy because PDT agents can cause genetic variations when they have low efficiency, hence reducing treatment effects. The key to enhancing the efficiency of PDTs is how much PS can be concentrated to a wanted site, which laser wavelength the PS is reacted to, and how fast the PS clears organelle after treatment. Professor Yeu-Chun Kim and his team from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Ji-Ho Park from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, developed a new PS called mitochondria targeting photodynamic therapeutic agent (MitDt) to maximize PDT effects while reducing unwanted side effects. Mitochondria has emerged as target sites to maximize the effects of PS since they play essential roles in metabolism and have high transmembrane potential. According to the team, when mitochondria is photodamaged by reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated after laser irradiation, they immediately lose their mitochondrial membrane potential and initiate apoptosis. Therefore, combining the PDT agent with the mitochondrial targeting agent can result in rapid damage to cancer cells, improving therapeutic efficacy and reducing unwanted side effects. To successfully apply mitochondria-targeting PS, the team developed near-infrared (NIR) region PDT agents, which can be used to treat deep-tissue level cancer due to the permeability of the NIR laser. Light scattering is also decreased, thus obtaining higher therapeutic efficacy. However, there is a problem of generating singlet oxygen when irradiating with an NIR laser. To address this issue, the team developed a novel PS that combines a functionalized NIR dye and a mitochondria-targeting agent to gain the benefit of rapid organelle clearance after treatment and also remain in cancer mitochondria for a long time, amplifying the amount of ROS to the target sites irradiated by the laser. To verify the efficacy, the team injected MitDt into tumor-bearing mice. They were irradiated with an NIR laser at 662 nm to induce cancer treatment and their cancer size was reduced up to three-fold. PhD candidate Ilkoo Noh, who led this research said, “This enhanced photodynamic cancer treatment has the advantage of treating a wanted site without any side effects because this PS stays longer in a mitochondrial cancer cell. We also confirmed that the PS did not cause cytotoxicity.” Professor Kim added, “This research outcome will reduce the danger of side effects and can be applied for treating various diseases”. This research was chosen as the cover page of Advanced Science on March 25. Figure 1. The cover of Advanced Science Figure 2. a) Chemical structure of MitDt compounds (above) b) mitochondria localization of designed PS (left) and ROS generation after 662nm laser irradiation (right)
2018.07.16
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Professor Hee-Sung Park Named Scientist of May
(Professor Hee-Sung Park) Professor Hee-Sung Park from the Department of Chemistry was named ‘Scientist of May’ sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Professor Park was honored in recognition of his developing a tool to engineer designer proteins via diverse chemical modifications. This approach provides a novel platform for investigating numerous diseases such as cancer and dementia. 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. 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 enables proteins to reproduce with specific modifications at selected residues and will significantly help establish experimental strategies to investigate fundamental biological mechanisms including the development of targeted cancer therapies. Professor Park also received 10 million KRW in prize money.
2018.05.04
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Escalation of Competition Leads to Conflict in Competitive Networks of F1 Drivers
(Professor Wonjae Lee at the Graduate School of Culture Technology) A new study has revealed that people with similar social status in similar age groups are more likely to clash with each other. This rivalry could likely lead to taking more risks in fair weather conditions. Competition, while is often seen as beneficial, can escalate into destructive conflict. This occurs, for instance, when athletes sabotage each other or when rival executives get caught up in a career-derailing fight. These escalations, which lead to conflict, are especially likely among similar-status competitors, who are fraught with discordant understandings of who is superior to whom. A research team of KAIST, the US Treasury, INSEAD, and the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) examined the link between status similarity and conflict as well as the conditions under which this link holds by using panel data on Formula 1 races from 1970 through 2014. For the study, the research team analyzed a total of 506 collision cases by 355 F1 drivers over 45 years. The team found that similar-status F1 drivers are more prone to collide, especially when they are age-similar, performing well, and feeling safe. When these boundary conditions are met, structural equivalence likely triggers antagonism among interactants. This research deepens the understanding of when violent conflict emerges and when prevention efforts are called for. Professor Lee from the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST said, “People are not sure about their identity when facing competitors of a similar status. People tend to confirm their own stature by beating an opponent.” The team investigated the factors that escalate competition into dangerous conflict. Recently, sociological theorizing claims that such escalations are particularly likely in pairs of structurally equivalent actors who have the same relations with the same third parties. Using the F1 data, the research team modeled the probability that two drivers would collide on a racetrack as a function of their structural equivalence in a dynamic network of competitive relationships. Professor Lee added, “We fully understand that the drivers who ranked first and second are likely to have more conflict because they meet more frequently and know each other well. We also regulated all those conditions and confirmed that our hypothesis worked right throughout the data analysis.” Professor Lee, who wrote his doctoral thesis on tennis tournaments for identifying the ideal organizational structure, said that sports tournaments would be best optimized for comprehending the nature of organizational structures. Tournaments, even those with rankings based on objective criteria, are in fact intensely social. However, most prior empirical work in this area has relied only on official information on competitors’ performance, thus failing to capture the important elements of past competitive encounters. “It is not so easy to obtain data on rivalries and conflicts inside an organization. However, in sports, the performances of athletes are all recorded and the data can be utilized as a very objective methodology for understanding social relations and their structural affects. Official positions in tournaments, although clearly informative, can also be reductionist –excluding the emotionally salient features of competitors’ histories and forcing competitors together on a scalar metric, even when the competitors themselves do not see each other as comparable. The results from sample-split models are important for social networking research, which has paid scant attention to the contextual conditions in which structural equivalence is most consequential for social action – especially hostile social actions. The study suggests that new work will benefit from examining how demographic overlap, network stability, and perceived costs of conflict “activate” a structurally equivalent relationship to the point that it is not only salient but also conducive to conflict. Professor Lee said, “Sociology mainly investigates the positive results of social success and collaboration. This study shows that any violent activities, including homicide, also have something to do with organizational and social structural equivalence.” This study was co-led by Professor Matthew Bothner from ESMT in Germany, Professor Henning Piezunk from INSEAD in France, and Dr. Richard Haynes from the US Treasury and was featured at the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA) in March. (Figure: Drivers' competitive network and collisions. Nodes are drivers. Nodes enricled in black are labeled by name. Edges denote joint competition in at least one race. Red edges connecting indicate that the two drivers collided at least once. Using Fruchtermna-Reingold, nodes are generally proximte to the extendt that their average structural equivalence (over all races, from 1970 to 2014) is high.)
2018.04.24
View 6425
KAIST to Host FinTech Conference 2018
KAIST will be hosting a FinTech Conference with Princeton University (USA), Tsinghua University (China), and EDHEC Business School (France) in Seoul from April 12 to 13 titled State of the Art in Robo-Advising Systems: Financial Technologies for Enhanced Social Security. The Bendhein Center for Finance and Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University, Fintech Lab from Tsinghua University, and the Risk Institute from EDHEC will participate as co-hosting organizations in this conference organized by the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and the KAIST Center for Wealth Management Technologies. The conference will discuss issues required for providing customized asset management to the public in terms of theory, technology, and industry. During the conference, KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Chairman and CEO of the National Pension Service Sung Joo Kim will deliver welcoming addresses. Professor John Mulvey from Princeton University, Professor Michael Dempster from Cambridge University, Professors Wei Xu and Changle Lin from Tsinghua University, Professor Lionel Martellini from EDHEC, and Professor Woo Chang Kim from KAIST are some of the invited speakers at the event. Moreover, renowned experts in related fields will also participate in the conference, including Founder of Vanguard Group John Bogle, Jin Lee from Ant Financial, Youngsuh Cho from Shinhan Financial Group, Jung-Hwan Lee from Samsung Asset Management, and Hye Young Sung from the National Pension Service Research Institute. Professor Kim said, “Only a small number of wealthy people can receive life-cycle customized asset management services due to the high cost structure; however, new technology derived from the Fourth Industrial Revolution can reduce the service price in an innovative manner, ultimately leading it to be popularized.” “In an era with the poverty rate of older people reaching almost 50%.Fintech can enable individuals to manage their assets in an active manner, reinforcing social security without additional social costs in the period,” he added. These four universities have been hosting the FinTech Conference since 2017. China will host the conference this fall, followed by France next year. Samsung Asset Management, Alibaba Group, and Ant Financial will sponsor the conference. Anyone interested in this event can find more details at http://wmt.kaist.ac.kr/conference.html.
2018.04.02
View 6458
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