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Distinguished Professor Koh Donates His Ho-Am Prize Money
(From left: Distinguished Professor Gou Young Koh and KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin)
Distinguished Professor Gou Young Koh from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering donated one hundred million KRW to KAIST that he received for winning the Ho-Am Prize.
Professor Koh, who is widely renowned for angiogenesis, was appointed as the 2018 laureate of the 28th Ho-Am Prize for demonstrating the effective reduction of tumor progression and metastasis via tumor vessel normalization.
He made the donation to the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, where he conducted his research. “As a basic medical scientist, it is my great honor to receive this prize for the recognition of my research outcome. I will give impetus to research for continuous development,” Professor Koh said.
Professor Koh also received the 5th Asan Award in Medicine in 2012 and the 7th Kyung-Ahm Award in 2011. He was also the awardee of the 17th Wunsch Medical Award. He has donated cash prizes to the school every time he is awarded.
KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin said, “I would like to express my gratitude to the professor for his generous donation to the school. It will be a great help fostering outstanding medical scientists.
Professor Koh received his MD-PhD from the Medical School of Chonbuk National University. After finishing his post-doctoral program at Cornell University and Indiana State University, he was appointed as a professor at Chonbuk National University and POSTECH. Currently, he holds the position of distinguished professor at KAIST and director of the IBS Center for Vascular Research.
2018.06.20 View 5802 -
KAIST Team Reaching Out with Appropriate Technology
(The gold prize winning team of KATT)
The KAIST Appropriate Technology Team (KATT) consisting of international students at KAIST won the gold and silver prizes at ‘The 10th Creative Design Competition for the Other 90 Percent.’
More than 218 students from 50 teams nationwide participated in the competition hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT last month.
The competition was created to discover appropriate technology and sustainable design items to enhance the quality of life for those with no or few accessible technologies.
A team led by Juan Luis Gonzalez Bello, graduate student from the School of Electrical Engineering received the gold prize for presenting a prosthetic arm. Their artificial arm was highly recognized for its affordability and good manageability. The team said that it cost less than 10 US dollars to construct from materials available in underprivileged regions and was easy to assemble.
Sophomore Hutomo Calvin from the Department of Materials Science & Engineering also worked on the prosthetic arm project with freshmen Bella Godiva, Stephanie Tan, and Koptieuov Yearbola.
Alexandra Tran, senior from the School of Electrical Engineering led the silver prize winning team. Her team developed a portable weather monitor, ‘Breathe Easy’. She worked with Alisher Tortay, senior from the School of Computing, Ashar Alam, senior from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bereket Eshete, junior from the School of Computing, and Marthens Hakzimana, sophomore from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
This weather monitor is a low-cost but efficient air quality monitor. The team said it just cost less than seven US dollars to construct the monitor.KAIST students have now won the gold prize for two consecutive years.
2018.06.19 View 11085 -
Czech Technology Mission with KAIST
Members of the Czech research community visited KAIST to discuss medium to long-term cooperation with KAIST. This visit was hosted by the Fourth Industrial Revolution Intelligence Center (FIRIC).
The community is comprised of people from Czech enterprises and academic institutes that are leading core technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the fields of AI, robotics, and biotechnology. They had a chance to meet KAIST professors and visit research labs.
Professor Il-Doo Kim from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Seongsu Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Hyun Uk Kim from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering attended the meeting, which took place in the Mechatronics, Systems, and Control Lab under the Vice President for Planning and Budget Soo Hyun Kim and Professor Kyung Soo Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Professor Petr Novák from the Technical University of Ostrava said, “It was a meaningful meeting to help understand research trends on industrial robots in Korea.” Professor So Young Kim from FIRIC said, “The Czech research community is strong in basic research where KAIST has outstanding source technology. I hope this visit will open up a path for medium to long-term cooperation on sharing research and technology know-how between the Czech research community and KAIST.”
2018.06.07 View 6833 -
The Center for Anthropocene Studies (CAS) Opens
KAIST will start Anthropocene research, a convergence field of study, to address issues related to the commencement of human activities that have had scientific, industrial, and economic impacts on the Earth’s ecosystem. The National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea endorsed the KAIST Center for Anthropocene Studies as its Convergence Research Center project.
Anthropocene refers to a new geological age in which various polluting materials that humans have made during the post-industrial revolution era have made a significant impact on the Earth and the lives of humankind. The studies expand the diverse socio-economic and environmental sectors for responding to climate change, natural disasters, ecological destruction, the polarization of the inequality and wealth, and many others.
The KAIST research group at the center, in collaboration with the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, the Graduate School of Culture Technology, the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, the Department of Industrial Design, the School of Electrical Engineering, the Satellite Technology Research Center (SaRTec), and the KAIST Initiative for Disaster Studies will conduct multidisciplinary research to address intriguing challenges with complex but creative approaches incorporating the fields of engineering, socioeconomics, and art.
The group will investigate topics such as▲ surface and marine changes to the Earth by applying satellite data ▲disaster prediction and governance system building through AI modeling ▲sustainable housing, transportation, and lifestyles ▲ engineering and artistic approaches for envisioning a new future for humankind and the Earth.
Professor Buhm Soon Park, who is in charge of the center, said, “This pioneering research work will inspire the re-creation of a new paradigm of convergence studies in science, engineering, humanities, and social science. We will contribute to making the world better by designing new technologies and social policies.
2018.06.05 View 11944 -
Professor YongKeun Park Wins the 2018 Fumio Okano Award
(Professor Park)
Professor YongKeun Park from the Department of Physics won the 2018 Fumio Okano Award in recognition of his contributions to 3D display technology development during the annual conference of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) held last month in Orlando, Florida in the US.
The Fumio Okano Best 3D Paper Prize is presented annually in memory of Dr. Fumio Okano, a pioneer and innovator of 3D displays who passed away in 2013, for his contributions to the field of 3D TVs and displays. The award is sponsored by NHK-ES.
Professor Park and his team are developing novel technology for measuring and visualizing 3D images by applying random light scattering. He has published numerous papers on 3D holographic camera technology and 3000x enhanced performance of 3D holographic displays in renowned international journals such as Nature Photonics, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. His technology has drawn international attention from renowned media outlets including Newsweek and Forbes.
He has established two startups to commercialize his technology. Tomocube specializes in 3D imaging microscopes using holotomographic technology and the company exports their products to several countries including the US and Japan. The.Wave.Talk is exploring technology for examining pre-existing bacteria anywhere and anytime.
Professor Park’s innovations have already been recognized in and out of KAIST. In February, he was selected as the KAISTian of the Year for his outstanding research, commercialization, and startups. He was also decorated with the National Science Award in April by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Hong Jin-Ki Innovation Award later in May by the Yumin Cultural Foundation.
Professor Park said, “3D holography is emerging as a significant technology with growing potential and positive impacts on our daily lives. However, the current technology lags far behind the levels displayed in SF movies. We will do our utmost to reach this level with more commercialization."
2018.05.31 View 10772 -
2018 KAIST Research Day Honors Outstanding Research Achievements
(KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Professor Jong-Hwan Kim) Professor Jong-Hwan Kim from the School of Electrical Engineering was recognized at the 2018 KAIST Research Day as the Research Grand Prize Awardee. The ten most distinguished research achievements of the past year were also recognized.
The Research Grand Prize recognizes the professor whose comprehensive research performance evaluation indicator was the highest over the past five years. The indicator combines the number of research contracts, IPR and royalty income.
During the May 25th ceremony, Professor Hyochoong Bang from the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Professor In so Kweon from the School of Electrical Engineering also won the Best Research Award prize.
This year, the Research Innovation Award went to Professor Dong Soo Han from the School of Computing. The Research Innovation Award combines scores in the categories of foreign patent registrations, contracts of technological transfer, and income from technology fees, technology consultations, and startups.
The Convergence Research Award was given to Professor Junmo Kim from the School of Electrical Engineering and Professor Hyun Myung from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. The Convergence Research Award recognizes the most outstanding research team that created innovative research results over a one-year period.
President Sung-Chul Shin said, “KAIST has selected the ten most outstanding research achievements of 2017 conducted by our faculty and researchers. All of them demonstrated exceptional creativity, which opens new research paths in each field though their novelty, innovation, and impact.”
KAIST hosts Research Day every year to introduce major research performances at KAIST and share knowledge about the research and development.
During Research Day, KAIST also announced the ten most distinguished research achievements contributed by KAIST professors during the previous year. They are listed below.
▲ High-Speed Motion Core Technology for Magnetic Memory by Professor Kab-Jin Kim from the Department of Physics
▲ A Double Well Potential System by Professor Jaeyoung Byeon from the Department of Mathematical Sciences
▲ Cheap and Efficient Dehydrogenation of Alkanes by Professor Mu-Hyun Baik from the Department of Chemistry
▲ A Dynamic LPS Transfer Mechanism for Innate Immune Activation by Professor Ho Min Kim from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering
▲ A Memristive Functional Device and Circuit on Fabric for Fibertronics by Professor Yang-Kyu Choi and Professor Sung-Yool Choi from the School of Electrical Engineering
▲ A Hippocampal Morphology Study Based on a Progressive Template Deformable Model by Professor Jinah Park from the School of Computing
▲ The Development of a 6-DOF Dynamic Response Measurement System for Civil Infrastructure Monitoring by Professor Hoon Sohn from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
▲ Cooperative Tumour Cell Membrane Targeted Phototherapy by Professor Ji-Ho Park from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering
▲ HUMICOTTA: A 3D-Printed Terracotta Humidifier by Professor Sangmin Bae from the Department of Industrial Design
▲ Ultrathin, Cross-Linked Ionic Polymer Thin Films by Professor Sung Gap Im from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
2018.05.28 View 11239 -
New Material for Generating Energy-Efficient Spin Currents
(Professor Byong-Guk Park (left) and Professor Kab-Jin Kim)
Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is emerging as next-generation memory. It allows information to be kept even without an external power supply and its unique blend of high density and high speed operation is driving global semiconductor manufacturers to develop new versions continuously.
A KAIST team, led by Professor Byong-Guk Park in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Kab-Jin Kim in the Department of Physics, recently has developed a new material which enables the efficient generation of a spin current, the core part of operating MRAM. This new material consisting of ferromagnet-transition metal bilayers can randomly control the direction of the generated spin current unlike the existing ones.
They also described a mechanism for spin-current generation at the interface between the bottom ferromagnetic layer and the non-magnetic spacer layer, which gives torques on the top magnetic layer that are consistent with the measured magnetization dependence.
When applying this to spin-orbit torque magnetic memory, it shows the increased efficiency of spin torque and generation of the spin current without an external magnetic field. High-speed operation, the distinct feature of spin-orbit torque-based MRAM that carries its non-volatility, can significantly reduce the standby power better than SRAM.
This new material will expect to speed up the commercialization of MRAM. The research team said that this magnetic memory will further be applied to mobile, wearable, and IoT devices.
This study, conducted in collaboration with Professor Kyung-Jin Lee from Korea University and Dr. Mark Stiles from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US, was featured in Nature Materials in March. The research was funded by the Creative Materials Discovery Program of the Ministry of Science and ICT.
(Figure: Ferromagnet-transition metal bilayers which can randomly control the direction of the generated spin current)
2018.05.11 View 10171 -
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 View 10036 -
Cross-Generation Collaborative Labs Open
KAIST opened two cross-generation collaborative labs last month. This novel approach will pair up senior and junior faculty members for sustaining research and academic achievements even after the senior researcher retires.
This is one of the Vision 2031 innovation initiatives established to extend the spectrum of knowledge and research competitiveness. The selected labs will be funded for five years and the funding will be extended if necessary. KAIST will continue to select new labs every year.
A five-member selection committee including the Nobel Laureates Professor Klaus Von Klitzing at the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research and Dr. Kurt Wüthrich from ETH Zürich selected the first two labs with senior-junior pairs in March.
(Two renowned scholars' Cross-Generation Collaborative Labs which opened last month.
Distinguished Professor Lee's lab (above) andChair Professor Sung's lab)
Both labs are run by world-renowned scholars: the Systems Metabolic Engineering and Systems Healthcare Laboratory headed by Distinguished Professor Sang-Yup Lee in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Acousto-Microfluidics Research Center for Next-Generation Healthcare led by Chair Professor Hyung Jin Sung in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Distinguished Professor Lee will be teamed up with Professor Hyun Uk Kim, and their lab aims to mass produce new eco-friendly chemical materials as well as higher-value-added materials which will be used for medicine. The new platform technologies created in the lab are expected to provide information which will benefit human healthcare.
Meanwhile, the Acousto-Microfluidics Research Center for Next-Generation Healthcare will team up with Professors Hyoungsoo Kim and Yeunwoo Cho under Chair Professor Sung. The lab will conduct research on controlling fluids and objects exquisitely on a micro-nano scale by using high-frequency acoustic waves. The lab plans to develop a next-generation healthcare platform for customized diagnoses as well as disease treatment.
KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin, who introduced this novel idea in his research innovation initiative, said that he hopes the Cross-Generation Collaborative Labs will contribute to honoring senior scholars’ research legacies and passing knowledge down to junior researchers in order to further develop their academic achievements. He said, “I sincerely hope the labs will make numerous research breakthroughs in the very near future.”
2018.05.03 View 11772 -
Professor Ju, to Receive Grants from HFSP
(Professor Young Seok Ju)
Professor Young Seok Ju from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering was selected as a young investigator to receive research funds from the Human Frontiers Science Program.
The Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) was founded in 1989 with members of the G7 and European Union to stimulate innovative research in the field of life sciences.
Professor Ju placed third out of the eight teams that were selected from 158 applicants representing 60 countries. He is now the fourth Korean to receive a research grant as a young investigator. Professor Jae Kyoung Kim from the Department of Mathematical Sciences also received this prize last year, hence KAIST has produced grant recipients for two consecutive years.
Professor Ju is a medical doctor specializing in cancer genomics and computer biology. He has been studying somatic mutations and their functional consequences in human cancer in a bioinformatics way. He has published papers in international journals including Nature, Science, Genome Research, and Journal of Clinical Oncology.
With a title ‘Tracing AID/APOBEC- and MSI-mediated hyper-mutagenesis in the clonal evolution of gastric cancer,’ Professor Ju will receive 1.05 million dollars for three years along with Professor Bon-Kyoung Koo from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at Austrian Academy of Sciences, and Sinppert Hugo from University Medical Center Utrecht.
Professor Ju said, “As a young investigator, it is my great honor to receive this research fund from this organization. Through this internationally collaborative research, I will carry out groundbreaking research to understand the pathophysiology of cancers at a molecular level.”
2018.04.24 View 8678 -
Animal Cyborg: Behavioral Control by 'Toy' Craving Circuit
Children love to get toys from parents for their birthday present. This craving toward items also involves object hoarding disorders and shopping addiction. However, the biological meaning of why the brain pursues objects or items has remained unknown. Part of the answer may lie with a neural circuit in the hypothalamus associated with “object craving,” says neuroscientist Daesoo Kim from the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST.
His research team found that some neurons in the hypothalamus are activated during playing with toys in mice. Thanks to optogenetics, they proved that these neurons in the hypothalamus actually governs obsessive behavior toward non-food objects in mice.
“When we stimulate a neuron in the hypothalamus of mice, they anxiously chased target objects. We found evidence that the neural circuits in the medial preoptic area (MPA) modulate “object craving,” the appetite for possessing objects” said Professor Kim.
Researchers also proved that the MPA circuit facilitate hunting behavior in response to crickets, a natural prey to mice, showing the role of this circuit for catching prey. Further, the MPA nerves send excitatory signals to the periaqueductal gray (PAG), located around the cerebral aqueduct, to create such behavior. The team named this circuit the ‘MPA-PAG’ circuit.
The team showed that they could control mammalian behavior for the first time with this scheme of MPA-Induced Drive Assisted Steering (MIDAS), in which a mouse chase the target objects in the front of head during stimulation of the MPA-PAG circuit. MIDAS allows mice to overcome obstacles to move in a desired path using optogenetics.
(Professor Daesoo Kim)
Professor Kim, who teamed up with Professor Phill Seung Lee in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, explained the significance of the research, “This study provides evidence to treat brain disorders such as compulsive hoarding and kleptomania. It also contributes to the development of technology to control the behavior of animals and humans using strong innate motivation, and thus could impact neuro-economics, defense, and disaster relief.”
He said the team would like to complete the neural circuit map governing behaviors of possession and hunting in the near future by exploring correlations with other neural behaviors controlling possessing and hunting activities.
This research was funded by the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation and published in Nature Neuroscience in March 2018.
(Figure 1: Schematics showing possessive behavior induced by the MPA neural circuit)
(Figure 2: Schematics of the MIDAS system that controls mammals behavior using the desire to possess. A MIDAS mouse is following the bait object controlled wirelessly.)
2018.04.23 View 9650 -
Deep Learning Predicts Drug-Drug and Drug-Food Interactions
A Korean research team from KAIST developed a computational framework, DeepDDI, that accurately predicts and generates 86 types of drug-drug and drug-food interactions as outputs of human-readable sentences, which allows in-depth understanding of the drug-drug and drug-food interactions.
Drug interactions, including drug-drug interactions (DDIs) and drug-food constituent interactions (DFIs), can trigger unexpected pharmacological effects, including adverse drug events (ADEs), with causal mechanisms often unknown. However, current prediction methods do not provide sufficient details beyond the chance of DDI occurrence, or require detailed drug information often unavailable for DDI prediction.
To tackle this problem, Dr. Jae Yong Ryu, Assistant Professor Hyun Uk Kim and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee, all from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), developed a computational framework, named DeepDDI, that accurately predicts 86 DDI types for a given drug pair. The research results were published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on April 16, 2018, which is entitled “Deep learning improves prediction of drug-drug and drug-food interactions.”
DeepDDI takes structural information and names of two drugs in pair as inputs, and predicts relevant DDI types for the input drug pair. DeepDDI uses deep neural network to predict 86 DDI types with a mean accuracy of 92.4% using the DrugBank gold standard DDI dataset covering 192,284 DDIs contributed by 191,878 drug pairs. Very importantly, DDI types predicted by DeepDDI are generated in the form of human-readable sentences as outputs, which describe changes in pharmacological effects and/or the risk of ADEs as a result of the interaction between two drugs in pair. For example, DeepDDI output sentences describing potential interactions between oxycodone (opioid pain medication) and atazanavir (antiretroviral medication) were generated as follows: “The metabolism of Oxycodone can be decreased when combined with Atazanavir”; and “The risk or severity of adverse effects can be increased when Oxycodone is combined with Atazanavir”. By doing this, DeepDDI can provide more specific information on drug interactions beyond the occurrence chance of DDIs or ADEs typically reported to date.
DeepDDI was first used to predict DDI types of 2,329,561 drug pairs from all possible combinations of 2,159 approved drugs, from which DDI types of 487,632 drug pairs were newly predicted. Also, DeepDDI can be used to suggest which drug or food to avoid during medication in order to minimize the chance of adverse drug events or optimize the drug efficacy. To this end, DeepDDI was used to suggest potential causal mechanisms for the reported ADEs of 9,284 drug pairs, and also predict alternative drug candidates for 62,707 drug pairs having negative health effects to keep only the beneficial effects. Furthermore, DeepDDI was applied to 3,288,157 drug-food constituent pairs (2,159 approved drugs and 1,523 well-characterized food constituents) to predict DFIs. The effects of 256 food constituents on pharmacological effects of interacting drugs and bioactivities of 149 food constituents were also finally predicted. All these prediction results can be useful if an individual is taking medications for a specific (chronic) disease such as hypertension or diabetes mellitus type 2.
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee said, “We have developed a platform technology DeepDDI that will allow precision medicine in the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution. DeepDDI can serve to provide important information on drug prescription and dietary suggestions while taking certain drugs to maximize health benefits and ultimately help maintain a healthy life in this aging society.”
Figure 1. Overall scheme of Deep DDDI and prediction of food constituents that reduce the in vivo concentration of approved drugs
2018.04.18 View 11854