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New drug targeting method for microbial pathogens developed using in silico cell
A ripple effect is expected on the new antibacterial discovery using “in silico” cells
Featured as a journal cover paper of Molecular BioSystems
A research team of Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee at KAIST recently constructed an in silico cell of a microbial pathogen that is resistant to antibiotics and developed a new drug targeting method that could effectively disrupt the pathogen"s growth using the in silico cell.
Hyun Uk Kim, a graduate research assistant at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, conducted this study as a part of his thesis research, and the study was featured as a journal cover paper in the February issue of Molecular BioSystems this year, published by The Royal Society of Chemistry based in Europe.
It was relatively easy to treat infectious microbes using antibiotics in the past. However, the overdose of antibiotics has caused pathogens to increase their resistance to various antibiotics, and it has become more difficult to cure infectious diseases these days.
A representative microbial pathogen is Acinetobacter baumannaii. Originally isolated from soils and water, this microorganism did not have resistance to antibiotics, and hence it was easy to eradicate them if infected. However, within a decade, this miroorganism has transformed into a dreadful super-bacterium resistant to antibiotics and caused many casualties among the U.S. and French soldiers who were injured from the recent Iraqi war and infected with Acinetobacter baumannaii.
Professor Lee’s group constructed an in silico cell of this A. baumannii by computationally collecting, integrating, and analyzing the biological information of the bacterium, scattered over various databases and literatures, in order to study this organism"s genomic features and system-wide metabolic characteristics. Furthermore, they employed this in silico cell for integrative approaches, including several network analysis and analysis of essential reactions and metabolites, to predict drug targets that effectively disrupt the pathogen"s growth. Final drug targets are the ones that selectively kill pathogens without harming human body.
Here, essential reactions refer to enzymatic reactions required for normal metabolic functioning in organisms, while essential metabolites indicate chemical compounds required in the metabolism for proper functioning, and their removal brings about the effect of simultaneously disrupting their associated enzymes that interact with them.
This study attempted to predict highly reliable drug targets by systematically scanning biological components, including metabolic genes, enzymatic reactions, that constitute an in silico cell in a short period of time.
This research achievement is highly regarded as it, for the first time, systematically scanned essential metabolites for the effective drug targets using the concept of systems biology, and paved the way for a new antibacterial discovery. This study is also expected to contribute to elucidating the infectious mechanism caused by pathogens.
"Although tons of genomic information is poured in at this moment, application research that efficiently converts this preliminary information into actually useful information is still lagged behind. In this regard, this study is meaningful in that medically useful information is generated from the genomic information of Acinetobacter baumannii," says Professor Lee. "In particular, development of this organism"s in silico cell allows generation of new knowledge regarding essential genes and enzymatic reactions under specific conditions," he added.
This study was supported by the Korean Systems Biology Project of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the patent for the development of in silico cells of microbial pathogens and drug targeting methods has been filed.
[Picture 1 Cells in silico]
[Picture 2 A process of generating drug targets without harming human body while effectively disrupting the growth of a pathogen, after predicting metabolites from in silico cells]
2010.04.05 View 14670 -
New Text Book on Chemistry Published by KAIST Professor and Student
A chemistry textbook written in English and Korean will aid Korean students to learn General Chemistry in a global academic setting.
Korean students majoring in chemistry and looking for an opportunity to study abroad will have a new, handy textbook that presents them with a practical introduction to an English speaking lecture on general chemistry.
Aiming for advanced Korean high school and college/university students, the inter-language textbook is written by two incumbent professors teaching chemistry at a university in Korea and the US. The book will help Korean students prepare for a classroom where various topics of general chemistry are presented and discussed in English. Clear, collated sections of English and Korean text provide the student with sufficient explanation of the rudimentary topics and concepts.
Composed of 15 chapters on the core subjects of General Chemistry, i.e., Stoichiometry and Chemical Reactions, Thermochemistry, Atomic Structure, and Bonding, the textbook includes essential English vocabulary and usage sections for each chapter; it also contains a pre-reading study guide on the subject that prepares the student for listening to a lecture. This section includes view-graph type slides, audio files, and follow-up questions the student can use to prepare for an English-speaking course. The various accompanying audio files are prepared to expose the student to English scientific dialogue and serve as examples for instruction at Korean secondary and tertiary schools.
The book was coauthored by Korean and American scientists: A father and son, who have taught chemistry at an American and Korean university, wrote the book. Professor Melvyn R. Churchill at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Professor David G. Churchill at KAIST prepared all of the technical English text which was adapted from General Chemistry course lecture notes; the text was further shaped by original perspectives arising from many student interactions and questions.
This English text was translated into Korean by Professor Kwanhee Lee from the Department of Life and Food Science at Handong Global University, who coauthored a previous preparatory book for Korean students in a different subject. He also supplied an important introductory section which serves as a general guide to the classroom student. Kibong Kim, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry at KAIST, helped in preparing the book as well.
“This has been definitely a collaborative undertaking with an international academic crew and it underscores that the Korean internationalization in science is mainstream. Professors and a Korean student created a new book for Korean consumption and benefit,” Professor David G. Churchill says.
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Bibliography: “How to Prepare for General Chemistry Taught in English” by David George Churchill, Melvyn Rowen Churchill, Kwanhee Lee & Kibong Kim, Darakwon Publishing, Paju, Republic of Korea, 2010, 400 pp, ISBN 978-89-5995-730-9 (1 Audio CD included)
2010.04.02 View 13516
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Photonic crystals allow the fabrication of miniaturized spectrometers
By Courtesy of Nanowerk
Photonic crystals allow the fabrication of miniaturized spectrometers
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Spectrometers are used in materials analysis by measuring the absorption of light by a surface or chemical substance. These instruments measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. In conventional spectrometers, a diffraction grating splits the light source into several beams with different propagation directions according to the wavelength of the light. Thus, to achieve sufficient spatial separation for intensity measurements at a small slit, a long light path – i.e., a large instrument – is required.
However, for lab-on-a-chip or microTAS (total analysis system) applications, the spectrometer must be integrated into a sub-centimeter scale device to produce a stand-alone platform. To achieve this, researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) propose a new paradigm in which the spectrometer is based on an array of photonic crystals with different bandgaps.
"Because photonic crystals refelct light of different wavelengths selectively depending on their bandgaps, we can generate reflected light spanning the entire wavelength range for analysis at different spatial positions using patterned photonic crystals," Seung-Man Yang, Director of the National Creative Research Initiative Center for Intergrated Optofluidic Systems and Professor of the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST, tells Nanowerk. "Therefore, when the light source impinges on the patterned photonic crytals, we can construct the spectrum using the reflection intensity profile from the constituent photonic crystals."
Photonic crystals – also known as photonic band gap material – are similar to semiconductors, only that the electrons are replaced by photons (i.e. light). By creating periodic structures out of materials with contrast in their dielectric constants, it becomes possible to guide the flow of light through the photonic crystals in a way similar to how electrons are directed through doped regions of semiconductors. The photonic band gap (that forbids propagation of a certain frequency range of light) gives rise to distinct optical phenomena and enables one to control light with amazing facility and produce effects that are impossible with conventional optics.
To demonstrate this new concept based on patterned photonic crystals, Yang and his group used non-close-packed colloidal crystals of silica particles dispersed in photocurable resin. Due to the repulsive interparticle potential, monodisperse silica particles spontaneously crystallize into non-close-packed face-centered cubic (fcc) structures at volume fractions above 0.1. Therefore, the particle volume fraction determines both the lattice constant and the bandgap position.
a) Optical image of an ETPTA film containing porous photonic crystal stripe patterns with 20 different bandgaps. b) Reflectance spectra from the 20 strips. c) Optical microscope image of the middle region with the parallel stripe pattern (denoted as white-dotted box in a). d) Cross-sectional SEM images of first, sixth, eleventh and seventeenth strips. The scale bars in a, c and d are 1 cm, 2mm and 2 µm, respectively. (reprinted with permission from Wiley-VCH Verlag)
Reporting their findings in a recent issue of Advanced Materials ("Integration of Colloidal Photonic Crystals toward Miniaturized Spectrometers"), the KAIST team has demonstrated the integration of colloidal photonic crystals with 20 different bandgaps into freestanding films (prepared by soft lithography), and their application as a spectrometer.
Yang explains that the team was able to precisely control the photonic bandgap by varying the particle size and volume fration.
"The prepared colloidal composite structures showed high physical rigidity and chemical resistivity" he says. "The composite structure is suitable for spectroscopic use due to the small full widths at half maximum (FWHMs) of the reflectance spectra, which mean that there is little overlap of the reflectance spectra of neighboring photonic crystal strips."
"On the other hand" says Yang, "porous photonic crystals showed large FWHMs and high reflectivities, which should prove useful in many practical photonic applications that require high optical performance and physical rigidity as well as simple and inexpensive preparation."
In addition to fabricating miniaturized spectrometers, which can for instance be integrated into small lab-on-a-chip devices, these integrated photonic crystals can be potentially used for tunable band reflection mirrors, optical switches, and tunable lasing cavities. Moreover, patterned photonic crystals with RGB colors are well-suited for use in reflection-mode microdisplay devices.
Yang points out that, although the spectrometric resolution can be reduced by employing the smaller bandgap interval and photonic bandwidth, there is a limitation. "Now, we are studying photonic crystals with continuous modulation of bandgap position. We expect that the photonic crystals can reduce the resolution to 0.01 nm."
By Michael Berger. Copyright 2010 Nanowerk
2010.03.17 View 13098
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KAIST Commencement 2010 was held on February 26, 2010.
A total of 2,205 are the newly conferred degree holders: 479 for Ph.D., 988 for Master’s, and 738 for B.S. degrees. Since its foundation in 1971, KAIST has so far produced 38,882 graduates.
KAIST held the 2010 graduation ceremony on February 26, 2010 at its newly built place, called “Sports Complex Building.” Approximately 2,500 guests including Minister Byung-Man Ahn, Education, Science and Technology Ministry; Chairman Mun-Sul Jeong, KAIST Board of Trustees; representatives from the KAIST alumni; graduating students; and faculty joined the ceremony to celebrate the commencement.
Honorary Doctorates
At the ceremony, KAIST has conferred four honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of recipients’ contribution to the advancement of science and technology and development of science and engineering education in Korea and the world. The recipients were Arden L. Bement Jr., Director of US National Science Foundation; Lars Pallesen, President of Technical University of Denmark; Donald C.W. Kim, Chairman of AMKOR A&E, Inc.; and Beang-Ho Kim, Chairman of Seojeon Farm.
Graduation Honors: President’s List
Dong-Han Kim, majoring in Mathematical Sciences, College of Natural Science, was nominated as President’s List. He received an award for an outstanding academic achievement from the Minister of Education, Science and Technology and gave a gradation speech on behalf of the graduating class.
Birthplace of Promising Young Scientists in Korea
KAIST has earned a reputation for training the next generation of young scientists in Korea, and its 2010 Commencement has confirmed such fame. Among 479 Ph.D. degree holders, 151 (31%) students are in their 20s. The youngest who has received a doctoral degree is Jin-Ah Lee, graduating from College of Life Science and Bioengineering.
Commencing International Students
Among international students graduating this year, two students from India received their doctoral degrees in Biological Sciences: Kataru Raghu Prasad and Chaya Mohan. They are a married couple and now both postdoctoral researchers, working at KAIST labs. Wearing academic regalia and standing together to take a picture, the couple said, “We would definitely recommend KAIST to prospective international students because it offers the best education and research facilities comparable to those of any leading universities in the world. With the knowledge and experience acquired from studying at KAIST, we hope to contribute to the development of our country in the future.”
2010.03.04 View 13676
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Future of Electric Automobile Glimpsed from KAIST
Etnews.co.kr. printed an interview with Professor Edward A. Lee, from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California in Berkeley, who visited KAIST to attend the 2010 International Workshop on Information Technology (IT) Convergence. During the workshop, Professor Lee had a chance to ride KAIST’s Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), and etnews.co.kr. asked him about his impressions.
Article published on Friday, February 19, 2010
(For the Korean article, please click the link at http://www.etnews.co.kr/news/detail.html?id=201002190158)
The below is a translation from the Korean text.
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Reported by Hee-Bum Park (hbpark@etnews.co.kr)
"Future of Electric Automobile Glimpsed from KAIST"s Online Electric Vehicle Project," said Professor Lee.
Distinguished Professor Edward A. Lee, from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California in Berkeley, expressed his impressions after a ride on KAIST’s Online Electric Vehicle.
“KAIST’s Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV) really grabs my attention because the vehicle receives its needed electricity from a cable buried underground, not from batteries. Still, many challenges lie ahead for the electric vehicle to be commercialized, but I think, today, I saw the future of electric vehicles from the KAIST project,” explained Professor Lee.
Professor Lee came to Daejeon to attend the “2010 International Workshop on Information Technology (IT) Convergence,” which was held on February 19, 2010 at KAIST’s Information and Communication Convergence (ICC) Campus.
“I rode the bus and saw its instrument panel, which displays figures of electricity picked up from the ground. The bus presents the possibility of an electric car that can actually be built in the near future,” added Professor Lee.
Professor Lee, however, pointed out that a number of issues should be addressed beforehand to commercialize OLEV, such as public concerns about magnetic waves, the economic impact of laying power strips underground, and battery efficiency as an alternative to petroleum based fuel. Nonetheless, he said that given people’s increased awareness of the problems associated with CO2 emissions, OLEV’s development is timely.
“As far as I know, there has been no research in the US to develop an electric car that receives electricity from cables buried beneath the road. It is creative and ambitious for KAIST to try to find the technological breakthrough necessary for the development of electric cars,” Professor Lee stated.
Professor Lee further commented, “So far, batteries on electric cars are heavy and bulky, and they require frequent recharging. I think KAIST has provided a solution to address this issue.”
Graduating from Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Professor Lee earned his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley. He worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.
2010.03.03 View 12532
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[Event Notice] International Workshop on Computer Science Education and Research
2010 Asia-Africa International Workshop on Computer Science Education and Research
The Department of Computer Science at KAIST will host an international workshop on the education and research of computer science in Asia and Africa. The workshop, “2010 Asia-Africa International Workshop on Computer Science Education and Research” will be held on February 17-19, 2010 at a conference room located inside the KAIST Main Building. Deans of computer science departments from 13 different universities in Asia and Africa will attend the workshop.
At the workshop, participants will introduce their own education and research programs and discuss ways to have mutual collaborations. This is the first time for representatives from the computer science and engineering departments of leading universities in the newly developing countries—for instance, Thailand, Vietnam, Nigeria, Egypt, and Indonesia—to attend a meeting organized by institutions based in Korea. These countries have a large amount of natural resources and great potential to grow as a front runner in the information technology (IT) sector.
Professor Key-Sun Choi, Dean of Computer Science Department at KAIST, hopes that the workshop will be a place where participated universities discuss mutual cooperation and collaboration; exchange their ideas and knowledge of course management and education and research experiences; and share their vision of global leadership to advance the development of computer science and engineering.
Dean Choi mentioned that his department has also had consultations with the Korean government regarding a possible exchange program to select 10 or 20 members of faculty and students from universities in the newly developing nations for a doctoral course at KAIST. The exchange program, he said, would attract many of excellent candidates from nations with an emerging market for the IT industry to study at KAIST. The highly trained workforces who finish the KAIST doctoral program will contribute not only to their nations’ IT development but also to Korea’s.
2010.02.18 View 12521
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KAIST offers a new course on three-dimensional movies.
Registration for the class ends on February 18, 2010.
The Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) at KAIST created a special class entitled “Master Class for Three-Dimensional (3D) Film Production.” Applications for the class will be accepted by Thursday, February 18, 2010.
The latest 3D movie, AVATAR, has become very popular upon its release in late 2009: An overwhelming visual and sensory experience provided by a 3D technology gave viewers real life feelings about a virtual reality built in the movie. People can almost reach out and touch an explosion, components of machines, and aliens appeared on the screen.
“In response to growing interests in 3D movies, KAIST GSCT established a special session to teach students an overall process of 3D film production,” said Kwang-Yeon Won, Dean of GSTC. He also stressed that the 3D technology would serve as catalysts in developing the next generation of visual industry in the 21st century.
“We have actively engaged in the development of 3D core technology and application contents. This class will be the first of our initiatives to launch a series of educational programs on 3D technology.”
The class offers a complete road of 3D film production: an overview of stereography for 3D movies from planning, shooting, to post production. Many of film professionals (i.e., Director Yang-Hyun Choi and Shooting Director Byung-Il Kim), who are currently working in the field, will join the class so that students can have an opportunity to learn all ends of 3D film industry, both in terms of theoretical knowledge and practical work experience.
The class is open to undergraduate/graduate students and to the public. For details, please refer to the website of http://ct.kaist.ac.kr/stereoclass2010 or call at 02-380-3698 (Industry-University Research Collaboration Center at KAIST Graduate School of Culture Technology).
2010.02.17 View 10469
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A Breakthrough for Cardiac Monitoring: Portable Smart Patch Makes It Possible for Real-time Observation of Heart Movement
Newly invented device makes the monitoring easier and convenient.
Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of KAIST, Department of Electrical Engineering, said that his research team has invented a smart patch for cardiac monitoring, the first of its kind in the world. Adhesive and can be applied directly to chest in human body, the patch is embedded with a built-in high performance semiconductor integrated circuit (IC), called Healthcare IC, and with twenty five electrodes formed on the patch’s surface.
The 25-electrodes, with a capability of creating various configurations, can detect cardiac contractions and relaxations and collect electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The Healthcare IC monitors ECG signals and sends the information to a portable data terminal like mobile phones, making it possible for a convenient, easy check up on cardiac observations.
The key technologies used for the patch are the Healthcare IC that measures cardiovascular impedance and ECG signals, and the electronic circuit board made of four layers of fabric, between which electrodes, wireless antenna, circuit board, and flexible battery are installed. With the P-FCB (Planar Fashionable Circuit Board) technology, the research team explained, electrodes and a circuit board are directly stacked into the fabric. Additionally, the Healthcare IC (size: 5mm x 5mm), which has components of electrode control unit, ECG and cardiovascular resistance detection unit, data compression unit, Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), and wireless transmitter receiver, is attached on the fabric. The Healthcare IC is operated by an ultra-low electrical power.
Like a medicated patch commonly used to relieve arthritis pains, the surface of smart patch is adhesive so that people can carry it around without much hassle. A finished product will be 15cm x 15 cm in size and 1mm high in thickness. The Healthcare IC can measure cardiovascular impedance variances with less than 0.81% distortion in 16 different configurations through differential current injectors and reconfigurable high sensitivity detection circuitry.
“The patch will be ideal for patients who suffer a chronic heart disease and need to receive a continuous care for their condition. Once commercialized, the patch will allow the patients to conduct a self-diagnosis at anytime and anywhere,” said Yan Long, a member of the research team.
There has been a continuously growing demand worldwide since 2000 for the development of technology that provides a suitable healthcare management to patients with a chronic heart disease (e.g., cardiovascular problems), but most of the technology developed today are only limited to monitoring electrical signals of heart activity. Cardiovascular monitors, commonly used at many of healthcare places nowadays, are too bulky to use and give uncomfortable feelings to patients when applied. Besides, the current monitors are connected to an electrical line for power supply, and they are unable to have a low power communication with an outdoor communication gadget, thus unavailable for wide use.
Professor Yoo gave his presentation on this new invention at an international conference, International Solid-State Circuits Conference, held on February 8-10 in San Francisco. The subject of his presentation was “A 3.9mW 25-electorde Reconfigurable Thoracic Impedance/ECG SoC with Body-Channel Transponder.”
(Picture 1) Structure of Smart Patch
(Picture 2) Smart patch when applied onto human body
(Picture 3) Data received from smart patch
(Picture 4) Healthcare IC
2010.02.17 View 13776
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Indoor Localization System for Mobile Devices Developed by KAIST Research Team
The technology will be available to smart phone users around the world through Goole Apps Store.
The wireless fidelity (WiFi)-based indoor localization can be installed on smart phones for commercialization, a technology developed by a research team at KAIST. The KAIST research team, led by Professor Dong-Soo Han, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, explained that the technology offers smart phone users, e.g., Google’s Android phone and Apple’ iPhone, a unique way to recognize their location through WiFi Open Radio Map. WiFi Open Radio Map is built with WiFi Location Fingerprint that contains wireless local area network (LAN)’s signal strength and wireless access points (AP) number, and with location information.
Through using the Map, WiFi-based indoor localization recognizes the location of smart phones and sends the location information to the phones. Since the technology uses WiFi signal information only to recognize the whereabouts of phones, it can be widely used in the future, without installing extra machines and equipment for detection, for a complicated, large indoor environment, where the Global Positioning System (GPS) is not available.
Currently, Professor Han has established WiFi Open Radio Map inside and outside of a few buildings at KAIST and developed several location based application services to perform a beta testing. He plans to open and distribute the technology to smart phone users through Google and Apple Apps Store in early 2010. Collaborations with major smart phone makers such as SK Telecom, Korea Telecom, and Samsung as well as outdoor/indoor localization manufactures and suppliers will also be sought, according to Professor Han.
Professor Han is invited to an international conference, Eighth Annual IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications, slated for early April 2010, in recognition of his work. At the conference, he will give a presentation on WiFi based indoor localization technology and conduct its demo version.
2010.02.10 View 10984
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KAIST Research Team Identified Promising New Source to Obtain Stem Cells
KAIST Research Team Identified Promising New Source to Obtain Stem Cells
A research team at KAIST led by Professor Gou-Young Koh, M.D. and Ph.D., of the Department of Biological Sciences, has found evidence that fat tissue, known as adipose tissue, may be a promising new source of valuable and easy-to-obtain regenerative cells called hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs).
HSPCs are adult stem cells that have the ability to generate and develop into many different kinds of cells. They are now used to repair damaged tissues and are being studied for their potential to treat a vast array of chronic and degenerative conditions such as leukemia. Mostly found in bone marrow but with a limited quantity, HSPCs are hard to cultivate in vitro, thus becoming an obstacle to use them for research and therapeutic purposes.
Within the adipose tissue is a special cell population known as the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), which share similar properties to those in the bone marrow. Cells in the bone marrow and SVF have the ability to differentiate into several cell types. In addition, both adipose and bone marrow offer similar environments for optimal stem cell growth and reproduction.
Given the fact that adipose and bone marrow tissues share similar properties, Dr. Koh and his team conducted a research, injecting granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), a growth hormone used to encourage the development of stem cells, into an adipose tissue of a mouse whose bone marrow is damaged. As a result, the team has found that the SVF derived from adipose tissue contains functional HSPCs capable of generating hematopoietic (blood-forming) cells to repair the damaged bone morrow.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology nominated the KAIST research as one of its sponsoring 21st Century Frontier R&D Programs. Director Dong-Wook Kim of Stem Cell Research Center (SCRS) that oversees the KAIST team expressed a possibility to use the adipose tissue as an alternative source to obtain stem cells for regeneration medicine.
Dr. Koh also said, “It’s been a well known method to extract HSPCs from the bone morrow or blood, but it’s the first time to identify adipose tissue, before considered useless, as a new possible supplier for functional and transplantable HSPCs.”
The study results have received an important recognition from the academia—the American Society of Hematology published the research as a main article in its official journal, Blood, for the February 4th, 2010 issue, which is the most citied peer-reviewed publication in the field.
2010.02.05 View 11666
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Master of Science in Intellectual Property: First Class Starts on Saturday, February 6, 2010
Newly Established, Postgraduate Course for Master of Science in Intellectual Property
First class starts on February 6th, 2010
In conjunction with Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), KAIST has established a new postgraduate course for a master of science in intellectual property (IP). 41 students have enrolled the course, and its first class will begin February 6th, 2010. With a diverse professional background, the first-year students came from private businesses, IP service industry, and public organizations.
Globally well-known companies—Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and the Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO)—and mid-sized companies have offered scholarships to support the new M.S. Program. Business and industry in Korea have recognized the increasingly important role of intellectual property in a modern economy and showed a strong interest in developing workforce specialized in subjects such as, but not limited to, patent law, copyright and designs law, trade mark law, unfair competition, anti-trust law, competition law, and trade secret law.
Prosecutor Chan-Gi Na from Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said, “I’ve applied for the master program at KAIST because I wanted to learn more about intellectual property in greater depth. Through the coursework, I hope to enhance my knowledge on the subjects and use it for the protection of Koreans’ IP related rights and the development of our nation’s IP industry.”
Assistant Manager Jin-Hong Bae from Samsung Securities, Inc. said, “Since the capital market law becomes effective, the need for developing new financial products or services in our finance market has rapidly grown. We no longer can make our financial products by simply copying or ripping off ideas from others. It’s a must practice, not an option, to set up a system under which we are able to protect our IPs.”
“I would like to become an expert in our finance market, who really knows how to commercialize intellectual property assets into benefits, so any know-hows or ideas accumulated from years of working in the field can be registered and protected,” added Mr. Bae.
KAIST’s Mater Program for intellectual property is designed for engineers who wish to acquire the skills required to play a leading role in the field. These engineers, KAIST anticipates, will establish and execute business strategies to protect intellectual property, generate added values for a company, and effectively respond against patent related claims.
The intellectual property will seize up to 90% of business values to be generated in the 21st century. KAIST has long foreseen the need for training top-notch engineers in intellectual property. Combined with multidisciplinary approach to engineering, law, and management, the new M.S. Program will provide students with a variety form of classes to assist them in getting a practical knowledge as needed based on their interests and career aspirations. Examples of the classes are workshops on the change in technology trends—i.e., information technology (IT), environmental technology (ET), and bio technology (BT); standardization of intellectual property and value assessment; and patent law related claims.
“All professors involved in the course are experts who are equipped with hands-on experiences in working on intellectual property for a long time at government agencies, companies, and law firms,” Professor Chul-Ho Kim, responsible for overseeing the entire program, said.
He also expressed his confidence that “We have set up an academic system to induct highly qualified professionals and engineers, capable of handling all aspects of intellectual property related issues, into work places. Our coursework encompasses technology, research and development (R&D), and management, and students who complete the program will be ready to tackle down any intellectual property matters in the 21st century.”
Freshmen convocation for the IP M.S. Program is scheduled on February 20th at KAIST, and President Nam Pyo Suh and Commissioner Jung-Sik Koh of Korean Intellectual Property (KIPO) will attend the event.
2010.02.04 View 12753
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Opening Ceremony Held on February 3, 2010 for Intellectual Property Training Center
KAIST Opened Training Center for Young Entrepreneurs
Commissioner Jung-Sik Koh of Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and KAIST faculty members including Soon-Hong Jang, Vice President of Operations and Kwang-Hyung Lee, Dean of Academic Affairs Office, joined an opening ceremony held on February 3rd, 2010 to launch a training center for the next generation entrepreneurs who will lead the intellectual property (IP) industry in Korea.
The training center was built in cooperation with KIPO to educate and support young entrepreneurs and prepare them to become tomorrow’s IP business leaders like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Going through a vigorous selection process, a total of 101 students (51 for intermediate and 50 for advanced level) were chosen last December for an orientation program that will begin February 3rd and continue through February 5th. In addition to the training center at KAIST, KIPO supported to launch another training center at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), which has been up and running since January 27th, 2010.
2010.02.04 View 12555