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Low Cost and Simple Gene Analysis Technology Developed
Professor Park Hyun Kyu of the Department of Biology and Chemical Engineering has developed a ‘real time CPR’ using Methylene Blue (nucleic acid bonding molecule with Electro-Chemical property). The current gene analysis being used in the field is the real time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) which takes advantage of the luminescent property of the gene and therefore requires expensive machines and chemicals to run. By contrast, the electro-chemical method is easy to use and low cost and, most importantly, it allows the machine to become small and portable. Professor Park’s research team used the decrease in the electro-chemical signal when the Methylene Blue reacts with nucleic acid and applied this to PCR which allowed for the real time analysis of the nucleic acid amplification process. With the result of the experiment as the basis, the team was able to perform a trial with Chlamydia trachomatis, a pathogen that causes sexually transmitted disease. The result showed that the electro-chemical method showed the same performance level as the real time PCR, which proved that the technology can be applied to diagnosing various diseases and gene research.
2011.04.30
View 8464
Genetic Cause of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Found
The cooperative research team consisting research teams under Professor Kim Eun Joon and Professor Kang Chang Won of the department of Biological Sciences discovered that ADHD arises from the deficiency of GIT1 protein in the brain’s neural synapses. ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is found in around 5% of children around the world and is a disorder where the child becomes unable to concentrate, show over the top responses, and display impulsive behavior. The research team found that the difference between children with ADHD and those without it is one base in the GIT1 gene. The difference of a single base causes the underproduction of this protein, and those children with low levels of the protein had a higher probability to develop ADHD. In addition, further evidence was provided when the research team conducted mice experiments. Those mice with low levels of GIT1 exhibited impulsive and exaggerated reactions like humans with ADHD, had learning disabilities, and produced abnormal brain waves. And upon injecting these mice with cure for ADHD, the symptoms of ADHD disappeared. The impulsive behavior of ADHD children disappears as the child enters adulthood and a similar pattern was found in mice. A mice with low levels of GIT1 showed impulsive behaviors when 2 months old, but these behaviors disappeared as it got older to around 7 months old (equivalent to 20~30 years old for humans). Professor Kim Eun Joon commented that there has to be equilibrium between mechanisms that excite the neurons and mechanisms that calm the neurons, but the lack of GIT1 leads to the decrease in the mechanisms that calm the neurons which causes the impulsive behavior of ADHD patients. In addition, Professor Kang Chang Won commented that the results of the experiment has been receiving rave reviews and is being seen as the new method in the production of the cure for ADHD. The result of the experiment was published in the online edition of Nature Medicine magazine.
2011.04.30
View 9025
New Bio-Clock gene and its function found
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced that a Korean research team has found a new gene responsible for maintaining the bio-clock (twenty-four) and its mechanism. Twnety-four was led by Professor Choi Joon Ho and Dr. Lee Jong Bin of KAIST (department of Biology) and was a joint operation with Professor Ravi Allada and Dr.Lim Jeong Hoon of Northwestern University (department of neurobiology) and the result was published in ‘Nature’ magazine. The research team experimented with transformed small fruit flies for 4 years and found that there was an undiscovered gene that deals with the bio rhythm in the brain which they named ‘twenty-four’. The understanding with genes prior to twenty-four was that these genes regulate biorhythm in the transcription phase (DNA to mRNA). Twenty-four operates in the step after transcription when the ribosome creates proteins. Especially twenty-four has a great effect on the ‘period protein’ which acts as a sub-atomic clock that regulates the rhythm and life of each cell. The experiment was innovational in that it was able to scientifically prove the function of the protein produced by the gene. The result is expected to help solve the problems associated with sleep disorders, jetlags, eating rhythms, bio rhythms, etc. The name twenty-four was the fact that a day, a cycle, is 24 hours long and the gene’s serial numbers CG4857 adds up to twenty four.
2011.02.23
View 9991
College of Cultural Science selects 'Best English Paper' Recipients
KAIST’s College of Cultural Science (Dean Kim Dong Won) announced the winners of ‘2010 Fall Semester Best English Paper Award’: Excellence Award went to Kwak Ah Young (department of Biology), Seong Du Hyun (undeclared major), Ahn Da In (Biological Chemical Engineering), and nine other students received the Participation Award. Ahn Da In discussed ‘Joyce and Chopin on use of epiphany’, Seong Du Hyun discussed ‘On Kant’s Groundwork for the metaphysics of Morals, its Achievements, and Implications’, and Kwak Ah Young discussed ‘Fact Pattern of Environmental Law’. The ‘Best English Paper’ Award has been awarded to undergraduates since 2009 Fall semester in the Humanities and Social Science Department’s efforts to increase creativity and English writing skills of students attending KAIST. For the 2010 fall semester, each professor in charge went through 1 to 2 papers (among 610 papers admitted across human science subjects) and recommended 29 papers to be discussed with great scrutiny. The evaluation took place throughout January and the 3 papers discussing English Literature, Scientific Philosophy, and Environmental Law were awarded the Excellence Award, and 9 other papers were awarded the Participation Award. Dean of Cultural Science College Kim Dong Won commented, ‘I am very encouraged by the level of papers and is becoming a very large art of the College of Cultural Science’. The chairman of the screening committee, Professor Kim Eun Kyung also commented, ‘the best paper award is helping students better their English levels’ and that ‘in order to form and encourage a sound and structured English paper writing environment, a anti-plagiarism program will be implemented amongst implementing other judging standards’.
2011.02.21
View 9426
The 40th Anniversary of the Establishment of KAIST Commemoration Held
KAIST, aspiring to become the best Science and Technology University, has turned 40. KAIST held the commemoration ceremony for the 40th Anniversary of the Establishment of KAIST in the auditorium. Five awards (Scholar, Creative Lecture, Excellence in Lecture, International Cooperation, Experiment) were given to Professors Kim Eun Jun and Walton Jones (department of Biology), Professor Abigail Shin (department of Humanities and Social Sciences), Professor Shin Seong Chul (department of Physics), and Professor Lee Sang Yeop (department of Biological Chemical Engineering). Each recipient received a prize of five million won. Professor Song Joon Hwa (department of Computer Sciences) received the ‘New Knowledge Award’ in recognition of his development of the Orchestrator Mobile platform. The new platform is different from Android or the IOS platform in that it allows a fluid relationship to be formed between the smartphone and the user. KAIST also showed off its new emblem. The emblem consists of a star which represents the KAIST’s goals of becoming the world leader, of training leaders, the center point, and hope. The main keywords are: ‘Leadership’, ‘Premium’, ‘Scientific’, and ‘Humanity’. KAIST plans on having various events from May 9th when there will be the Vision Declaration.
2011.02.21
View 11644
Success in differentiating Functional Vascular Progenitor Cells (VPC)
KAIST’s Professor Han Yong Man successfully differentiated vascular progenitor cells from human embryonic stem cells and reversed differentiated stem cells. The research went beyond the current method of synthesis of embryonic body or mice cell ball culture and used the careful alteration of signal transmission system of the human embryonic stem cells to differentiate the formation of vascular progenitor cells. The team controlled the MEK/ERK and BMP signal transmission system that serves an important role in the self replication of human embryonic stem cells and successfully differentiated 20% of the cells experimented on to vascular progenitor cells. The vascular progenitor cells produced with such a method successfully differentiated into cells forming the endodermis of the blood vessel, vascular smooth muscle cells and hematopoietic cells in an environment outside of the human body and also successfully differentiated into blood vessels in nude mice. In addition, the vascular progenitor cell derived from human embryonic cells successfully formed blood vessels or secreted vascular growth factors and increased the blood flow and the necrosis of blood vessels when injected into an animal with limb ischemic illness. The research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, 21st Century Frontier Research and Development Institution’s Cell Application Research Department and Professor Ko Kyu Young (KAIST), Professor Choi Chul Hee (KAIST), Professor Jeong Hyung Min (Cha Medical School) and Doctor Jo Lee Sook (Researcher in Korea Bio Engineering Institute) participated in it. The results of the research was published as the cover paper of the September edition of “Blood (IF:10.55)”, the American Blood Journal and has been patented domestically and has finished registration of foreign PCT. The results of the experiment opened the possibility of providing a patient specific cure using stem cells in the field of blood vessel illness.
2011.01.18
View 10760
Explanation for the polymerized nucleic acid enzyme's abnormal activation found
KAIST’s Professor Park Hyun Kyu of the Department of Bio Chemical Engineering revealed on the 23rd of December 2010 that his team had successfully developed the technology that uses the metal ions to control the abnormal activation of nucleic acids’ enzymes and using this, created a logic gate, which is a core technology in the field of future bio electrons. The polymerized nucleic acid enzyme works to increase the synthesis of DNA and kicks into action only when the target DNA and primers form complimentary pairs (A and T, C and G). Professor Park broke the common conception and found that it is possible for none complimentary pairs like T-T and C-C to initiate the activation of the enzyme and thus increase the nucleic acid production, given that there are certain metal ions present. What Professor Park realized is that the enzymes mistake the uncomplimentary T-T and C-C pairs (with stabilized structures due to the bonding with mercury and silver ions) as being complimentary base pairs. Professor Park described this phenomenon as the “illusionary polymerase activity.” The research team developed a logic gate based on the “illusionary polymerase activity’ phenomenon.” The logic gate paves the way to the development of future bio electron needed for bio computers and high performance memories. Professor Park commented, “The research is an advancement of the previous research carried on about metal ions and nucleic acid synthesis. Our research is the first attempt at merging the concepts of the two previously separately carried out researches and can be adapted for testing presence of metal ions and development of a new single nucleotide polymorphic gene analysis technology.” Professor Park added that, “Our research is a great stride in the field of nano scale electron element research as the results made possible the formation of accurate logic gates through relatively cost efficient and simple system designs.” On a side note, the research was funded by Korea Research Foundation (Chairman: Park Chan Mo) and was selected as the cover paper for the December issue of ‘Angewandte Chemie International Edition’.
2011.01.18
View 9057
Professor Young-Ho Cho elected as head of international academic conference
KAIST’s Professor Young-Ho Cho of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering was appointed as the head of the PowerMems (Power Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) symposium to be held at Se-Jong Hotel in Seoul from November 15-18, 2011. Professor Jo is America’s first engineering doctor in the field of MEMS and is the founding member of the BSAC (Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center), the start of the MEMS technology. PowerMEMS is the core of green growth and next generation energy production. It focuses on harvesting energy from minute vibrations or renewable energy sources such as sunlight or plants to harvest and store energy via micro or even nano size systems. The symposium was first held in 2000, and it is where leading experts in the field share papers on the production and harvesting energy in the micro scale.
2011.01.14
View 9342
Nanowerk Spotlight: Bacteria as environmentally friendly nanoparticle factories, Sep. 24, 2010
The Nanowerk.com is a leading portal site for nanotechnology and nanosciences, which runs a daily news section called “Spotlight.” On September 24, 2010, the Spotlight published an article on the latest developments of the research by a KAIST team headed by Distinguished Professor Sang-Yup Lee of the Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering Department. For the article, please click the link below: Nanowerk Spotlight: Bacteria as environmentally friendly nanoparticle factories, Sep. 24, 2010 By Michael Berger. http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=18188.php
2010.09.25
View 9275
KAIST was invited to the World Economic Forum's fourth "Summer Davos."
KAIST attended the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos Forum” held from September 13 to 15 in Tianjin, China. The Summer Davos Forum hosted various sessions and meetings with international dignitaries from governments, business and public organizations, and academia on the main theme of “Driving Growth through Sustainability.” On September 14, four subjects including “Electric Vehicles,” “Humanoid Robotics,” “Next Generation of Biomaterials,” and “New Developments in Neuroengineering” were presented by KAIST, followed by discussions with forum participants. Professor Jae-Seung Jeong of the Bio and Brain Engineering Department, Sang-Yup Lee of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, Joon-Ho Oh of the Mechanical Engineering Department, and President Nam-Pyo Suh participated in the forum as presenters of the topic. Of these speakers, Professors Jae-Seung Jeong and Sang-Yup Lee were nominated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as members of the “Young Global Leader” and “Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies,” respectively. President Suh was also invited to the CEO Insight Group and delivered an opening speech on OLEV (Online Electric Vehicle) and the Mobile Harbor. President Suh plans to sign an MOU for research cooperation with Jong-Hoo Kim of Bell Lab and Shirley Jackson of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the near future, respectively. Since 2007, the WEF, in charge of the world’s largest international conference called “Davos Forum” has hosted a “Summer Davos Forum,” also called as the “Annual Meeting of New Champions.” The Summer Davos Forum consists of nations, rising global companies, next generation of global leaders, and cities or nations that lead technological innovations. Unlike the annual Davos Forum held in January, the “Annual Meeting of New Champions” is held in September of each year in Tianjin and Dalian, China. Since 2009, the WEF has added a special session called IdeasLab in the Davos and Summer Davos Forums. Through IdeasLab, prominent universities from all over the world, research organizations, venture businesses, NGOs, and NPOs are invited to exchange and discuss innovative and creative ideas that can contribute to the development of mankind. Until now, universities including INSEAD, EPFL-ETH, MIT, Oxford, Yale, Harvard, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Tsinghua University, and Keio University have been invited to the IdeasLab. KAIST is the first Korean university to attend this session.
2010.09.17
View 15096
Bioengineers develop a new strategy for accurate prediction of cellular metabolic fluxes
A team of pioneering South Korean scientists has developed a new strategy for accurately predicting cellular metabolic fluxes under various genotypic and environmental conditions. This groundbreaking research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) on August 2, 2010. To understand cellular metabolism and predict its metabolic capability at systems-level, systems biological analysis by modeling and simulation of metabolic network plays an important role. The team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee, focused their research on the development of a new strategy for more accurate prediction of cellular metabolism. “For strain improvement, biologists have made every effort to understand the global picture of biological systems and investigate the changes of all metabolic fluxes of the system under changing genotypic and environmental conditions,” said Lee. The accumulation of omics data, including genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, and fluxome, provides an opportunity to understand the cellular physiology and metabolic characteristics at systems-level. With the availability of the fully annotated genome sequence, the genome-scale in silico (means “performed on computer or via computer simulation.”) metabolic models for a number of organisms have been successfully developed to improve our understanding on these biological systems. With these advances, the development of new simulation methods to analyze and integrate systematically large amounts of biological data and predict cellular metabolic capability for systems biological analysis is important. Information used to reconstruct the genome-scale in silico cell is not yet complete, which can make the simulation results different from the physiological performances of the real cell. Thus, additional information and procedures, such as providing additional constraints (constraint: a term to exclude incorrect metabolic fluxes by restricting the solution space of in silico cell) to the model, are often incorporated to improve the accuracy of the in silico cell. By employing information generated from the genome sequence and annotation, the KAIST team developed a new set of constraints, called Grouping Reaction (GR) constraints, to accurately predict metabolic fluxes. Based on the genomic information, functionally related reactions were organized into different groups. These groups were considered for the generation of GR constraints, as condition- and objective function- independent constraints. Since the method developed in this study does not require complex information but only the genome sequence and annotation, this strategy can be applied to any organism with a completely annotated genome sequence. “As we become increasingly concerned with environmental problems and the limits of fossil resources, bio-based production of chemicals from renewable biomass has been receiving great attention. Systems biological analysis by modeling and simulation of biological systems, to understand cellular metabolism and identify the targets for the strain improvement, has provided a new paradigm for developing successful bioprocesses,” concluded Lee. This new strategy for predicting cellular metabolism is expected to contribute to more accurate determination of cellular metabolic characteristics, and consequently to the development of metabolic engineering strategies for the efficient production of important industrial products and identification of new drug targets in pathogens.”
2010.08.05
View 10575
Native-like Spider Silk Produced in Metabolically Engineered Bacterium
Microscopic picture of 285 kilodalton recombinant spider silk fiber Researchers have long envied spiders’ ability to manufacture silk that is light-weighted while as strong and tough as steel or Kevlar. Indeed, finer than human hair, five times stronger by weight than steel, and three times tougher than the top quality man-made fiber Kevlar, spider dragline silk is an ideal material for numerous applications. Suggested industrial applications have ranged from parachute cords and protective clothing to composite materials in aircrafts. Also, many biomedical applications are envisioned due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability. Unfortunately, natural dragline silk cannot be conveniently obtained by farming spiders because they are highly territorial and aggressive. To develop a more sustainable process, can scientists mass-produce artificial silk while maintaining the amazing properties of native silk? That is something Sang Yup Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, the Republic of Korea, and his collaborators, Professor Young Hwan Park at Seoul National University and Professor David Kaplan at Tufts University, wanted to figure out. Their method is very similar to what spiders essentially do: first, expression of recombinant silk proteins; second, making the soluble silk proteins into water-insoluble fibers through spinning. For the successful expression of high molecular weight spider silk protein, Professor Lee and his colleagues pieced together the silk gene from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, and then inserted it into the expression host (in this case, an industrially safe bacterium Escherichia coli which is normally found in our gut). Initially, the bacterium refused to the challenging task of producing high molecular weight spider silk protein due to the unique characteristics of the protein, such as extremely large size, repetitive nature of the protein structure, and biased abundance of a particular amino acid glycine. “To make E. coli synthesize this ultra high molecular weight (as big as 285 kilodalton) spider silk protein having highly repetitive amino acid sequence, we helped E. coli overcome the difficulties by systems metabolic engineering,” says Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor of KAIST, who led this project. His team boosted the pool of glycyl-tRNA, the major building block of spider silk protein synthesis. “We could obtain appreciable expression of the 285 kilodalton spider silk protein, which is the largest recombinant silk protein ever produced in E. coli. That was really incredible.” says Dr. Xia. But this was only step one. The KAIST team performed high-cell-density cultures for mass production of the recombinant spider silk protein. Then, the team developed a simple, easy to scale-up purification process for the recombinant spider silk protein. The purified spider silk protein could be spun into beautiful silk fiber. To study the mechanical properties of the artificial spider silk, the researchers determined tenacity, elongation, and Young’s modulus, the three critical mechanical parameters that represent a fiber’s strength, extensibility, and stiffness. Importantly, the artificial fiber displayed the tenacity, elongation, and Young’s modulus of 508 MPa, 15%, and 21 GPa, respectively, which are comparable to those of the native spider silk. “We have offered an overall platform for mass production of native-like spider dragline silk. This platform would enable us to have broader industrial and biomedical applications for spider silk. Moreover, many other silk-like biomaterials such as elastin, collagen, byssus, resilin, and other repetitive proteins have similar features to spider silk protein. Thus, our platform should also be useful for their efficient bio-based production and applications,” concludes Professor Lee. This work is published on July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) online.
2010.07.28
View 15214
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