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KAIST Students Wins Gold Prize at Technical Idea Contest
KAIST Students Wins Gold Prize at Technical Idea Contest
- Receive the gold prize at the 3rd High-Tech Daejeon Technical Idea Contest for Company Establishment- For the development of a new system to convert complex web page addresses to short and meaningful addresses
Sang-Hoon Kim, Song-Hwa Chae and Dong-Hun Lee of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering won the gold prize at the prospective company establishment part in the 3rd High-Tech Daejeon Technical Idea Contest for Company Establishment on May 21 for their valuable development of ‘Web Page Address Clipping System’.
So far, simplified web page addresses include special characters, which make the addresses long and complex. That is, the current address simplification service combines meaningless random words and numerals to create addresses when web page addresses are entered. In this case, the addresses are not easy to share with others and reuse several times since they are difficult to memorize.
However, the ‘Web Page Address Clipping System’ shortens meaningless long addresses. In addition, the improved address simplification service will provide user’s own addresses, and statistics and ranking to clipping addresses frequently used.
Based on this technology, Kim and Chae are now preparing to open a company called ‘URLClip’ under the auspice of Professor Tae-Yong Yang and Researcher In-Soo Kim, KAIST Entrepreneurship Center. They are also expanding their service areas onto clipping library for individual users, host name services for enterprises, etc. and developing tool bar, RSS service (RSS is an acronym of RDF (or Rich) Site Summary. It refers to a service that automatically and easily provides frequently updated contents such as news and blogs to users), etc. to improve users’ conveniences.
URLClip (http://www.urlclip.net) is a next generation portal site, which is expected to provide a variety of individualized services based on Web Page Address Clipping Service and to be used by many enterprises as well as individual users who wish to enhance their access to useful contents.
“Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Professor Sun-Won Park has offered lots of helps and supports, so I could decide to commercialize the developed technologies. The application of this technology to real life will allow further comfortable uses of internet to users,” Kim said.
Narae Team received the best prize last April at the 2nd Pre-Star Venture Company-Opening Contest hosted by KAIST and Hanbat Univeristy, and the technology is pending a patent application.
Inquiry:Sang-Hoon Kim, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, H.P. 010-4754-9947Song-Hwa Chae, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, H.P. 010-7223-9947Home page: http://www.urlclip.netEmail: urlclip@urlclip.net
2007.06.05 View 14677 -
Professor Yang Named Recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award
Professor Yang Named Recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award
- Named as the recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award of 2007- In recognition of his development of optical?bio-functional photonic crystal structures through Self-assembly of nanoparticles
Seung-Man Yang, a professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of KAIST (President Nam Pyo Suh) and the president of the National Creative Research Initiatives Center for Photon and Fluid Integrated Circuit by the Ministry of Science and Technology, has been named as the recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award.
Dupont Korea, associate of Dupont, a world-class science firm, has established and conferred ‘Dupont Science & Technology Award’ since 2002 to promote basic sciences and industrial development of Korea. Dupont Science & Technology Awards are awarded to scientists of universities or state-run institutes who have made outstanding R&D achievements in the fields of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Material Science and Material Engineering within five years. Dupont Korea announced on May 2, 2007 that Professor Yang is the recipient of the award this year, following the strict examination by the Koran Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).
The reason for the award is Professor Yang’s development of prototype optical?bio-functional photonic crystal structures that can process a huge amount of data, resulting from a study that has discovered the principle of Self-assembly where multifunctional nanoparticles are manufactured and assembled for themselves.
Professor Yang’s recent research result about photon structures and nano patterns was published by Nature (February 2, 2006 edition); posted on Heart-Cut, the portal site of the American Chemistry Society (ACS), as highlight paper two times (November 4, 2002 and May 1, 2006); and introduced at Research/Researcher of MRS Bulletin by the U.S. Material Research Society (MRS) as main paper in December 2003. Professor Yang is very famous in Korea and abroad for the excellences of his research achievements and has made request seminars at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, Caltech, University of California, etc. He is also invited speaker and session organizer of the MRS and the SPIE.
2007.05.08 View 17071 -
Maximum Yield Amino Acid-Producing Microorganism Developed with use of System Biotechnology
Maximum Yield Amino Acid-Producing Microorganism Developed with use of System Biotechnology
A team led by Sang-Yup Lee, a distinguished professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and chair professor of LG Chemical, has succeeded in developing maximum yield L-valine-producing microorganism by using System Biotechnology methods. The research results will be published at the April fourth week (April 23 - 27) edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the USA.
Prof. Lee’s team has developed maximum yield amino acid-producing microorganism (target substance of L-valine, an essential amino-acid) by using microorganism E cell system and simulation methods.
His team produced initial producing microorganism by selectively operating necessary parts in colon bacillus genome and excavated preliminary target gene which is to newly be operated through transcriptome analysis using DNA chips. Then they performed a great amount of gene deletion experiment on computer by using MBEL979, E-cells of colon bacillus, and excavated secondary engineering targets. And they finally succeeded in developing maximum yield valine-producing microorganism that can extract 37.8 grams of valine from 100 grams of glucose by applying experiment results to the actual development of microorganism so as to achieve the optimization of metabolic flux in cells,
Prof. Lee said, “Since successfully used for the development of microorganism on a systematic system level, system biotechnology methods are expected to significantly contribute to the development of all biotechnology-relevant industries. At the beginning, we had huge obstacles in fusing IT and BT, but my team mates cleverly overcame such obstacles, hence I’m very proud of them.” The producing microorganism and its developing methods are pending international applications (PCT).
2007.04.26 View 13581 -
Dual Degree Programs with TU Berlin
Dual Degree Programs with TU Berlin- Five students to be exchanged each year from this year, receive degrees from both schools- Final stage of negotiation with GIT, UCSB- On-going DDP negotiations with Delft University of Technology in Netherlands, Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, Technical University of Denmark, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University in China, Tokyo Institute of Technology- DDPs with Ecole Polytechnique, INSA Lyon of France, and University of Karlsruhe of Germany underway at department levels
KAIST (President Nam-Pyo Suh) will begin Dual Degree Programs (DDP) with Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin).
The both recently reached an accord on the implementation of DDP and will exchange maximum five students each year, starting this year. The DDP allows each school involved to exchange students who meet the counterpart’s requirements one-by-one with prior consensus of departments to accept the students and to confer its own diplomas on students who complete the prescribed graduation requirements.
TU Berlin, established in 1770, currently holds 28,344 enrolled students, among which 5,829 students are from abroad (over 20%) and provides lectures for more than 50 subjects in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Economics and so on with its emphases on Natural Science and Engineering. TU Berlin has fostered a multitude of distinguished scientists, including 1986 Nobel Prize Recipient in Physics Ernst Ruska who developed an electronic microscope for the first time in the world.
KAIST has now been eagerly promoting the DDPs with many distinguished foreign universities. It is on the final stage of the DDP negotiation with Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) and University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), and has already agreed with Tsinghua University in China to implement the DDPs in several advanced fields. Also, an agreement with Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) is soon to be made.
With Ecole Polytechnique and INSA Lyon of France, and University of Karlsruhe of Germany, the negotiation is underway at department levels, and the DDPs are also being promoted with Milan Technical University of Italy, Delft University of Technology of Netherlands, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) of Sweden, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NUNT).
“As global interests in East Asia arise, interests in KAIST by many foreign universities also increase. We are planning to expand the scope of this program to provide KAIST students with more opportunities of studying abroad and to attract more outstanding foreign students,” KAIST Dean of Academic Affairs Kwang-Hyung Lee explained.
- Dual Degree Program (DDP)In DDP, schools involved can maintain their own curriculums and confer their own degrees on students who complete the graduation requirements. Therefore, students can receive degrees from both schools involved. Meanwhile, DDP is not the same concept with Joint Degree Program (JDP), in which schools involved establish a joint curriculum and confer a single joint degree on students.
2007.03.19 View 17938 -
Best Academic Award to Prof. Huen Lee
Professor Huen Lee, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received the Best Prize of KAIST Academic Awards at the 36th anniversary ceremony of KAIST.
Professor Lee has published 43 international papers and 12 domestic papers for the past five years and achieved world’s distinguished academic performances such as the development of hydrogen storage technologies, the discovery of the principle on carbon dioxide-methane hydrate swapping, etc.
Professor Lee published his paper on methane hydrate at Science in 2003, and Nature introduced his paper on hydrate storage technologies as ‘highlight research’ in 2005, commenting his research as a landmark performance to pave ways for the development of future hydrogen energy. His discovery on ‘the principle of carbon dioxide-methane hydrate swapping’, published by PNAS in 2006, also gained huge attraction across the world as one of the promising technologies that can solve energy problem and global warming crisis simultaneously.
Meanwhile, the rest of the awardees of 2007 are as follows:
- Academic Award: Professor Jongkyeong Chung, Dep. of Biological SciencesAssociate professor Changok Lee, Dep. of MathematicsAssociate professor Sangkyu Kim, Dep. of ChemistryProfessor Dae-gab Gweon, Dep. of Mechanical Engineering
- Creative Lecture Award: Associate professor Jaehung Han, Dep. of Aerospace Engineering
- Excellent Lecture Award: Assistant profess Bong Gwan Jun, School of Humanities & Social Science Professor Joonho Choe, Dep. of Biological Sciences Professor Changwon Kang, Dep. of Biological Sciences Professor Seunghyup Yoo, Div. of Electrical Engineering Associate professor Otfried Cheong, Div. of Computer Science Professor Hoe Kyung Lee, Graduate School of Finance
- Contribution Award: Professor Sung Chul Shin, Dep. of Physics Professor Bowon Kim, Graduate School of Culture Technology Professor Jisoo Kim, Graduate School of Finance
- International Cooperation Best Award: Professor Hyung Suck Cho, Dep. of Mechanical Engineering
- International Cooperation Award: Professor Kunpyo Lee, Dep. of Industrial Design Professor Soon Hyung Hong, Dep. of Materials Science & Engineering Professor Sungjoo Park, Graduate School of Culture Technology
2007.03.19 View 17315
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KAIST Names Three Distinguished Professors
KAIST Names Three Distinguished Professors
- Three professors having achieved world’s distinguished research and education performances- Special incentives and non full-time position after retirement age to be offered
KAIST (President Nam-Pyo Suh) has named three Distinguished Professors, the most honorable positions in KAIST, for the first time in its history.
The three professors are Choong-Ki Kim, Dep. of Computer Science, Sang-Yup Lee, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Kee-Joo Chang, Dep. of Physics.
Professor Kim has made significant contributions to the advancement of Korea’s semiconductor field. He developed and put into a practical use ‘CCD Imaging Element’, a core technology in the multimedia era and the most widely used imaging sensor, for the first time in the world. He also promoted special education programs with industrial bodies such as Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor, etc. to improve industry-academy cooperation programs of KAIST. In recent years, he is showing passionate activities for the development of KAIST, such as genius education, interdisciplinary education by the Graduate School of Culture Technology, and experiment education for undergraduate students. He received Hoam Prize in 1993 and the Order of Civil Merit Moran Medal in 1997, and is an IEEE fellow and the former Vice-president of KAIST.
Professor Lee has showed outstanding performances in the field of Metabolic Engineering. He discovered the genome sequences of bacteria for the first time in the world and published a paper regarding his discovery applied to metabolic engineering technologies at Nature Biotechnology in 2004. He also published a 78-page paper, evaluated as the bible of prteomics, at the 70 years long Microbiology and Molecular Biology Review (MMBR). His research performances are 187 domestic and international papers, 203 patent applications, Young Scientist Award, 212 invited lectures from home and abroad, etc.
Professor Chang has published about 200 papers in the field of Sold-State Physics and presented diverse theory models regarding semiconductor materials, his major research fields, at review articles, textbooks, academic conferences, etc. Particularly, he found out the essences of DX defects in GaAs semiconductors, a problem that had remained unsolved more than 10 years, and his paper on this has been cited so far more than 500 times. Professor Chang, named as one of the Nation’s Great Scholars in 2005, has 15 papers as cited more than 100 times and records the number of citation indexed by SCI at 4,847, third place among all scientists in Korea.
Distinguished Professors are the most honorable positions in KAIST, and only professors achieving world’s distinguished research and education performances can be Distinguished Professors. Being Distinguished Professors demands recommendations from President, Vice-president, Deans of College, and Department Heads and favorable evaluations by domestic and overseas professionals. Distinguished Professors will be offered special incentives and appointed as non full-time faculty even after their full retirement age.
KAIST will hire outstanding human resources in highly promising research fields through its novice systems including Distinguished Professors System, etc. to build and retain world’s best faculty.
2007.03.19 View 14376
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Professor Seong-Ihl Woo Develops New High-Speed Research Method
Professor Seong-Ihl Woo Develops New High-Speed Research Method
Reduce research periods and expenses for thin film materials several ten times
Posted on the online version of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on January 9
A team led by Seong-Ihl Woo, a professor of KAIST Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and the director of the Center for Ultramicrochemical Process Systems, has developed a high-speed research method that can maximize research performances and posted the relevant contents on the online version of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), a distinguished scientific journal, on January 9, 2007.
Professor Woo’s team has developed a high-speed research method that can fabricate several tens or several thousands of thin films with different compositions (mixing ratio) at the same time and carry out structural analysis and performance evaluation more than ten times faster and accurately, which leads to the shortening of the research processes of thin film materials. This is an epoch-making method that can reduce research periods and expenses several ten times or more, compared to the previous methods.
The qualities of final products of electronic materials, displays, and semi-conductors depend on the features of thin film materials. Averagely, it takes about two weeks or longer to fabricate a functional thin film and analyze and evaluate its performances. In order to fabricate thin film materials in need successfully, more than several thousand times of tests are required.
The existing thin film-fabricating equipment is expensive one demanding high-degree vacuum, such as chemical vapor deposition, sputtering, physical vapor deposition, laser evaporation, and so on. In order to fabricate thin films of various compositions with this equipment, a several million won-worth target (solid-state raw material) and precursors (volatile organic metal compound) pricing several hundreds won per gram are required. Therefore, huge amount of experiment expense is demanded for fabrication of several ten thousands of thin films with various compositions.
Professor Woo’s team has developed ‘combinatorial droplet chemical deposition’ equipment, which does not demand high-degree vacuum and is automated by computers and robots, by using a new high-speed research measure. The equipment is priced at about 1/5 of the existing equipment and easy for maintenance.
This equipment uses cheap reagents, instead of expensive raw materials. Reagents necessary to form required compositions are dissolved in water or proper solvents, and then applied by high frequencies to make several micrometer-scaled droplets (fine liquid droplet). Theses droplets are moved by nitrogen and dropped onto a substrate, which is to be fabricated into a thin film, and then subsequent thermal treatment is applied to the substrate to fabricate a thin film of required composition. At this moment, several tens or several hundreds of thin films with various compositions can be fabricated at the same time by reducing the size of thin film specimens into millimeter scale with the use of shade mask and adjusting vaporization time with masks, the moving speed of which can be adjusted. The expenses for materials necessary for the fabrication of thin films with this equipment amount to several ten thousands won per 100 grams, which is in the range of 1/100 and 1/10 of the previous methods, and the research period can be shortened into one of several tenth.
“If this new method is applied to the development of elements in the fields of core energy, material and health, which have not been discovered by the existing research methods so far, as well as researches in thin film material field, substantial effects will be brought,” said Professor Woo.
‘Combinatorial droplet chemical vaporization’ equipment is pending a domestic patent application and international patent applications at Japan and Germany. This equipment will be produced by order and provided to general researchers.
2007.02.02 View 15667
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Professor Sang-Yup Lee Senior Editor of U.S. Biotechnology Journal
Professor Sang-Yup Lee Named Senior Editor of U.S. Biotechnology Journal
Will supervise paper examination in the fields of system biology, system bioengineering and
metabolic engineering, and set editing direction
Professor Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical’s Chair-Professor and the leader of BK project group of KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, was named senior editor of Biotechnology Journal published by the U.S. Wiley-VCH.
Professor Lee will supervise paper examination in the fields of system biology, system bioengineering and metabolic engineering, and set and manage the editing direction of the journal.
‘Biotechnology Journal’ was first published in January 2006 to exchange rapidly-exchanging knowledge and information in life science and its relevant fields by Wiley, a world-famous science journal publisher with the history of 208 years (founded in 1799). Particularly, ‘Biotechnology Journal’ is a new-typed scientific journal treating various fields such as life science research-relevant ethics and cultures necessary for general people as well as expertise research information of life science.
“Although taking charge of editing of many scientific journals spends much time, it’s very fruitful that I’ll lead the direction of research papers of many world-famous scientific journals and I can make efforts to prevent outstanding papers by Korean scientists from being disadvantaged,” said Professor Lee.
“More Korean scholars are taking charge of editing jobs of world-famous scientific journals. It’s a good indication that the capacities of Korean science and engineering have been enhanced significantly as much,” a staff of KAIST PR team said.
Meanwhile, Professor Lee, distinguished by outstanding research performances in the fields of metabolic engineering and system life engineering, is now ▲associate editor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, top scientific journal of biotech engineering published by the U.S. Wiley ▲editor of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology published by German Springer ▲ associate editor of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering by German Springer, and editing member of ▲ Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology by Singapore’s World Scientific ▲ Asia Pacific Biotech News ▲ Biochemical Engineering Journal, Metabolic Engineering, and Microbial Cell Factory by Elsevier.
2007.02.02 View 14012
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Professor Sang-Yup Lee publishes a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology
Professor Sang-Yup Lee publishes a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology
“The era of commercialized bioplastic is coming”
Disclose an opinion as specialist at a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006
A team led by Barbel Friedrich, Professor of Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, and Alexander Steinbuchel, Professor of West falische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster, found out the entire genome sequence of the typical bioplastic-producing microorganism ‘Ralstonia eutropha’ and published a paper on it in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006. As the entire genome sequence of the typical bioplactic-producing microorganism has been discovered, it is expected that the efficient production of bioplastic will be available through strain improvement at a more systematic level.
Regarding this paper, Nature Biotechnology requested world-renowned scholar Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical Chair-Professor of KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, an expert analysis on the future of bioplastic production as a result of the deciphering of the genome sequence, and Professor Lee revealed his opinion at ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006, issued on October 10. In the analysis, he insisted, “The deciphering of the genomes of Ralstonia means to pave the way for the improvement of strains at a system level by combining simulation through various omics and imaginary cells and engineering at a genome level. It will be possible to produce plastic with desired properties by altering the components of plastic as desired and produce bioplastic, more efficient and economical than have been reported so far, through the optimization of metabolic flow.”
Professor Lee is a world-renowned scholar in the bioplastic field, who has presented about 70 SCI papers in the field. He created a word ‘Plastic Bacteria’ at Trends in Biotechnology in 1996 and published an expert paper regarding E.Coli Plastic at Nature Biotechnology in 1997. He is now performing a research concerning the improvement of bioplastic-producing strains as an example of a research employing a systematic method for the system biological research and development project of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The followings are the contents of Professor Lee’s paper concerning microorganism plastic published at ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006.
- Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a high molecule that numerous microorganisms accumulate in their own cells as energy storage substance when they are rich in carbonic resources, but poor in the other growth factors. The PHA high molecule is polyester, in which the unit substances (unit chemicals) are ester-bonded, and has been studied worldwide about twenty years before. However, PHA’s worse properties than petrochemical plastic and extremely high production cost have prevented its commercialization. The production cost of PHA was 15 dollars per kg in 1980’s, twenty times higher than the price of polypropylene. Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical Chair-Professor of KAIST Chemical & Biomolecular Department’s BK21 Project Group, has performed a research concerning the efficient production of microorganism plastic through the combination of metabolic engineering and fermentation process under the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and developed a process that lowers the production cost of PHA to 2-3 dollars per kg. He also has developed PHA-producing bacteria, efficient enough to fill plastic tightly, and named it ‘Plastic Bacteria’.
- The unprecedented rise of oil price for the past two years activated the researches on Bio-based energies and chemical production globally. PHA is also regaining attentions although the researches on it have been withered so far due to its poor economical efficiency and properties. The result of the genome deciphering of the typical plastic-producing microorganism ‘Ralstonia eutropha’ published by a German research team in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006 suggests huge meanings. That is, it will provide a blueprint over the metabolic activities of the bacteria and thus enables more systematic strain improvement.
- Eyeing on these facts, Nature Biotechnology requested Professor Sang-Yup Lee an expert analysis, and Professor Lee analyzed that there would be a dramatic development of microorganism plastic production through the application of the system biological engineering method, which is now being performed actively by Professor Lee at KAIST. In the analysis, Professor Lee revealed, “As the genome sequence has been found out, it becomes possible to establish metabolic network at a genome level, and since simulation becomes available, numberless trial and errors and experiments can be replaced with imaginary experiments rapidly. In addition, It makes the more efficient development of strains possible by fusion-analyzing the omics result such as various transcripts, proteins, metabolites, etc.” He also expected that it would be possible to produce tailor-made PHA having desired properties through metabolic engineering as well as the efficient production of plastic. Besides, he prospected that his research on the production of optically pure hydroxyl carboxyl acid, Professor Lee’s international patent right, would gain driving forces and technical development would be made rapidly at biological hydrogen production, production, dissolution and application of aromatic compounds, etc. by featuring this strain.
- Recently, Metabolic and ADM, U.S. companies, jointly started to produce PHA at a commercialization level, and Brazil having rich natural resources is commercializing PHA, following Bio-ethanol. In addition, Japan and Germany having a bunch of research performance in this field, and Australia having rich biomass are also performing consistent researches on PHA’s commercialization. Professor Lee prospected, “With the finding out of the genome sequence of the typical bioplastic-producing microorganism, competition for commercialization will be fiercer among nations through the development of efficient production systems.”
- Professor Lee prospected that as the efficient production of PHA becomes possible, the production of plastic from various renewable ingredients (cellurose, starch, suger, etc.) through microorganism fermentation would be made practically and the white biotechnologies of existing chemicals would gain more power. He also said, “Korea also will have to try to secure the production technologies and industry of Bio-based chemicals through strategic cooperation with resource powerfuls, etc. on the basis of the technical dominancy in some system metabolic engineering fields.”
- ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology is a section that publishes analyses of world-renowned specialists in the corresponding fields over the contents of some papers having great influences among papers published in the issue. KAIST Professor Sang-Yup Lee has published his second expert analysis of ‘Deciphering bioplastic production’ in the volume of October 2006, following the first paper ‘Going into the era of E.Coli plastic’.
2006.10.23 View 14987
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Professor Eunjoon Kim's team finds synapse-forming protein
Professor Eunjoon Kim’s team finds synapse-forming protein
- discover a new protein ‘NGL’ that promotes the formation of neuronal synapses
- can presume the cause of various brain disorders including schizophrenia
- will be published at Nature Neuroscience Vol. 9 in September
A new protein that promotes the formation of synapses in human brains was discovered by a Korean research team.
The team led by Eunjoon Kim, Professor of Department of Biological Sciences and Head of Creative Research Group of Synapse Formation), announced that it had discovered a new fact that NGL protein promotes the formation of neuronal synapses and this fact would be published in Nature Neuroscience Vol. 9 on September 18.
Professor Kim’s team discovered that a membrane protein named ‘NGL’ located at post synapse links with other membrane protein named netrin-G in pre synapse, acting as crosslink, and promotes the formation of a new synapse.
‘NGL’ is the second protein found to crosslink synapse, following neuoroligin. With the discovery of this new protein, the principle of synapse formation and the causes of various brain disorders can be presumed.
In the human brain, about more than 100 billion neuron cells and about 10,000 synapses compose neural circuit. A synapse is the place where innervation occurs between neuron cells. The formation of synapse induces the formation of neural circuit, and neural circuit is deeply related with various brain disorders as well as normal development of brains or brain functions.
“As netrin-G linked with NGL is related with schizonphrenia and neuoroligin and synapse crosslinking protein having a similar function with NGL is deeply related with mental retardation and autism, I think NGL is related with various brain disorders including schizophrenia.”
<Explanation of attached photos>
■ Photo1: Experiment for confirming NGL’s ability to form synapse No. 1
Mix ordinary cell (green) revealing NGL at its surface and neuron cell. Axon grows toward NGL (ordinary cell) located in the middle of ten o’clock direction and meets NGL, where NGL induces the formation of pre synapse (red) in the contacting axon.
Whether pre synapse has been formed can be told by the fluorescent dying (red) of pre synapse protein named Synapsin.
- Figure a-b: formation of synapse by NGL
- Figure c-d: transformed NGL losing synapse forming ability cannot form synapse
■ Photo 2: Experiment for confirming NGL’s ability to form synapse No. 2
When beads coated with NGL are scattered on neuron cell, the beads contact with the axon of the neuron cell (the beads are clearly visible at the phase differentiation image in the middle panel). At this time, NGL induces the formation of pre synapse (red) in the axon. Whether pre synapse has been formed can be told by the fluorescent dying (red) of pre synapse protein named SynPhy (panel a) or VGlut1 (panel b).
2006.09.21 View 14741
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Professor Tae-Gwan Park awarded Minister Prize
Professor Tae-Gwan Park awarded Minister Prize
Professor Tae-Gwan Park (Department of Biological Sciences) was awarded the Minister Prize in the science innovation sector at the NANO KOREA 2006, which was opened on August 30.
This prize is given to researchers who have shown excellent research results in the field of Nanotechnology, and Professor Park was awarded the Minister Prize in recognition of his innovative achievements in the fields of Tissue Engineering, Drug Delivery, Gene Therapy, which are fusion technologies of NT and BT that utilize nanobiomaterials.
2006.09.06 View 14030
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Gene Protecting Brain Nerves Discovered
THE KOREA TIMES 2005.1.31By Kim Tae-gyu / Staff Reporter
South Korean scientists have for the first time discovered genes tasked with protecting brain nerves.
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology professor Kim Jae-seob said Sunday the new genes, named pyrexia, shield brain nerves from outside stimuli, including high temperatures.
``The channel gene of pyrexia will open the door to developing new-concept medicines for brain damage in patients of high fever or drug addicts,’’ he said.
The channel gene refers to transport proteins, which provide a static passageway for a variety of essential substances to enter into cells.
``Up until now, a lot of channel genes activated by temperatures have been identified. But among them, pyrexia is first that guards brain nerves from external stresses,’’ Kim said.
Kim’s team learned pyrexia plays a pivotal role in the body through experiments with genetically engineered flies that did not have any pyrexia.
Up to 60 percent of the pyrexia-depleted mutants were paralyzed within three minutes of exposure to a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius.
In comparison, just 9 percent of normal flies were paralyzed with the same stimulus, indicating pyrexia is responsible for protecting animals from high-temperature stress.
``Our next goal is to develop pyrexia-embedded drugs, which can be expected to commercially debut in about five years,’’ Kim said.
Kim has already applied for international patents for his medical breakthrough, which will be printed in the March edition of Nature Genetics, a science journal.
voc200@koreatimes.co.kr
2005.02.02 View 13969