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Reducing the Drag Force of a Moving Body Underwater
(from left: Professor Yeunwoo Cho and PhD Jaeho Chung)
Professor Yeunwoo Cho and his team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering developed new technology that reduces the drag force of a moving body in a still fluid by using the supercavitation phenomenon.
When a body moves in air, the frictional drag is lower than that of the same body moving in water. Therefore, the body that moves in water can reduce the drag significantly when it is completely enveloped in a gaseous cavity.
The team used compressed air to create so-called supercavitation, which is a phenomenon created by completely enveloping a body in a single large gaseous cavity. The drag force exerted on the body is then measured.
As a result, the team confirmed that the drag force for a moving body enveloped in air is about 25% of the drag force for a moving body without envelopment.
These results can be applied for developing high-speed underwater vehicles and the development of air-lubricated, high-speed vessels.
The team expects that the results can be applied for developing high-speed underwater vehicles and the development of air lubrication for a ship’s hull.
This research, led by PhD Jaeho Chung, was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics as a cover article on November 10, 2018.
Figure 1. The cover article of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics Vol. 854
2018.12.04 View 3733 -
KAIST Seals the Deal for Kenya KAIST Project
KAIST will participate in Kenya’s strategic economic development plan under the provision of a turnkey-based science and technology education consultancy for the establishment of the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kenya KAIST).KAIST signed the contract on November 30 with the Konza Technopolis Development Authority to establish Kenya KAIST. Korea Eximbank will offer a 95 million USD loan to the Kenyan government for this project. The project will include the educational and architectural design and construction of Kenya KAIST. The campus will be constructed in the Konza Techno City nearby Nairobi by 2021, with the first batch of 200 graduate students starting classes in 2022. KAIST, in consortium with Samwoo and Sunjin architecture and engineering companies, will take the lead of the three-year project, with the kick-off ceremony planned at the end of next January in Nairobi. The Kenyan government plans to transform Kenya into a middle-income country under Vision 2030 through promoting science, technology, and innovation for national economic growth. Nicknamed Africa’s Silicon Savannah, Konza Techno City is a strategic science and technology hub to realize this vision. To this end, the medium-term plan set a goal to provide specialized research and training in various leading-edge engineering and advanced science fields.In the two-phase evaluation of the consultancy bidding, KAIST won preferred bidder status in the technical proposal evaluation, outbidding three other Korean consortia. Invited to the financial proposal bidding, the KAIST consortium successfully completed month-long contract negotiations with Kenya last week.KAIST will develop academic curricula for six initial departments (Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, ICT Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Agricultural Biotechnology), which will lay the ground work for engineering research and education in Kenya to meet emerging socioeconomic demands. In addition, KAIST will provide the education of basic sciences of math, physics, chemistry, and biology for students.It is also notable that the Kenyan government asked to develop an industry-academy cooperation program in Konza Techno City. It reflects the growing industrial needs of Kenya KAIST, which will be located in the center of the Konza Technopolis. It is anticipated that the technopolis will create 16,675 jobs in the medium term and over 200,000 after completion, positioning Kenya as an ICT hub within the region.KAIST also shares a similar history of establishment with Kenya KAIST, as it will be built with a foreign loan. KAIST, created by the Korean government in 1971 to drive the economic engine through advancement of science and technology with a six-million USD loan from USAID, has now become a donor institution that hands down science and technology education systems including the construction of campuses to underdeveloped countries.The successful case of KAIST has been benchmarked by many countries for years. For instance, KAIST set up the curriculum of the nuclear engineering program at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology in UAE in 2010. In China, Chongqing University of Technology is running its electrical engineering and computer science programs based on the educational systems and curricula offered by KAIST from 2015. In October, KAIST also signed an MOU with the Prince Mohammad Bin Salman College of Cyber Security, AI, and Advanced Technologies in Saudi Arabia to provide the undergraduate program for robotics.Among all these programs benchmarking KAIST, Kenya KAIST clearly stands out, for it is carrying out a turnkey-based project that encompasses every aspect of institution building ranging from educational curriculum development to campus construction and supervision.President Sung-Chul Shin is extremely excited about finalizing the deal, remarking, “It is of great significance that KAIST’s successful development model has carved out a unique path to becoming a global leading university that will benefit other countries. In only a half century, we have transitioned from a receiver to a donor institution, as the country itself has done.”“KAIST will spare no effort for Kenya KAIST to become a successful science and technology university that will play a crucial role in Kenya’s national development. I believe Kenya KAIST will be an exemplary case of an ODA (Official Development Assistance) project based on the development of science and technology to benefit underdeveloped countries,” he added.
2018.12.03 View 8465 -
KAIST Shows Strong Performance in Crypto Contest Korea 2018
(Awardees at the ceremony for Crypto Contest Korea 2018)
A paper titled “Indifferentiability of Truncated Random Permutations” by PhD candidate Wonseok Choi and MS candidate Byeonghak Lee (under Professor Jooyoung Lee) from the KAIST Graduate School of Information Security (GSIS) won first place in Crypto Contest Korea 2018. Byeonghak Lee became a repeat winner since his paper titled “Tweakable Block Ciphers Secure Beyond the Birthday Bound in the Ideal Cipher Model” also received an award at Crypto Contest Korea 2017.
The contest, hosted by the Korea Cryptography Forum, the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology, and the National Security Research Institute and sponsored by the National Intelligence Service, was held for promoting cryptography in Korea. The total prize money is fifty million won with ten million won going to the first place winners.
The contest was divided into three divisions: paper, problem solving, and idea. Among the three divisions, first place came from the paper division only.
Besides first place, KAIST students showed outstanding performance in the contest. PhD candidate Seongkwang Kim received participation prize while he also received special prizes with MS candidate Yeongmin Lee. The hacking club GoN (under Professor Sang Kil Cha), comprised of undergraduate students from the GSIS was awarded the grand prize in the division of problem solving.
The award ceremony was held during the Future Crypto Workshop 2018 on November 15. The awards ceremony for Crypto Expert Korea 2018 were also held there, and PhD candidate Ji-Eun Lee from the School of Computing and Byeonghak Lee received awards, the grand prize and runner-up prize respectively.
2018.11.27 View 6688 -
Faster and More Powerful Aqueous Hybrid Capacitor
(Professor Jeung Ku Kang from the Graduate School of EEWS)
A KAIST research team made it one step closer to realizing safe energy storage with high energy density, high power density, and a longer cycle life. This hybrid storage alternative shows power density 100 times faster than conventional batteries, allowing it to be charged within a few seconds. Hence, it is suitable for small portable electronic devices.
Conventional electrochemical energy storage systems, including lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), have a high voltage range and energy density, but are subject to safety issues raised by flammable organic electrolytes, which are used to ensure the beneficial properties. Additionally, they suffer from slow electrochemical reaction rates, which lead to a poor charging rate and low power density with a capacity that fades quickly, resulting in a short cycle life.
On the other hand, capacitors based on aqueous electrolytes are receiving a great deal of attention because they are considered to be safe and environmentally friendly alternatives. However, aqueous electrolytes lag behind energy storage systems based on organic electrolytes in terms of energy density due to their limited voltage range and low capacitance.
Hence, developing aqueous energy storage with high energy density and a long cycle life in addition to the high power density that enables fast charging is the most challenging task for advancing next-generation electrochemical energy storage devices.
Here, Professor Jeung Ku Kang from the Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability and his team developed an aqueous hybrid capacitor (AHC) that boasts high energy density, high power, and excellent cycle stability by synthesizing two types of porous metal oxide nanoclusters on graphene to create positive and negative electrodes for AHCs.
The porous metal oxide nanoparticles are composed of nanoclusters as small as two to three nanometers and have mesopores that are smaller than five nanometers. In these porous structures, ions can be rapidly transferred to the material surfaces and a large number of ions can be stored inside the metal oxide particles very quickly due to their small particle size and large surface area.
The team applied porous manganese oxide on graphene for positive electrodes and porous iron oxide on graphene for negative electrodes to design an aqueous hybrid capacitor that can operate at an extended voltage range of 2V.
Professor Kang said, “This newly developed AHC with high capacity and power density driven from porous metal oxide electrodes will contribute to commercializing a new type of energy storage system. This technology allows ultra-fast charging within several seconds, making it suitable as a power source for mobile devices or electric vehicles where solar energy is directly stored as electricity.”
This research, co-led by Professor Hyung Mo Jeong from Kangwon National University, was published in Advanced Functional Materials on August 15, 2018.
Figure 1. Image that shows properties of porous metal oxide nanoparticles formed on graphene in the aqueous hybrid capacitor
2018.11.09 View 6686 -
Team KAT Wins the Autonomous Car Challenge
(Team KAT receiving the Presidential Award)
A KAIST team won the 2018 International Autonomous Car Challenge for University Students held in Daegu on November 2.
Professor Seung-Hyun Kong from the ChoChunShik Graduate School of Green Transportation and his team participated in this contest with the team named KAT (KAIST Autonomous Technologies). The team received the Presidential Award with a fifty million won cash prize and an opportunity for a field trip abroad.
The competition was conducted on actual roads with Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), which incorporate autonomous driving technologies and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication system.
In this contest, the autonomous vehicles were given a mission to pick up passengers or parcels. Through the V2X communication, the contest gave current location of the passengers or parcels, their destination, and service profitability according to distance and level of service difficulty.
The participating vehicles had to be equipped very accurate and robust navigation system since they had to drive on narrow roads as well as go through tunnels where GPS was not available. Moreover, they had to use camera-based recognition technology that was invulnerable to backlight as the contest was in the late afternoon.
The contest scored the mission in the following way: the vehicles get points if they pick up passengers and safely drop them off at their destination; on the other hand, points are deducted when they violate lanes or traffic lights. It will be a major black mark if a participant sitting in the driver’s seat needs to get involved in driving due to a technical issue.
Youngbo Shim of KAT said, “We believe that we got major points for technical superiority in autonomous driving and our algorithm for passenger selection.”
This contest, hosted by Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, was the first international competition for autonomous driving on actual roads. A total of nine teams participated in the final contest, four domestic teams and five teams allied with overseas universities such as Tsinghua University, Waseda University, and Nanyang Technological University.
Professor Kong said, “There is still a long way to go for fully autonomous vehicles that drive flexibly under congested traffic conditions. However, we will continue to our research in order to achieve high-quality autonomous driving technology.”
(Team KAT getting ready for the challenge)
2018.11.06 View 9476 -
KAIST Launches Woorisae II
Professor Sejin Kwon from the Department of Aerospace Engineering and his team succeeded in launching a science rocket, named ‘Woorisae II’ at Saemanguem reclamation. This rocket was developed in collaboration with the Satellite Technology Research Lab (SaRTec).
The test-firing was conducted at 10:43 am on Sunday October 28, 2018 (35°N 42’ 06” 126°E 33’ 36”, Radius of 0.6NM). This launch was the follow-up to the previous launch that was cancelled due to not gaining approval for using the airspace.
Professor Kwon’s team put a great deal of effort into securing the land for the rocket launch. As a result, they got approval from the Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency for the land and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for the use of the airspace. The Republic of Korea Air Force and United States Air Force also approved the use of the airspace for the launch of the science rocket for research purposes.
Woorisae II is 2.2 meters long with a diameter of 20cm, and weighs 13kg without a payload. The rocket is powered by a hybrid rocket with hydrogen peroxide oxidizer producing 100 kg of force. The Woorisae II sounding rocket was designed to burn for five seconds and then continue inertial flight for 20 seconds. The target altitude of Woorisae II was set at 3,300 feet to comply with the airspace approval.
The team developed the core components, including a hybrid rocket propulsion system, flight computer and parachute recovery system, as well as a ground control station. The flight data was transmitted to the ground station and recorded to onboard computer memory.
When a malfunction occurs during the flight, Woorisae II was designed to terminate the power flight for safety by shutting the propellant valve and deploying the recovery parachute. All the rocket subsystems and components were developed and supplied by domestic startup companies such as INOCOM and NARA SPACE TEHCNOLOGY.
Generally, sounding rockets reach an altitude beyond 30km and are widely used for testing rocket engines and reentry materials as well as for conducting microgravity experiments. Instruments for atmospheric science can also be installed to measure fine dust and high altitude atmosphere. Besides these science and technology purposes, most advanced spacefaring countries have sounding rocket programs to train and educate young people in the field of space science.
Professor Kwon said, “We will plan to launch upgraded rockets on November 4 and December 6 because we already received approval from the related agencies for using this land and airspace. Based on the experiment, we are planning to develop a cost-efficient small launch vehicle that is capable of delivering a cube satellite into Earth’s orbit.”
(Photos of preparing the rocket launch)
2018.10.29 View 8251 -
Lens-free OLEDs with Efficiency comparable to that of Inorganic LEDs
(from left: Professor Seunghyup Yoo and PhD candidate Jinouk Song)
The use of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has extended to various applications, but their efficiency is still lagging behind inorganic light-emitting diodes. In this research, a KAIST team provided a systematic way to yield OLEDs with an external quantum efficiency (EQE) greater than 50% with an external scattering medium.
Having properties suitable for thin and flexible devices, OLEDs are popular light sources for displays, such as mobile devices and high quality TVs. In recent years, numerous efforts have been made to apply OLEDs in lighting as well as light sources for vehicles.
For such applications, high efficiency is of the upmost importance for the successful deployment of light sources. Thanks to continuous research and the development of OLEDs, their efficiency is steadily on the rise, and a level equivalent to inorganic LEDs has been demonstrated in some reports.
However, these highly efficient OLEDs were often achieved with a macroscopic lens or complex internal nanostructures, which undermines the key advantages of OLEDs as an affordable planar light sources and tends to hinder their stable operation, thus putting a limitation to their commercialization.
Among various methods proven effective for OLED light extraction, a team led by Professor Seunghyup Yoo at the School of Electrical Engineering focused on the external scattering-based approach, as it can maintain planar geometry and compatibility with flexibility. It is also able to be fabricated on a large scale at a low cost and causes no interference with electrical properties of OLEDs.
Conventionally, research on enhancing OLED light extraction using light scattering has been conducted empirically in many cases. This time, the team developed comprehensive and analytical methodology to theoretically predict structures that maximize efficiency.
Considering OLEDs with the external scattering layers as a whole rather than two separate entities, the researchers combined the mathematical description of the scattering phenomena with the optical model for light emission within an OLED to rapidly predict the characteristics of many devices with various structures. Based on this approach, the team theoretically predicted the optimal combination of scattering layers and OLED architectures that can lead to the maximum efficiency.
Following this theoretical prediction, the team experimentally produced the optimal light scattering film and incorporated it to OLEDs with orange emitters having a high degree of horizontal dipole orientation. As a result, the team successfully realized OLEDs exhibiting EQE of 56% and power efficiency of 221 lm/W. This is one of the highest efficiencies ever realized for an OLED unit device without the help of a macroscopic lens or internal light extraction structures.
Professor Yoo said, “There are various technologies developed for improving OLED light extraction efficiency; nevertheless, most of them have not reached a level of practical use. This research mainly provides a systematic way to attain an EQE of 50% or higher in OLEDs while keeping in mind the constraints for commercialization. The approach shown here can readily be applied to lighting devices or sensors of wearable devices.”.
This research, co-led by Professor Jang-Joo Kim from Seoul National University and Professor Yun-Hi Kim from Gyeongsang National University, was published in Nature Communications on August 10, 2018. (J. Song et al. Nature Communications, 9, 3207. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05671-x)
Figure 1.Photographs of OLEDs with SiO₂ -embedded scattering layers according to scatterance
2018.10.26 View 7569 -
A Novel Biosensor to Advance Diverse High-Level Production of Microbial Cell Factories
A research group at KAIST presented a novel biosensor which can produce diverse, high-level microbial cell factories. The biosensor monitors the concentration of products and even intermediates when new strains are being developed. This strategy provides a new platform for manufacturing diverse natural products from renewable resources. The team succeeded in creating four natural products of high-level pharmaceutical importance with this strategy.
Malonyl-CoA is a major building block for many value-added chemicals including diverse natural products with pharmaceutical importance. However, due to the low availability of malonyl-CoA in bacteria, many malonyl-CoA-derived natural products have been produced by chemical synthesis or extraction from natural resources that are harmful to the environment and are unsustainable. For the sustainable biological production of malonyl-CoA-derived natural products, increasing the intracellular malonyl-CoA pool is necessary. To this end, the development of a robust and efficient malonyl-CoA biosensor was required to monitor the concentration of intracellular malonyl-CoA abundance as new strains are developed.
Metabolic engineering researchers at KAIST addressed this issue. This research reports the development of a simple and robust malonyl-CoA biosensor by repurposing a type III polyketide synthase (also known as RppA), which produces flaviolin, a colorimetric indicator of malonyl-CoA. Subsequently, the RppA biosensor was used for the rapid and efficient colorimetric screening of gene manipulation targets enabling enhanced malonyl-CoA abundance. The screened beneficial gene targets were employed for the high-level production of four representative natural products derived from malonyl-CoA. Compared with the previous strategies, which were expensive and time-consuming, the new biosensor could be easily applied to industrially relevant bacteria including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas putida, and Corynebacterium glutamicum to enable a one-step process.
The study employs synthetic small regulatory RNA (sRNA) technology to rapidly and efficiently reduce endogenous target gene expression for improved malonyl-CoA production. The researchers constructed an E. coli genome-scale synthetic sRNA library targeting 1,858 genes covering all major metabolic genes in E. coli. This library was employed with the RppA biosensor to screen for gene targets which are believed to be beneficial for enhancing malonyl-CoA accumulation upon their expression knockdown.
From this colorimetric screening, 14 gene targets were selected, all of which were successful at significantly increasing the production of four natural products (6-methylsalicylic acid, aloesone, resveratrol, and naringenin). Although specific examples are demonstrated in E. coli as a host, the researchers showed that the biosensor is also functional in P. putida and C. glutamicum, industrially important representative gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, respectively. The malonyl-CoA biosensor developed in this research will serve as an efficient platform for the rapid development of strains capable of producing natural products crucial for the pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetics, and food industries.
An important aspect of this work is that the high-performance strains constructed in this research were developed rapidly and easily by utilizing the simple approach of colorimetric screening, without involving extensive metabolic engineering approaches. 6-Methylsalicylic acid (an antibiotic) could be produced to the highest titer reported for E. coli, and the microbial production of aloesone (a precursor of aloesin, an anti-inflammatory agent/whitening agent) was achieved for the first time.
“A sustainable process for producing diverse natural products using renewable resources is of great interest. This study represents the development of a robust and efficient malonyl-CoA biosensor generally applicable to a wide range of industrially important bacteria. The capability of this biosensor for screening a large library was demonstrated to show that the rapid and efficient construction of high-performance strains is feasible. This research will be useful for further accelerating the development process of strains capable of producing valuable chemicals to industrially relevant levels,” said Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who led the research.
This study entitled “Repurposing type III polyketide synthase as a malonyl-CoA biosensor for metabolic engineering in bacteria,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on October 02.
PhD students Dongsoo Yang and Won Jun Kim, MS student Shin Hee Ha, research staff Mun Hee Lee, Research Professor Seung Min Yoo, and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Dr. Jong Hyun Choi of the Applied Microbiology Research Center at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) participated in this research.
Figure: Type III polyketide synthase (RppA) as a malonyl-CoA biosensor. RppA converts five molecules of malonyl-CoA into one molecule of red-colored flaviolin. This schematic diagram shows the overall conceptualization of the malonyl-CoA biosensor by indicating that higher malonyl-CoA abundance leads to higher production and secretion of flaviolin, resulting in a deeper red color of the culture. This system was employed for the enhanced production of four representative natural products (6-methylsalicylic acid, aloesone, resveratrol, and naringenin) from engineered E. coli strains.
2018.10.11 View 8503 -
Scientist of October, Professor Haeshin Lee
(Professor Haeshin Lee from the Department of Chemistry)
Professor Haeshin Lee from the Department of Chemistry received the ‘Science and Technology Award of October’ from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea for his contribution to developing an antibleeding injection needle. This novel outcome will fundamentally prevent the problem of secondary infections of AIDS, Ebola and Hepatitis viruses transmitting from patients to medical teams.
This needle’s surface is coated with hemostatic materials. Its concept is simple and the key to this technology is to make materials that are firmly coated on the needle so that they can endure frictional force when being injected into skin and blood vessels. Moreover, the materials should be adhesive to skin and the interior of blood vessels, but harmless to humans.
Professor Lee found a solution from natural polymer ingredients. Catecholamine can be found in mussels. Professor Lee conjugated catechol groups on the chitosan backbone. He applied this mussel-inspired adhesive polymer Chitosan-catechol, which immediately forms an adhesive layer with blood, as a bioadhesion for the antibleeding injection needle.
Professor Lee said, “Chitosan-catechol, which copies the adhesive mechanism of mussels, shows high solubility in physiological saline as well as great mucoadhesion. Hence, it is perfectly suitable for coating the injection needle. Combining it with proteins allows for efficient drug delivery to the heart, which is a challenging injection location, so it will be also useful for treating incurable heart disease.”
2018.10.05 View 8441 -
Engineered E. coli Using Formic Acid and CO2 As a C1-Refinery Platform Strain
(Figure: Formic acid and CO2 assimilation pathways consisting of the reconstructed THF cycle and reverse glycine cleavage reaction. This schematic diagram shows the formic acid and CO2 assimilation procedure through the pathway. Plasmids used in this study and the genetic engineering performed in this study are illustrated.)
A research group at KAIST has developed an engineered E. coli strain that converts formic acid and CO2 to pyruvate and produces cellular energy from formic acid through reconstructed one-carbon pathways. The strategy described in this study provides a new platform for producing value-added chemicals from one-carbon sources.
Formic acid is a carboxylic acid composed of one carbon. Formic acid was produced from CO2 by the chemical method. Recently, the C1 Gas Refinery R&D Center has successfully developed a biological process that produces formic acid from carbon monoxide for the first time. Formic acid is in a liquid state when at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. In addition, it is chemically stable and less toxic, thus, easy to store and transport. Therefore, it can be used as an alternative carbon source in the microbial fermentation process. In order to produce value-added chemicals using formic acid, a metabolic pathway that converts formic acid into cellular molecules composed of multiple carbons is required. However, a metabolic pathway that can efficiently convert formic acid into cellular molecules has not been developed. This acted as an obstacle for the production of value-added chemicals using formic acid
A research group of Ph.D. student Junho Bang and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering addressed this issue. This study, entitled “Assimilation of Formic Acid and CO2 by Engineered Escherichia coli Equipped with Reconstructed One-Carbon Assimilation Pathways”, has been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on September 18.
There has been increasing interest in utilizing formic acid as an alternative carbon source for the production of value-added chemicals. This research reports the development of an engineered E. coli strain that can convert formic acid and CO2 to pyruvate and produce cellular energy from formic acid through the reconstructed one-carbon pathways.
The metabolic pathway that efficiently converts formic acid and CO2 into pyruvate was constructed by the combined use of the tetrahydrofolate cycle and reverse glycine cleavage reaction. The tetrahydrofolate cycle was reconstructed by utilizing Methylobacterium extorquens formate-THF ligase, methenyl-THF cyclohydrolase, and methylene-THF dehydrogenase. The glycine cleavage reaction was reversed by knocking out the repressor gene (gcvR) and overexpressing the gcvTHP genes that encode enzymes related with the glycine cleavage reaction. Formic acid and CO2 conversion to pyruvate was increased via metabolic engineering of the E. coli strain equipped with the one-carbon assimilation pathway.
In addition, in order to reduce glucose consumption and increase formic acid consumption, Candida boidnii formate dehydrogenase was additionally introduced to construct a cellular energy producing pathway from formic acid. This reduces glucose consumption and increases formic acid consumption.
The reconstructed one-carbon pathways can supply cellular molecules and cellular energies from the formic acid and CO2. Thus, the engineered E. coli strain equipped with the formic acid and CO2 assimilation pathway and cellular energy producing pathway from formic acid showed cell growth from formic acid and CO2 without glucose. Cell growth was monitored and 13C isotope analysis was performed to confirm E. coli growth from the formic acid and CO2. It was found that the engineered E. coli strain sustained cell growth from the formic acid and CO2 without glucose.
Professor Lee said, “To construct the C1-refinery system, a platform strain that can convert one-carbon materials to higher carbon materials needs to be developed. In this report, a one-carbon pathway that can efficiently convert formic acid and CO2 to pyruvate was developed and a cellular energy producing pathway from formic acid was introduced. This resulted in an engineered E. coli strain that can efficiently utilize formic acid as a carbon source while glucose consumption was reduced. The reconstructed one-carbon pathways in this research will be useful for the construction of the C1-refinery system.”
This work was supported by the C1 Gas Refinery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2016M3D3A1A01913250). For further information: Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST (leesy@kaist.ac.kr, Tel: +82-42-350-3930)
2018.09.18 View 5911 -
Adding Smart to Science Museum
KAIST and the National Science Museum (NSM) created an Exhibition Research Center for Smart Science to launch exhibitions that integrate emerging technologies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoTs), and artificial intelligence (AI).
There has been a great demand for a novel technology for better, user-oriented exhibition services. The NSM continuously faces the problem of not having enough professional guides. Additionally, there have been constant complaints about its current mobile application for exhibitions not being very effective.
To tackle these problems, the new center was founded, involving 11 institutes and universities. Sponsored by the National Research Foundation, it will oversee 15 projects in three areas: exhibition-based technology, exhibition operational technology, and exhibition content.
The group first aims to provide a location-based exhibition guide system service, which allows it to incorporate various technological services, such as AR/VR to visitors. An indoor locating system named KAILOS, which was developed by KAIST, will be applied to this service. They will also launch a mobile application service that provides audio-based exhibition guides.
To further cater to visitors’ needs, the group plans to apply a user-centered ecosystem, a living lab concept to create pleasant environment for visitors.
“Every year, hundred thousands of young people visit the National Science Museum. I believe that the exhibition guide system has to be innovative, using cutting-edge IT technology in order to help them cherish their dreams and inspirations through science,” Jeong Heoi Bae, President of Exhibition and Research Bureau of NSM, emphasized.
Professor Dong Soo Han from the School of Computing, who took the position of research head of the group, said, “We will systematically develop exhibition technology and contents for the science museum to create a platform for smart science museums. It will be the first time to provide an exhibition guide system that integrates AR/VR with an indoor location system.”
The center will first apply the new system to the NSM and then expand it to 167 science museums and other regional museums.
2018.09.04 View 7301 -
Potential Drug to Cure Ciliopathies
(from left: Professor Joon Kim and PhD candidate Yong Joon Kim)
Ciliopathies are rare disorders involving functional and structural abnormalities of cilia. Although they are rare, they may reach 1 in 1,000 births. Unfortunately, there are no small-molecule drugs for treating ciliary defects. A KAIST research team conducted successful research that introduces a potential treatment that will be a foundation for developing drugs to treat the disease as well as a platform for developing small-molecule drugs for similar genetic disorders.
It was found that mutations in genes required for the formation or function of primary cilia cause ciliopathies and they result in cerebellar disorders, kidney dysfunction, and retinal degeneration.
Primary cilia are cell organelles playing a crucial role in the human body. They participate in intercellular signal transduction during embryonic development and allow retinal photoreceptor cells to function.
Currently, there are no approved drugs available for treating most ciliopathies. In fact, this is the case for most of the rare genetic disorders involving functional abnormalities through genetic mutation, and gene therapy is usually the only treatment available.
To tackle this issue, a team led by Professor Joon Kim from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering and Ho Jeong Kwon from Yonsei University constructed a cell that mimics a gene-mutated CEP290, one of the main causes of ciliopathies, through genome editing. They then used cell-based compound library screening to obtain a natural small-molecule compound capable of relieving defects in ciliogenesis, the production of cilia.
The CEP290 protein forms a complex with a ciliopathy protein called NPHP5 to support the function of the ciliary transition zone. In cases where the CEP290 protein is not formed due to a genetic mutation, NPHP5 will not function normally. Here, the compound was confirmed to partially restore the function of the complex by normalizing the function of NPHP5.
The team also identified that the compound is capable of retarding retinal degeneration by injecting the compound into animal models.
As a result, they discovered a lead compound for developing medication to treat ciliopathy patients involving retinal degeneration. Hence, the findings imply that chemical compounds that target other proteins interacting with the disease protein can mitigate shortages of a disease protein in recessive genetic disorders.
PhD candidate Yong Joon Kim stated, “This study shows how genetic disorders caused by genetic mutation can be treated with small-molecule drugs.”
Professor Kim said, “Since the efficacy of the candidate drug has been verified through animal testing, a follow-up study will also be conducted to demonstrate the effect on humans.”
This research was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation on July 23.
Figure 1. Identification of compounds that rescue ciliogenesis defects caused by CEP290 knockout
Figure 2. Eupatilin injection ameliorates M-opsin trafficking and electrophysiological response of cone photoreceptors in rd16 mice
2018.08.30 View 7380