College+of+Engineering
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Professor Choi Chul Hui appointed as editor-in-chief of Nanobiosensors in a disease diagnosis magazine
Professor Choi Chul Hui of the Department of Biological and Brain Engineering has been appointed the editor-in-chief of Nanobiosensors, an international medical magazine that concentrates on disease diagnosis.
As the editor-in-chief, Professor Choi will be involved in dissertation evaluations and overall direction of the magazine.
Professor Choi is one of the leading authorities in the field of clinical medicine and has published 60 SCI level dissertations in the fields of cell biology, computational biology, and bio-optics.
He is also the executive director of the KAIST BioImaging Research Center, and his research lab focuses on cell signals and bio imaging. Professor Choi is researching the generation process of degenerative diseases like arteriosclerosis by taking a multidisciplinary approach.
Professor Choi has recently developed a new bio imaging technique that allows for the measurement of perfusion and a new technology for the drug delivery to nerves using ultra short wavelength laser beams.
2011.10.10 View 10720 -
Cancer detection from an implantable, flexible LED
Professor Keon Jae Lee
A KAIST research team has developed a new type of biocompatible and bendable GaN LED biosensor.
Daejeon, the Republic of Korea, August 8, 2011—Can a flexible LED conformably placed on the human heart, situated on the corrugated surface of the human brain, or rolled upon the blood vessels, diagnose or even treat various diseases? These things might be a reality in the near future.
The team of Professor Keon Jae Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST) has developed a new concept: a biocompatible, flexible Gallium Nitride (GaN) LED that can detect prostate cancer.
GaN LED, a highly efficient light emitting device, has been commercialized in LED TVs and in the lighting industry. Until now, it has been difficult to use this semiconductor material to fabricate flexible electronic systems due to its brittleness. The research team, however, has succeeded in developing a highly efficient, flexible GaN LED and in detecting cancer using a flexible LED biosensor.
Prof. Lee was involved in the first co-invention of "High Performance Flexible Single Crystal GaN" during his PhD course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This flexible GaN LED biosensor utilized a similar protocol to transfer thin GaN LED films onto flexible substrates, followed by a biocompatible packaging process; the system’s overall potential for use in implantable biomedical applications was demonstrated.
Professor John Roger (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UIUC) said,
“Bio-integrated LEDs represent an exciting, new technology with strong potential to address important challenges in human health. This present work represents a very nice contribution to this emerging field.”
This paper was published in the online issue of Nano Energy Elsevier Journal (Editor, Prof. Zhong Lin Wang) dated September 16, 2011.
Flexible GaN LED produces blue light.
2011.09.20 View 11761 -
Professor Lee Sang Yeop Nominated the Chairman of Emerging Technologies Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum
Professor Lee Sang Yeop, Dean of College Life Science & Bioengineering, was appointed as the chairman of the Emerging Technologies Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum.
He will be in office till the 31st of August 2012, exactly 1 year from the date of his appointment.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a ‘think tank’ consisting of world leaders in various fields like economics, politics, and policies and has created the ‘Global Agenda Council’ to solve the problems mankind faces in achieving environmentally sustainable growth and suggest a collective vision and strategy.
The committee to be chaired by Professor Lee (Emerging Technologies Global Agenda Council) will discuss the direction in which the fields of biological engineering, nanotechnology, and IT (information technology) should develop and discuss the possible impact these fields will have on the society.
Professor Lee commented that, “I am extremely happy to be appointed as the chair of the Emerging Technologies Global Agenda Council at the World Economic Forum which is a gathering of world class leaders” and that “it is a great opportunity to spread Korea’s success and lessons in the advancement of science and technology.”
Professor Lee is the creator of the field of system metabolism engineering and is making great strides in manipulating the microorganism’s metabolic pathways on a systems scale to make changing chemicals derived from oil into eco-friendly and bio-based products.
2011.09.20 View 9715 -
KAIST Online Electirc Vehicle Introduced by CNN
CNN aired KAIST’s Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV) on August 29, 2011 in its program called “Eco Solutions” that reports on meeting people with innovative solutions to preserve the planet. The reporter went to Seoul Grand Park, an amusement park and introduced an online electric tram developed by KAIST and operated on a daily basis for park visitors since July 29, 2011. KAIST has designed different types of OLEVs including bus, SUV, and tram. The reporter said that “the online electric tram” at the park provides visitors with a “cleaner, greener, and convenience since it charges as you go.” Currently, three OLEVs are running inside the park, and KAIST plans to replace the rest of existing diesel trams with OLEVs in the near future.
CNN Link: http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/eco.solutions/index.html
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLzmFFqPJfo
2011.09.09 View 10807 -
KAIST Successfully Demonstrates Mobile Harbor in the Open Sea
Busan, South Korea—Large container ships are no longer required to come into ports to transport cargo, as KAIST has developed an innovative technology that will transform the paradigm of today’s cargo handling operations. A Mobile Harbor is a vessel that carries a large stabilized crane with a smart spreader and multistage trolley system, enabling the loading and unloading of ship cargo on the wavy open sea. Following a successful docking of two vessels at sea in April of this year, KAIST conducted a full scope of Mobile Harbor operations in the inner sea of Busan, South Korea, on June 29, 2011.
Initiated in 2009, the Mobile Harbor (MH) is one of the university’s flagship research projects, which aims to provide a new growth engine that will lead the Korean economy to the next level of advancement, and to develop green technology through multidisciplinary and convergence research. The idea of MH came to light when thinking outside the box (why can’t a harbor go out to meet a ship on voyage and retrieve goods instead of ships coming into the harbor?) to improve problems relating to the current maritime transport system, such as port congestion, environmental issues caused by heavy sea transport, increased demand for supersized container ships, and the need for port construction and expansion.
The essential technology to establish a Mobile Harbor is a docking system and crane system that can overcome the obstacles imposed by the sea, i.e., waves and wind. Connecting two operating vessels of different sizes in the unpredictable and ever-changing environment of the sea was regarded as “impossible” and had never been tried before, but, on April 26, 2011, KAIST successfully demonstrated the technology to moor vessels safely and securely.
The Mobile Harbor has a unique way of mooring vessels that are anchored at sea: its flexibly designed robot arms with a square-shape vacuum suction pad at the tip reach out and attach to the hull of a container ship for docking. Each robot arm is connected to a cable and winch that further add stability to the Mobile Harbor. Foam-filled fenders are placed between the Mobile Harbor and the container ship, thereby maintaining a safe distance to prevent collisions.
The crane system consists of a multistage trolley, smart spreader, and tension controller, all of which provide the crane with functionality and stability to move around cargo containers in the sea. The crane system also has various sensors like cameras and laser scanners, and therefore, it can gauge the movement of the spreader and ships as well as trace a target container in real time. As a result, the spreader, a container grabbing device, is free from the swing motions when lifting and putting down cargo and grabs a target container safely in the wavy open sea.
During today’s at-sea demonstration in Busan, a research team from the KAIST Mobile Harbor Center docked a Mobile Harbor (a barge ship) right next to a container vessel (the other barge ship) and repeated freight transport operations between the two ships, presenting the great potential to commercialize the Mobile Harbor technology.
The project has been implemented in collaboration with industries, research institutes, and universities in such fields as mechanical engineering, robotics, automation engineering, and ocean systems engineering. The demonstration proceeded with a wide range of participants including researchers, engineers, government officials, and entrepreneurs from Korea and around the world.
Byung-Man Kwak, Director of the KAIST Mobile Harbor Center, explained his feelings on the successful demonstration:
“It’s been a remarkable journey to develop a Mobile Harbor from scratch, and I’m genuinely thrilled to showcase what we have accomplished so far. Today’s demonstration of Mobile Harbor’s core technologies will really change the face of our maritime transportation system. We will be able to deliver more goods to global markets and consumers via sea route, not necessarily building more ports or expanding the existing harbors. KAIST’s Mobile Harbor will also significantly cut down the high cost related to overland transportation of cargo and in return, contribute to the reduction of carbon emission.”
The Center has received much interest in possible market migration and broader application of the Mobile Harbor from businesses and organizations, e.g., US Office of Naval Research, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Aramco, POSCO, and the Korean Navy.
2011.07.06 View 16776 -
Using Light to Deliver Drugs to the Brain
The cerebral blood vessels have a unique blood-brain barrier. Using this unique structure, Professor Choi Chul Hee (Department of Bio-Brain Engineering) developed a technique to deliver drugs safely to the brain using lasers to alter the diffusivity of the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier allows the entry of only those drugs related to metabolic functions which made the entry of other drugs difficult.
Due to this property it was difficult to administer the drug to a patient and have it affect the patient. Therefore the question was is it possible to maintain the effectiveness of the drug and allow it to pass through the barrier?
The conventional method was to actually alter the structure of the drug or drill of small hole in the head and administering the drug directly, but these methods proved to be high risk and expensive.
Professor Choi’s team used an ultra-short frequency laser beam on the barrier for 1/1000th of a second on the barrier to temporarily inhibit its function thereby allowing the drug to enter the brain safely.
2011.06.20 View 9438 -
New Scientist: Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping, June 2, 2011
Researchers from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, KAIST, released their research results in Smart Materials and Structures on ways to “harness strange properties of turbulent airs.” They built a prototype that produces energy using a specific type of unstable airflow called “wake galloping.” New Scientist wrote an article about the paper, which appeared on June 2, 2011. For the article, please follow the link below.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.700-wind-power-harnesses-the-energy-of-galloping.html?full=true&print=true
2011.06.04 View 9036
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Professor Choi Han Lim receives Automatica Applications Paper Price
Professor Choi Han Lim of the Department of Aerospace received ‘Automatica Applications Paper Prize’ for the first time ever for a Korean.
Professor Choi published a paper in the Automatica magazine with the topic of ‘Continuous Trajectory Planning of Mobile Sensors for Informative Forecasting’.
Professor Choi dealt with most efficient measuring methods for mobile sensor platforms thereby improving the performance of anticipating environmental changes and proposed key theories for problem solving and also an efficient algorithm.
The research was conducted in cooperation with MIT Department of Aerospace Professor Jonathan How with the support of the National Science Foundation.
Automatica
Journal published by the International Federation of Automatic Control and has been awarding the Automatica Paper Prize every three years.
2011.05.31 View 8584
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Displaybank, KAIST Develops Flexible Display Metal Wiring Technology, May 27, 2011
On May 26, Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIST) announced that team of Prof. Yang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering developed flexible display metal wiring manufacturing-technology. For the article, please follow the link,
http://www.displaybank.com/eng/info/sread.php?id=5877
2011.05.31 View 9018
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Professor Hwang Kyu Young Receives Outstanding Contributions Award from DASFAA
Professor Hwang Kyu Young received the 2011 Outstanding Contributions Award from the International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA).
Professor Hwang was the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Executive, etc. of the DASFAA Steering Committee for the past 12 years and has been leading the development in the field of database in the Asia/Pacific Region. He was also the editor in chief of The VLDB Journal which is the leading magazine in the field of database and the member of ACM SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation Award Committee, VLDB 10-year Best Paper Award Committee, and IEEE ICDE Influential Paper Awards Committee. He receives the Outstanding Contributions Award for ensuring high standards in world database research.
2011.05.31 View 9558
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Artificial Photosynthesis Technology Developed using Solar Cell Material
Humanity is facing global warming and the exhaustion of fossil fuel. In order to remedy these problems, efforts to produce fuel without the production of carbon dioxide using solar energy continues constantly.
KAIST’s Professor Park Chan Beom and Professor Ryu Jeong Ki’s research teams of the department of Material Science and Engineering has developed an artificial photosynthesis system that mimics the photosynthesis in nature using solar cell technology.
The development of the technology is sure to pave the way to ‘Eco-Friendly Green Biological Process’.
Photosynthesis is the process by which a biological entity produces chemical products like carbohydrates using physical and chemical reactions using solar energy as its energy source.
Professor Park’s team was able to develop the artificial photosynthesis technology with a biological catalyst as its basis.
The result of the experiment was published in ‘Advanced Materials’ magazine on the 26th of April edition and has been patented.
2011.05.11 View 11132
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New Diagnosis System for Cardiovascular Disease Developed
Professor Park Hyun Kyu of the department of Biological-Chemical Engineering developed a new diagnosis system for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases using E.coli to test the homocysteine concentration in the blood.
The research team used the genetic recombination process to produce two different biologically illuminant nutrition cultures and compared the growth rate of the homocysteine between the two cultures by comparing the degree of luminescence.
The technology can allow the simultaneous analysis of blood samples en masse and is also economical and thus is being regarded as a major step forward in the field of homocysteine concentration analysis which is a rapidly growing field.
The conventional method used high performance liquid chromatography which took a long time to complete and was costly to run.
The advantage of the newly developed system is that it gets rid of costly steps as it only needs to grow E.coli and measure the luminescence of the naturally occurring illuminant.
The research was published as the cover paper of the April edition of ‘Analytical Chemistry’.
2011.05.11 View 8795