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KAIST To Hold Robot Competition KAIST To Hold Robot Competition KAIST (President Nam-Pyo Suh) will be holding ‘the 6th Intelligent SoC Robotwar 2007’ and is now receiving online applications at the official web site of the competition, www.socrobotwar.org. Application deadline is May 31, Thursday. ‘Intelligent SoC Robotwar’ is a competition of intelligent robots employing System on Chip (SoC) that commenced in 2002. In the competition, participants will embody their ideas in the same intelligent robot platforms and robot bodies, and how well the ideas are embodied will decide winners. In the part of tank robot competition (left photo), tank-like robots attack enemy robots by using laser, which demands technologies of scene analysis, radio communication and speech recognition. Hence, a variety of recognition algorithms and motion algorithms significantly affect match results. Taekwon robot competition is a fight competition of two-leg robots. In the competition, robots equipped with scene analysis technologies perceive the location, distance and motion of enemy robots and do motions of attack and defense with no control by operators. Teams must be made up of two or more persons including undergraduate or graduate students and all teams are entitled to participate in theoretical and practical education on platform boards for robots and intelligent robots. Final winner will be decided through qualifying test, preliminary matches and main matches. “The most distinct characteristic of this competition is robot’s intelligence takes top priority. It’s not remote control-operated robots but autonomously operating intelligent robots that will make Korean robot-related industries further profitable. Considering that last year, total 138 teams participated in the competition and an award from the Prime Minister was given to the winner, the competition undoubtedly hold the top position among robot-related competitions,” said Hee-Joon You, President of the competition committee and a professor of Electrical Engineering. Details on the competition are as follows:1. Purpose● To foster highly specialized technicians in the field of SoC through the embodiment of intellectual robots adopting SoC● To pave foundations for the enhancement of national competitiveness through the vitalization of IT-SoC and intellectual robot fields, next-generation growth momenta 2. Introduction(1) Sponsor: Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy(2) Organizer: KAIST(3) Competition parts: SoC tank robot competition, SoC taekwon robot competition(4) Rules of matches① SoC Tank Robot competition- 4M X 4M square field, 2 to 2 survival format- Three three-minute rounds per game (Winning two out of three rounds is required to win a game)- 5-minute long intermission ② SoC Taekwon Robot competition- Octagonal field with a radius of 2 M, 1 to 1 match format- Three three-minute rounds per game (Winning two out of three rounds is required to win a game)- Four downs per round make a loss, In the case of less-than-four-time downs within three minutes, attack points decide winner.- 5-minute long intermission (5) ScheduleApril 1 thru May 31, 2007 ApplicationJuly, 2007 OrientationAugust, 2007 Qualifying test August, 2007 Preliminary matchesOctober18 - 21, 2007 Main matches (6) ContactWeb site: http://www.socrobotwar.orgPerson in charge: Min-Hee Shin, 042-869-8937, maiwind@kaist.ac.kr
2007.04.26 View 17633
Prof. Bien Named IFSA Fuzzy Fellow Prof. Bien Named IFSA Fuzzy Fellow Zeungnam Bien, a professor of Electrical Engineering, has been named a Fuzzy Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA). IFSA Fuzzy Fellows are named by the Fuzzy Fellows Committee based on the degree of technical contributions to the fuzzy set and its relevant fields and the degree of contribution for the establishment of fundaments in the field of advanced applied technologies development and fuzzy fields. IFSA has named total 36 fellows since its first one at the world congress in Prague in 1997. Professor Bien has worked as the chairman of the IFSA and will be officially named a Fuzzy Fellowship at the IFSA World Congress at Cancun, Mexico in June.
2007.04.19 View 14773
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 20471
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 19356
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 16192
Singer Janghoon Kim Donates Development Fund to KAIST Singer Janghoon Kim Donates Development Fund to KAIST - Generously donates part of earnings from his concert where HUBO performed for development of science - Opportunity for activation of science culture through encounter between science and culture Singer Janghoon Kim donated 50 million won from his concert earnings for KAIST development fund. Singer Kim visited KAIST on January 16 (Tue) and donated the development fund at the joint lecture room in KAIST Mechanical Engineering B/D. Singer Kim had a concert at the end of the last year where he performed with ‘HUBO’ and ‘Albert HUBO’, human-like robots of KAIST HUBO center. Singer Kim made a donation to express his gratitude to KAIST Professor Joonho Oh and his research team, who assisted his concert actively to allow HUBO to join the concert in spite of technical difficulties and research obstacles. “Although HUBO has performed various activities so far, it is the first time to make a successful performance with a singer on a stage. Honestly, I hesitated a lot to allow HUBO to join Kim’s concert due to safety problems etc., but I was so impressed by Kim’s interest and passion for science, and thus decided HUBO’s joining the concert. This is the first case how robots can exchange with public cultures. I wish this case will be a momentum to activate science culture and make people feel closer to science,” Professor Oh said. The donation will be spent partly as KAIST development fund (20 million won) and partly on the publicity of science and technology via HUBO (30 million won).
2007.01.23 View 14391
KAIST Chong-Moon Lee Library Opens KAIST Chong-Moon Lee Library Opens Jong-Moon Lee Library, management education library for scientists possessing the biggest amount of entrepreneurship data in Asia, opens in KAIST (President Nam-Pyo Suh) on Thursday, November 9, 2006. Jong-Moon Lee Library was planned when Jong-Moon Lee, Chairman of AmBex, donated 2 million dollar to KAIST and founded Entrepreneurship Research Center at KAIST in 2004. Chairman Lee emphasized on the necessity of management education for scientists of advanced technology-based venture companies and set the management plan for Jong-Moon Lee Library securing the biggest amount of Entrepreneurship data in Asia. Jong-Moon Lee Library possesses books for inspiring entrepreneurship, including ▲ books regarding how to prepare and evaluate business plans that support the realization of business ideas such as venture company founding, etc. ▲ administrative books necessary for company management such as leadership and finance, accounting, etc. ▲ economic books that foster reader’s insight over economy and society. The number of books is about 4,900 and various journals including Harvard Business Review are also provided. KAIST Entrepreneurship Research Center (President Tae-Yong Yang) is now carrying out ▲ the management of entrepreneurship library for Engineering students and businessmen ▲ programs for entrepreneurship education and venture-company founding ▲aid for business plan forums and academic conferences. It benchmarks Stanford Technology Venture Program (STVP) of Stanford University, which is evaluated the most excellent program in researches and realization of entrepreneurship, and manages education programs for scientific manpower with international managing minds on the basis of world’s best capabilities in scientific researches and education of KAIST. President Yang explained about the management plan by saying, “Following Chairman Jong-Moon Lee’s intention, the center will educate entrepreneurship to engineering students and properly diagnose initial values of excellent technologies, thereby making venture companies flourish.”
2006.11.16 View 16264
Sungil Chung listed in Who's Who following last year Sungil Chung listed in Who’s Who following last year Sungil Chung, senior researcher of KAIST Satellite Technology Research Center (STRC), is listed in the international biographical dictionary Marquis Who"s Who’s Who’s Who in the America Edition 2007 following last year. He is also listed in the first edition of Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders. Ph.D. Chung majored in Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) at Texas A&M University and worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for a research in the field of aerospace vehicle-related thermal control. He has worked at KAIST STRC as senior researcher from September this year. He has won an Innovation and Creativity Prize Paper Award from the U.S. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2004.
2006.11.16 View 17317
Professor Chung-Seok Chang named as APS Fellow Professor Chung-Seok Chang named as APS Fellow - Honorable position offered only to an extremely small number of members within 0.5% of APS - Recognized for his leading and creative contribution to Plasma conveyance theory, Electromagnetic waves heating theory and leadership in the research field of large-scaled computer simulation Professor Chung-Seok Chang (Department of Physics) was named as a fellow of the American Physics Society (APS), world-renowned society in the physics filed. The fellow of the APS is considered as a position of great honor among scholars in the field of Physics since only a small number of regular members within 0.5% of the APS can become the fellows. Professor Chang was recognized for his leading and creative contribution to the fields of Plasma conveyance theory, Electromagnetic waves heating theory and leadership in the research field of large-scaled computer simulation, which made him named as APS fellow. Professor Chang has been invited several times to the Main Policy Committee of the U.S. Department of Energy and was a member of On-site Review Committee on the theoretical research activities of the U.S. major state-run institutes. Due to many world-recognized research results carried out with KAIST students, he has been invited several times for lecture to the conference of the APS as well as large-scaled international academic conferences. As a result, KAIST doctorates of Computational Physics from his laboratory are recognized globally for their excellence in the field of nuclear fusion. Besides, Professor Chang was assigned as the Chief General of the super-sized Computational Theory Research Group last year, to which the U.S Department of Energy will invest 6 million dollars of research fund for three years, and manages the complex theory research group that transcribes and reproduces the properties of nuclear fusion plasma by using large-scaled parallel computers with its head quarter in the U.S. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. This research group consists of greatest U.S. scholars in the fields of Physics, Mathematics, and Computation, belonging to 14 research-education institutes such as Princeton University, Colombia University, MIT, University of California Engineering College, California State University, Rutgers University, New-York University, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Oak Ridge National Lab, Berkeley National Laboratories, etc., thereby gathering worldwide
2006.10.25 View 14236
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 16957
Sona Kwak wins first prize in international robot design contest Sona Kwak wins first prize in international robot design contest Sona Kwak (Doctor’s course, Department of Industrial Design) won the first prize in an international robot design contest. Kwak exhibited an emotional robot of ‘Hamie’ at ‘Robot Design Contest for Students’ in Ro-Man 2006/ The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, which was held at University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom for three days from September 6 (Wed) and obtained the glory of the first prize. ‘Hamie’, the work of the first prize, has been devised in terms of emotional communication among human beings. The design concept of ‘Hamie’ is a portable emotional robot that can convey even ‘intimacy’ using senses of seeing, hearing, and touching beyond a simple communication function. The design of ‘Hamie’ was estimated to best coincide with the topic of the contest in consideration of its function that allows emotional mutual action between human beings as well as mutual action between human and robot, or robot and robot. ‘Hamie’ is not an actual embodiment but proposed as ‘a concept and design of a robot’. ‘Ro-man’ is a world-famous academic conference in the research field of mutual action between robot and human being, and ‘Robot Design Contest for Students’ is a contest to scout for creative and artistic ideas on the design and structure of future robots and exhibits works from all over world. Kwak is now seeking to develop the contents and designs of various next-generation service robots such as ▲ ottoro ? cleaning robot ▲ robot for blind ▲ robot for the old ▲ robot for education assistance ▲ robot for office affairs ▲ ubiquitos robot in her lab (PES Design Lab) led by Professor Myungseok Kim. “I’ve considered and been disappointed about the role of designers in robot engineering while I’ve been designing robots. I am very proud that my robot design has been recognized in an academic conference of world-famous robot engineers and gained confidence,” Kwak said.
2006.09.27 View 16959
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 16417

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