Dr. Hyun Uk Kim joined the Department of CBE at KAIST as Assistant Professor in February 2018. Dr. Kim obtained his MS and PhD for his studies on medical applications of a genome-scale metabolic network under the supervision of Prof. Sang Yup Lee, also in the same department at KAIST. He did his undergraduate studies in Biotechnology at Yonsei University. Upon graduation from KAIST, he continued to focus on research as Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Assistant Professor/Research Fellow at BioInformatics Research Center, KAIST, until early 2018. During 2014-2016, he was a Visiting Senior Researcher at Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark.

Dr. Kim’s research is mainly concerned with facilitating drug discovery/development and improving individual’s health using systems biology approaches. Representative studies include:

1. Constructing biological network models (metabolism, signaling and transcriptional regulations) of medically important biological systems for better understanding and engineering. Relevant target systems include (both normal and diseased) human cells, microbial pathogens and natural product-producing microorganisms.
2. Predicting effective drug targets for both infectious and chronic diseases using biological network models.
3. Developing data-driven platform technologies that help facilitate drug discovery/development and improve individual’s health.

To better understand and engineer a biological network, his research group uses a wide range of systems biology approaches, including, but not limited to, genome-scale metabolic modeling, machine learning, bioinformatics, cheminformatics and software development technologies.

Professor Jinwoo Lee received his B.S and PhD from Seoul National University and has held post-doctoral positions at Seoul National University and Cornell University. He then joined the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology. He currently holds the position of full professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology where he works on the development of nano-materials for application in renewable energy.

Through the interdisciplinary research in polymer science and inorganic materials chemistry, his lab is developing new synthetic approaches that are simple, versatile and commercially/industrially relevant. In his lab, the designed nanomaterials are used as new electrodes for next-generation/high performance energy storages (ex. Li-ion batteries, Na-ion batteries, hybrid supercapacitors), and as electrocatalysts for enhancing the performance of various application (ex. CO₂ reduction reaction, water electrolyzer and fuel cells)