Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was honored to be the laureate of the 23rd NAEK Award, March 19, 2019.
The National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK) Award was inaugurated in 1997 to honor and recognize engineers who have made significant contributions to innovating the national industries and technologies. The award is conferred to a single person at a university or a research institute every year who demonstrates the original and world-leading research.
Distinguished Professor Lee is a pioneering scholar of the field called systems metabolic engineering, a discipline for the biological production of chemicals and materials that are useful to the mankind. He has produced numerous high-quality research breakthroughs in systems metabolic engineering. In 2016, he produced an biodegradable plastic using genetically engineered Escherichia coli strains. In 2018, he successfully produced aromatic polyesters, a main material for polyethylene terephthalate (PET), also using E. coli strains. His research team also elucidated 3D structure and catalytic mechanism of the PET-degrading enzyme, and further improved its PET degradation capacity through protein engineering.
Distinguished Professor Lee is one of the most highly cited researchers (HCR), ranked in the top 1%, by citations in the field according to the Clarivate Analytics. He is the first Korean researcher to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Academy of Sciences (NAS), both in the USA.
