International Affairs Team

The immune system is a balance network of cells and organs that work together to defend your body against attacks by diseases. However, it can also be a contributing factor that causes people to develop an autoimmune condition where your body's immune system attacks healty body tissues by mistake. Current medications, involving steroids or other immunosuppressant drugs are effective for controlling severe manifestations of allergic, autoimmune, and transplant-related diseases in the short term. However, its long term safety profile continues to be studied due to their long list of side effects. For instance, the use of calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) plays a significant role in the success of organ transplantation, but they increase the risk of severe infections and cancer when taken for long periods of time. There is, therefore, an urgent need to develop safe and effective therapeutic agent. A team of researchers, led by Prof. Chan Young Park (School of Life Sciences) has developed a new inhibitor of Orai1 channels, AnCoA4 that could be potentially developed into a safe, effective, and long-term therapeutic alternative. In this study, Prof. Park’s research team identified that AncoA4 is a more effective in vitro and in vivo than cyclosporine, the potent immunosuppressant widely used in organ transplantation and in the treatment of several autoimmune disorders, , such as type 1 diabetes and psoriasis. Prof. Park stated "This discovery will provide a fast and inexpensive method for identifying small molecules that bind to specific proteins.” He adds "Although a follow-up investigation for chronic toxicity testing has to be done, the fact that we discovered AnCoA4 that could potentially developed into an immunosuppressant with long-term efficacy and safety is of great significance." The result of this research appeared in the October 2014 issue of Chemistry & Biology at Cell Press, the world’s leading publisher in the biological sciences. Journal Reference: Masoud Sadaghiani, Sang Min Lee, Justin I. Odegaard, Dennis B. Leveson-Gower, Olivia M. McPherson, Paul Novick, Mi Ri Kim, Angela N. Koehler, Robert Negrin, Ricardo E. Dolmetsch, Chan Young Park. "Identification of Orai1 channel inhibitors by using minimal functional domains to screen small molecule microarrays." Chem. Biol., 21, 1278-1292, 2014.

‘Electronic skins’ are like temporary tattoos that stick to the skin and record blood pressure, heartbeats, and brain activity as accurately as bulky traditional electrodes. A team of scientists, led by Prof. Jang-Ung Park (School of Materials Science and Engineering) has engineered a stretchable and transparent graphene electrode, using hybrid structures of graphene-metal nanotrough networks. This joint research team includes Prof. Park, Prof. Byeong Su Bae from KAIST, and Executive Director Hye Yong Chu from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). Above image shows a photograph of the transparent wireless sensor attached to the human skin. In a paper published online October 14, 2014, in Nano Letters, Prof. Park’s research team demonstrated that this type of electronic skin can still maintain its electrical and optical properties stably against large mechanical deformations, even when bent right in the center. Prof. Park says “There have been a number of studies have addressed the issues associated with ‘electronic skin’ in the past, but had a problem with visible electrical circuits.” He adds, “However, with this discovery, these transparent and skin-attachable electrodes can be used more practically in numerous applications of flexible and wearable electronics.” In addition to the effect on the efficiency of current transparent electronic circuits, this discovery has improved the uniformity of sheet resistance significantly by combining graphene with metal fibers. This has been one of the major challenges with getting graphene to work as an electrode. Journal Reference: An BW, Hyun BG, Kim SY, Kim M, Lee MS, Lee K, Koo JB, Chu HY, Bae BS, Park JU. Stretchable and Transparent Electrodes using Hybrid Structures of Graphene-Metal Nanotrough Networks with High Performances and Ultimate Uniformity. Nano Letter. 2014 Oct 14. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 25299634.

A team of scientists, led by Professor Byeong-Su Kim from UNIST’s School of Natural Science has engineered a large-scale nanometer-sized (10-9m) light-emitting structure by stacking a graphene-like thin semiconductor on top of a polyelectrolyte, thereby improving the luminous efficiency by four times. This joint research team includes Prof. Kim, Prof. Ryu Soon-min at Pohang University of Science and Technology, and Prof. M. Chhowalla at Rutger University. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is a two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor material from the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) that emits more light when it is monolayer. However, because the absorption and emission of light tend to hamper with multi-layer stacking, the development of MoS2 as photoelectric devices has not been very successful. Prof. Kim’s research team produced the first successful fabrication of multilayered MoS2 films by layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly, showing a significant enhancement of light-emitting efficiency while preserving the innate direct band gap property of MoS2 sheets individually. Prof. Kim says that "This discovery will become a major breakthrough in light-emitting display research." He adds "This newly-developed material will be put to good use in producing various products, like flexible displays and lightweight electronic devices." This research findings appeared online September 29, 2014, in Nano Letters. Journal Reference: 1. Piljae Joo, Kiyoung Jo, Gwanghyun Ahn, Damien Voiry, Hu Young Jeong, Sunmin Ryu, Manish Chhowalla and Byeong-Su Kim. Functional Polyelectrolyte Nanospaced MoS2 Multilayers for Enhanced Photoluminescence Nano Letters. 2014 Sept 29. DOI: 10.1021/nl502883a.

On September 8, a team of researchers, led by Prof. Guntae Kim (School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) and Prof. Noe Jung Park (School of Natural Science) has announced that they have invented a highly active and durable electrode material for commercialized Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) that will provide improved SOFC performance. This study is a collaboration amongst ten scientists from International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research at Kyushu University, Dong-Eui University, and Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials at UNIST. This class of double-perovskite compounds display fast oxygen ion diffusion and high catalytic activity toward oxygen reduction while maintain excellent compatibility with the electrolyte. According to Prof. Kim, this has not only increased the stability of the existing electrode but also increased the performance of SOFC by diffusing the oxygen ion more rapidly. This scientific research regarding SOFC appeared in the September 8, 2014 issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition, one of the prime chemistry journals in the world with an Impact Factor higher than those of comparable journals. Moreover, this research was supported by the Mid-career Research Program, funded by the Korea Government Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) and the Basic Science Research Program, funded by the Ministry of Education through the National Research Foundation of Korea. It was also supported by the New & Renewable Energy of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning, grant funded by the Korea Ministry of Knowledge Economy. Journal Reference: Seonyoung Yoo, Areum Jun, Young-Wan Ju, Dorj Odkhuu, Juuji Hyodo, Hu Young Jeong, Noejung Park, Jeeyoung Shin, Tatsumi Ishihara, Guntae Kim. “Development of double-perovskite compounds as cathode materials for low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells.” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 2014 Nov 8;53(48):13064-7. Epub 2014 Sep 8.