A new drug delivery system, whose nanopores open or close depending on electrical stimulus, has been established by Professor Jin Kon Kim, Director of National Creativity Research Initiative Program for Block Copolymer Self-Assembly. The device can also be manipulated by a remote controller while being planted inside a human body. Published on Nano Letters (11(3), 1284-1288 (2011)), an authoritative journal on nanoscience, the article, ‘Electrically Actuatable Smart Nanoporous Membrane for Pulsatile Drug Release,’ discusses how the new device can freely control the release of drugs..

Professor Kimoon Kim and his team revealed that cucurbiturils, small nano-sized molecules, can enable the analysis of many types of cancer and of stem cells in a very simple manner similar to fishing. Named after the plant family ‘Curcurbitaceae’ and shaped like hollow pumpkins, cucurbiturils can hold various ions or molecules like ferrocene inside, and can have ions attached on top and below through host-guest interactions, which means they have great potential for various applications. The compound was first synthesized in Germany around a century ago and its structure was elucid..

In 2008, POSTECH Alumnus Dr. Donghun Lee made an unexpected discovery during his study of single dopants in Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors, which are used for satellites or military products. A dopant is a substance that produces a desired electrical characteristic for semiconductors, and Dr. Lee had been studying a defect semiconductor where one of the lattice points had a dopant atom missing. He experimented by pushing the atom to the next lattice point, and surprisingly, the atoms automatically rearranged themselves to fill the vacant places as in a puzzle game. Now the defect produ..

Professor Kwang Soo Kim has come forth with a revolutionary and unprecedented method for DNA sequencing that can potentially decode 3 billion pairs of human genes in an hour. The field of DNA sequencing caught the world’s attention when the Human Genome Project was successfully completed in 2003, and many developed nations have since been competing to develop ways to increase the speed of genetic sequencing and analysis. This research is closely related with treating intractable or rare diseases and therefore will have important implications for life science. Professor Kim, well-known fo..

Electronic displays that can be rolled up like newspapers, televisions that can be hung on walls like calendars, or computers that can be put on like clothes are fascinating ideas still to be realized. But technology certainly has evolved in this direction. A research team led by Professor Chan Eon Park of POSTECH’s Chemical Engineering Department has come forth with a breakthrough with organic electronics. The team’s work focuses on a specific type of Organic Thin- Film Transistor (OTFT) called n-type organic semiconductors. The ‘n’ stands for negative, indicating the ..

Hydrogen as an alternative source of energy is one of the key elements in building environment-friendly vehicles that do not emit carbon dioxide. Currently, the market for hydrogen vehicles is fiercely competitive among countries with large automobile markets like Korea, Japan, and the United States; the drive is to develop a way to sophisticate the existing technology at low cost and for large quantities. The problem is that the vehicles are much too expensive to become commercialized and they have certain drawbacks. Mid-sized hydrogen automobiles cost up to 90,000 US dollars; the fuel cell i..

Professor Hyung Joon Cha, Chemical Engineering Department, has been known for his work on cell adhesives that induce the bioactivity of cells. His adhesives were devised after special characteristics of cells by combining mussel adhesion proteins and bioactive peptides that send certain signals to cells. His work was introduced in the publication of Biomaterials, an authoritative journal in biomaterial science, in December, 2010. Professor Cha’s research team is consisted of Research Professor Yoo-sung Choi and PhD candidate Bong-hyuk Choi. Mussels use their adhesion proteins not to be s..

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that entails hallucinations and delusions, for those who suffer it become incapable of controlling their minds. According to existing studies, the cause can be defined through genetic and environmental factors where the role of the gene called ‘Disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1’ has become central in the research. DISC1 in short, implies that this specific gene is found disrupted only in those who suffer from schizophrenia. Management of the disorder depends largely on medications and psychological interventions, but unfortunately, there is no d..

PIRO, the Pohang Institute for Intelligent Robotics located on the POSTECH campus, the first independent research institute for intelligent robotics in Korea, released information on PIRO-U3, a cleaning robot that functions underwater. Under supervision, the robot can be used in various places, such as industrial water tanks, reservoirs, riverbeds and also inshore area. It is noteworthy that PIRO-U3 was completed with domestic techniques only.Before PIRO-U3, sediments at the bottom of industrial water tanks were manually removed after draining all the water; the cleaning process of riverbeds o..

Arsenic is a poisonous metalloid that pollutes the land and drinking water in many countries in Southeast Asia, mainly in Bangladesh or Cambodia, and neither is a developed country free from this problem: it still remains in certain mining areas, timber or paper mills and industrial areas. The ingestion of crops contaminated by arsenic can cause cancer, digestive disorders and skin diseases, because it becomes accumulated in the human body instead of being digested or excreted. Professor Youngsook Lee, Department of Life Science, and her research team including Dr. Won-Yong Song, Postdoctoral ..