POSTECH, joining hands with Dong-A University and Seoul Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., hastens development of a novel sepsis medication materialized with domestic technology.POSTECH team of Professor Sung Ho Ryu and Professor Yoon-Keun Kim (Department of Life Science), in a joint research with Professor Yoe-Sik Bae of Dong-A University, supported by POSCO and Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, has developed peptides that effectively prevent progression of sepsis.In animal experiments, the peptide ligands newly developed for formyl peptide receptor like-1 (FPRL1) in septic mice resulte..

A research team of Department of Life Science’s Center for Biomolecular Recognition and Division of Molecular and Life Science, consisting of Professor Byung-Ha Oh, Doctor Jae-Sung Woo, and Doctor Jae-Hong Lim, has solved secrets of the ring-shaped molecular structure of the MukBEF condensin, the key mediator of chromosome condensation.In eukaryotic organisms, chromosomes are found in the nucleus of every cell. Before cell division, chromosomes are condensed, and the two replicated copies of the chromosomes are partitioned into the two daughter cells. In prokaryotic organisms, chromosome..

Practical recombinant hybrid mussel bioadhesiveWhat man-made good exists that provides us both life’s necessity and luxury? A popular seafood cuisine, mussels are enjoyed all around the world. They can be smoked, boiled, or steamed to be served alone or as an ingredient of a larger dish. It can also produce beautiful pearls and jewelry. Now scientists have discovered another use for this nature’s gift. Professor Hyung Joon Cha and his team at the Department of Chemical Engineering have developed a novel type of practical recombinant hybrid bioadhesive material that originates from ..

Spin-valve devices are a key component of a magnetoresistive random access memory. Mr. Woo Youn Kim and Professor Kwang Soo Kim of Department of Chemistry of POSTECH predicted supermagnetoresistance in a graphene nanoribbon device, the article of which has appeared in Nature Nanotech (3, 408-412, 2008). The reported graphene nanoribbon spin-valve device shows extremely large magnetoresistance (ten thousand times larger than that of conventional devices), which promises high speed access, and good sensitivity. The striking enhancement originates from the peculiar symmetry of band structures of ..

Professor Seung-Hoon Jhi and Ph.D. Candidate Seon-Myeong Choi, both of the Department of Physics, in their study of metal doped graphene nanoribbons, discovered that the adsorbed metal atoms form atomic chains which can be used as reagents to identify the edge atomic structures of the graphene nanoribbons and also as gate-driven spin valves to control the spin current in graphene nanoribbons. Graphene, the basic structural element of all graphitic materials including graphite, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes, is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeyco..

Nobel Laureate conferred first POSTECH Honorary DoctorateDr. Roderick MacKinnonPOSTECH, in celebrating 20th Anniversary on December, awarded the first honorary doctorate to Dr. Roderick MacKinnon of the Rockefeller University. Dr. MacKinnon received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels. He is currently the head of Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics which studies the structure and function of ion channels and associated regulatory proteins. International Affairs Office (IAO): First, congratulations on your honorary docto..

First drug delivery method developed for mitochondrial diseasesWhat do Huntington’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease (familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; the disease the physicist Stephen Hawking is suffering from) and Alzheimer’s disease have in common? The answer is mitochondria; these diseases are now called mitochondrial diseases.These incurable degenerative neurological or neuromuscular diseases, together with apoptosis (programmed cell death) and aging, are understood to occur largely at mitochondria sites. What then are mitochondria? Mitochondria (plural of mitochondr..

Improvements in performance and reductions in cost of silicon-based nonvolatile memories, such as flash random access memory (flash-RAM), have rendered floppy discs and many other forms of portable storage obsolete. But for many uses that require data to be written only once, such as archiving and security applications, their cost effectiveness is limited. So-called write-onceread- many (WORM) memories made from low-cost polymer materials could provide a solution. The devices, developed by Professors Moonhor Ree, Ohyun Kim, Su-Moon Park and their research teams, are based on hyperbranched copp..

According to laws of quantum mechanics a physical entity may possess either particle-like or wave-like properties. A particle exhibits wave properties when one cannot tell the path the particle may take among different paths available. Once the path information is obtained, however, the wave-like properties of a particle are supposed to disappear. In any case, it is not possible to observe both the wave and particle properties simultaneously, which is known as complementarity of a physical entity. In early days around the advent of quantum mechanics the concept of complementarity was considere..

In the April1 issue of G&D, a Korean research team led by Dr. Kyong-Tai Kim (POSTECH) describes how melatonin production is coordinated with the body‘s natural sleep/wake cycles.Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain, which helps to regulate our bodies’ circadian rhythm (the roughly-24-hour cycle around which basic physiological processes proceed). Normally, melatonin production is inhibited by light and enhanced by darkness, usually peaking in the middle of the night. Melatonin‘s expression pattern is mimicked by a protein called AANAT, which is..