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..

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..

* Link : http://www.koreaherald.com/opinion/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110713000882With Korea part of an ever more globalized world...Balancing globalization and reality in the lecture hallLectures conducted in English have become commonplace at Korean universities in the last few years. It has been reported that universities in Seoul conduct between 20 and 40 percent of their lectures in English. A desire to keep in step with globalization and bump up Korean universities’ place in world rankings have been cited as the rationale behind the push for more English lectures. But the move toward t..

* Link : http://www.koreaherald.com/business/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110628000753The most valuable economic resources are human resources, and Korea needs to improve its use of its most precious assets.A survey released last week reported that the average worker in Korea retires in his or her mid-50s. This is much earlier than their Western European OECD counterparts, who usually retire at 65 or older, and for whom even early retirement is usually 60 or older.The survey results raised an issue that has puzzled me for a long time: Why do so many Korean workers retire in their mid-50s? This is tru..

On July 2, POSTECH was featured on Toyokeizai, an leading Japanese weekly magazine.Featured Article on POSTECH in Toyoukeizai

* Link : http://world.gmw.cn/2011-04/26/content_1889001.htmAn article featuring President Baik's interview titled "POSTECH to Collaborate with Tsinghua University for the Advancement of Humanity" appeared in the April 28th issue of the Guangming Daily, a newspaper in China.

* Link : http://www.koreaherald.com/opinion/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110426000627In the wake of the tragic suicides of four KAIST students in recent months, some suggested that study in English at KAIST puts undue stress on students, contributes to academic underperformance, creates communication barriers between students and professors, and encouraged the suicides.In the past several weeks, I reflected on my English-only teaching experience at POSTECH. I asked what would happen if Caltech or MIT set up a Korean branch and offered courses in English only, except for language-specific courses? I p..

A new cooperative partnership has been established with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).President Sunggi Baik visited HKUST on April 7, 2011, to sign agreements for university-wide cooperation and a joint Ph.D. degree program with the HKUST School of Engineering.In accordance to the student exchange clauses of the cooperation agreement, POSTECH undergraduate students have HKUST added to their choice of study abroad institutions starting Spring Semester 2012.Candidates of the POSTECH-HKUST joint Ph.D. program will have co-advisors at both POSTECH and HKUST, and spend ..

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..

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 ..