YOON LAB
Department of Biological Sciences, KAIST
Lab Members
Ki-Jun Yoon, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
As a first-year graduate student, I was strongly captivated by the beauty of the developing brain in the fetus. Neural stem cells are the core units to generate various regions of the brain and to regenerate the injured adult brain. I would like to pursue my academic journey with characteristics of such stem cells, which are flexible, open to any fate, and kindly helping damaged ones.
Ajeet Kumar, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
I received a Ph.D. in August 2018 from Chungnam National University. In my graduate research, I studied the transcriptomic analysis of dopaminergic neurogenesis in zebrafish embryos. My long-term interests are neurodevelopmental biology, neural stem cell, and big-data-driven biology. In YOON LAB, I am focusing on the fate specification of neural stem cells modulated by post-transcriptional RNA-level regulation. Outside the Lab, I enjoy Hiking, Cooking, and listening to Music.
Sungmin Lee
Ph.D. Student
I think Biology is interesting because it is so relevant to our life. Especially, the development includes diverse mechanisms through which plenty of lives are born, live, and die. I was fascinated by this story, so I decided to study this field. The last destination of this story would be gene regulation. It is regulated by several steps through chemical modifications on DNA, RNA, and proteins. Among those steps, chemical modifications on RNA are in limelight recently. Therefore, I aim to figure out the epitranscriptomic regulations of development and physiology of life by investigating causal interactions between RNA modifications such as m6A and its related proteins.
Chanwoo Park
Ph.D. Student
How can we understand our brains? In fact, there are so many ways to answer this question. Someone may use physiological knowledge for this, but another person may use molecular biological knowledge. Actually, I want to explore this amazing brain world in humans with the “molecular” aspect, including DNA, RNA and their unique modifications, and finally to know how it affects the developmental stages. :)
Jihoon Moon
Ph.D. Student
I'm interested in brain development. To understand the characteristics of brain development and its physiology, I want to develop novel technologies to generate brain organoids. In our lab, my goal is to know how RNA modification plays a role in brain development and to model brain diseases with organoid.
Hyunsoo Jang
Ph.D. Student
Common neurological diseases can be traced back to the dysfunction of the molecular machinery underlying neuronal development. Thereby, it is essential to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms promoting brain development to provide therapeutic opportunities. I am intrigued by developmental neurobiology which enables me not only to understand the complexity of the brain but also to serve others. I hope my journey to scientific inquiries will have surprising applications in natural science and medicine.
Hoewon Park
Ph.D. Student
Life is the most valuable and complicated, which bring me to study biology. For the future, I hope we can regenerate every parts of our body and make the world more healthy. Now, I am studying about stem cell therapy for Parkinson's disease, but later, I want to study whole applications of stem cells in our body. In the future, we will gonna make a great step in regeneration!
Bonsang Koo
Ph.D. Student
My name is Bonsang Koo. Currently, I'm on the URP program to develop live-imaging sensor for m6A RNA modification. My main interest is development biology, especially neurogenesis and angiogenesis. I hope to push forward myself in Yoon LAB.
Seohyun Kim
Ph.D. Student
What motivates you? My motivation lies in the beauty of making sense of our biological selves, and the stem cells where we all began. It lies in the day-to-day enjoyment of scientific inquiry and dwellings in the possibility of therapeutic application. I wish to help further the field of cell therapy and disease modeling with iPSCs by exploring the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the in vivo and in vitro developing brain.
Huiseon Hwang
Ph.D. Student
Hi, I am Sunny. My interest in biology is that how biomloceular changes make big difference in organism level, and now I arrived at the land of epitranscriptome. I am recently working to understand the m6A based epitrnascriptomic changes in biochemical & bioinformatic strategies. I believe, "Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be."
Kiheon Lee
Ph.D. Student
I believe that the differentiation signal for the neurons and glial cells that comprise the brain is a change in the transcriptome of neural stem cells, and that this change is what drives brain development. In order to find an answer to this question, I’m attempting to elucidate the molecular mechanism of neuronal cell differentiation by analyzing the dynamic changes in nascent transcriptome. In particular, I'm investigating in determining how changes in the genome structure and transcriptome affect RNA production and degradation using a human brain organoid model. I hope to reveal the effects of nascent RNA m6A on the brain development process.
Euibeen Hwang
Ph.D. Student
How does a tiny little egg divide and differentiate, and finally give rise to a brain?
Even though it is a extremely important procedure that all of us have undergone,
we do not know its detailed molecular mechanism as of now.
I believe I can contribute to resolve this long-standing riddle with kind lab members
Jiye Han
Ph.D. Student
The world is beautiful. Sunshine through the green leaves on a clear summer day, the smell of dirt scattered in the air after rain, and the sound of birds singing in the quiet morning; all of which makes me feel blissful. But some people with the brain disease can't feel this way, or even it can cause them pain. I hope they can fully feel the happiness that is in full bloom around us. This is why I decided to study the brain disease.
In particular, I would like to study multigenic neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism spectrum disorder using patient-derived brain organoids. It would be the most pleasing and valuable if my research could contribute to the study and treatment of the brain diseases.
