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• Sookmyung places 10 professors on World's Top 2% Scientists list Courtesy of Sookmyung Women's University SEOUL, October 23 (AJP) - Ten faculty members at Sookmyung Women's University have been named to this year's list of the world's most-cited researchers, a ranking compiled by Stanford University and the Amsterdam-based academic publisher Elsevier. The list, released Oct. 7, ranks scientists by a composite citation score drawn from Scopus, Elsevier's database of academic papers. The score combines how often a researcher's work is cited, their h-index, a measure of how many of their papers have each been cited at least that many times, and adjustments for co-authorship and author position. Researchers who score in the top 2 percent of their subfield, across 174 subfields, make the list. The 2026 edition uses citation data through the end of 2025. The ranking has two categories. Six Sookmyung faculty appeared in the single-year category, which measures research impact over the most recent year, and five in the career-long category, which measures impact across an entire career. Kim Yoon-young, a distinguished professor in the School of Mechanical Systems Engineering, was named in both. Courtesy of Sookmyung Women's University The university said the result showed its faculty competing at an international level in fields ranging from mechanical engineering and pharmacy to artificial intelligence and software. Sookmyung President Moon Si-yeun said the university would "continue to support the research activities of outstanding researchers and strengthen research competitiveness by promoting interdisciplinary and international joint research." Kim Yoon-young has spent his career designing mechanical devices from the principles of mechanics. His recent work applies AI to what he calls autonomous design, in which software, rather than an engineer, works out the shape of a machine part. He also studies acoustic metamaterials, engineered structures that can generate and steer ultrasound with high precision, and uses them to detect hidden structural flaws in machinery without taking it apart. Three of the other single-year names come from the university's pharmacy faculty. Kang Kyo-bin uses mass spectrometry, a technique that identifies molecules by weight, to find and study natural compounds made by plants and microbes. He recently described an open-source method for analyzing drug metabolism data in Nature Protocols, and identified a new sugar-linking enzyme in wood-decay fungi in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Kim Do-hee maps the three-dimensional structures of proteins and other large biological molecules to understand how they work. Her focus is structure-based drug discovery, which uses the shape of a disease-linked protein to design medicines that fit it. Kim Tae-hyun studies the molecular processes behind metabolic liver disease, drug-induced liver damage and age-related illness. His lab looks at how organs signal to one another, how exercise changes metabolism and how the liver repairs itself after injury, with the aim of finding new markers for diagnosis and new targets for treatment. The single-year list also includes Yoon Yo-han, a professor of food and nutrition, and Park Soo-hyun, an assistant professor in the School of Software. Park works on quantum AI, which applies the principles of quantum computing to machine learning. Her research includes using quantum reinforcement learning, a method in which software learns by trial and error, to cut the energy use of satellite networks, and using quantum entanglement to train AI models spread across many devices. She received an early-career researcher award in 2025 from a technical committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world's largest professional body for electrical and computing engineers. On the career-long list, Yang Mi-hee, a professor of pharmacy, has studied how carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals affect the human body and how to counter them. Drawing on her patents and published work, she has applied to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) for approval of a health supplement designed to reduce harm from fine dust. She plans to turn next to long-term monitoring of PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals that persist in the environment and the body. Kim Byung-gyu, a professor in the School of Artificial Intelligence Engineering, builds AI that reads images, sound and language together. He is developing empathetic AI, meant to recognize human emotion and context, and world models, which let machines understand physical space and movement. A paper from his lab on generating realistic facial reactions was accepted for oral presentation at ACM Multimedia 2026, a major international computing conference, and placed second in a related challenge, according to the university. Two emeritus professors of pharmacy round out the list. Kang Young-sook has spent her career on one of medicine's hardest delivery problems, getting drugs past the blood-brain barrier, the protective layer of cells that keeps most substances in the bloodstream out of the brain. Her work has targeted treatments for dementia, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. In 2022, she published findings in the Journal of Biomedical Science showing that valproic acid, a common epilepsy drug, protected nerve cells in experimental models of the disease. Ryu Jae-ha, who taught at Sookmyung for 32 years, has searched plant materials for compounds that fight cancer, obesity, diabetes and muscle disease. He is now working to commercialize a food ingredient for age-related muscle loss, a technology already licensed to industry.
• KAIST study finds that inflammation during pregnancy may cause childhood asthma and allergies This diagram shows how maternal inflammation increases allergic immune responses in offspring. Courtesy of KAIST. SEOUL, August 04 (AJP) - KAIST researchers have discovered how inflammation in the placenta during pregnancy can alter a baby's immune system, leading to stronger allergic reactions such as asthma after birth. The study is the first in the world to show exactly how this prenatal inflammation affects immune development and raises new possibilities for early prediction and prevention of childhood allergic diseases. The findings were announced on August 4 by KAIST, whose research team was led by Professor Lee Heung-kyu from the Department of Biological Sciences. According to the team, inflammation in the mother's body during pregnancy can influence the fetus through the placenta by disrupting its ability to regulate stress hormones. This, in turn, changes how the baby's immune system develops, especially the activity of T cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a central role in the body's immune memory. The researchers conducted an experiment using pregnant mice. To create an inflammatory condition, they injected the animals with a toxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which is commonly used to trigger immune responses in lab studies. As expected, the inflammation spread to the placenta. The team found that the inflamed placenta produced increased levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), a chemical signal that activates neutrophils. Neutrophils are immune cells that form the largest portion of white blood cells in the human body, making up between 40 to 75 percent. They play a key role in the body's innate immune system by attacking bacteria and fungi. When neutrophils became active in the placenta, they caused tissue damage, which triggered stress in the fetus. This image shows KAIST's Department of Biological Sciences Professor Lee Heung-kyu (left) and Dr. Kwon Myung-seung. Courtesy of KAIST. As a result, the fetus began producing large amounts of a stress hormone known as glucocorticoid. This hormone caused a shift in the development of the fetus's immune system. Specifically, the T cells in the fetus, immune cells responsible for remembering threats like viruses or allergens, lived longer and developed stronger memory functions. After birth, this change had consequences. When these offspring were repeatedly exposed to allergens such as house dust mites, their immune systems reacted more aggressively than usual. The mice showed strong eosinophilic inflammation, a type of allergic response that plays a key role in asthma. Eosinophils are immune cells that become overactive in people with allergies and contribute to inflammation and tissue damage. "Through this study, we were able to demonstrate for the first time how a mother's immune response during pregnancy, particularly inflammation, affects the allergy-related immune system of the fetus through the placenta," said Lee Heung-kyu. "This will serve as a scientific basis for developing early detection biomarkers and preventive strategies for childhood allergic diseases." The first author of the paper is Kwon Myung-seung, a Ph.D. graduate of KAIST's Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering and currently a clinical fellow in gynecologic oncology at Konyang University Hospital. The study was published on July 1 in the journal Mucosal Immunology, a leading publication in the field of immune responses related to the body's mucous membranes. The paper is titled Placental inflammation-driven T cell memory formation promotes allergic responses in offspring via endogenous glucocorticoids. The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of South Korea, under the Basic Research Program and the Biomedical Technology Development Program.
• Researchers find strain capable of producing alternative meat proteins in southern island SEOUL -- A strain capable of producing mycoprotein, one of the key alternative meat ingredients, has been discovered in a river on the southern resort island of Jeju. The extracted mycoprotein can be used for providing cultured meat products with real meat flavor. Mycoprotein (fungal protein) is a protein produced by fungi such as mold and mushrooms. The Nakdonggang National Institute of Biological Resource said that they have discovered a strain called "Aspergillus tubingensis," in Jungmun Stream that flows in the southern part of Jeju. The institute said in a statement on March 5 that it applied for a patent for the special strain and is conducting follow-up research. According to researchers, Aspergillus tubingensis consists of more than 30 percent protein, with amino acids accounting for over 12 percent. Amino acid is a naturally occurring ingredient that induces rich flavor also known as "Umami." The researchers said that the newly-found strain contains mycoprotein that has a similar texture to that of chicken breast meat. Mycoprotein is commonly used in alternative meat products thanks to its key characteristics -- zero cholesterol, low-fat content, and a significant amount of dietary fiber. The institute expressed hope that this research would contribute to diversifying alternative protein sources and domestication. Data released by Statista, a global market analysis firm, the global market for alternative meat is projected to stand at $16.7 billion in 2028 with an annual average growth rate of 10.2 percent.