Education

• Research Fellow: Neurogenetics, UCSD/HHMI, (Joseph Gleeson), US
• PhD: Neuropharmacology, Yonsei Univ. College of Medicine, (Young Soo Ahn), Korea
• BSc: Medicine, Yonsei Univ. College of Medicine, Korea

Professional Experience

• 2012-Present, Professor, Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, KAIST, Korea
• 2018-Present Director, Centor for Brain Somatic Mutations
• 2018-Present CSO and co-founder, Sovargen, Korea

Honors and Awards

• 2025 Elected Member, Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST)
• 2020 Kyung Am Award, Kyung-Am Foundation
• 2020 Innovators in Science Award, New York Academy of Sciences & Takeda
• 2018 KAISTian of the year
• 2017 SUHF Investigator

Research Interests

• Brain somatic mosaicism in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders and brain tumors; disease mechanisms; and RNA therapeutics

Publications (Max 5)

• Park JW et al. IDH-mutant glioma arises from glial progenitor cells harboring the initial driver mutation. Science Jan 8;391(6781):eadt0559
• Koh HY et al. BRAF somatic mutation contributes to intrinsic epileptogenicity in pediatric brain tumors. Nat Med 2018 Nov;24(11):1662-1668.
• Lee JH et al. Human glioblastoma arises from subventricular zone cells with low-level driver mutations. Nature 2018 Aug;560(7717):243-247
• Lim JS et al. Brain somatic mutations in MTOR cause focal cortical dysplasia type II leading to intractable epilepsy. Nat Med 2015 Apr;21(4):395-400.
• Lee JH et al De novo somatic mutations in components of the PI3K-AKT3-mTOR pathway cause hemimegalencephaly. Nat Genet 2012 Jun 24;44(8):941-5