□ The Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST; President Kunwoo Lee) announced on August 1 (Thu) that a total of five projects have been selected for the 2024 Global Basic Research Laboratory (BRL) Program led by the Ministry of Science and ICT. The same research group was selected three times in a row and recognized for excellence and promising potential in research.
□ The Global BRL Program is designed to support various forms of research by systematically incubating small global research groups. The selected labs will receive a research fund of KRW 1.5 billion over the next three years.
□ A total of five projects were selected in DGIST: (i) Lab on Overcoming Neuronal Aging by Re-adjusting UPS Proteolytic Capacity; (ii) Lab on Minimally Invasive/Non-invasive Multimodal Wireless Brain–Computer Interface Based on Precise Reverse Engineering Machine Learning; (iii) Lab on Basic Research to Make Ultrasonic Tissue Transparent for Deep Tissue 3D Optical Imaging; (iv) Lab on Research and Applications on Algebra and Geometry in the Space of Tensors; and (v) Lab on Pioneering the Cardiovascular Energy Conversion System. More importantly, the Lab on Overcoming Neuronal Aging by Re-adjusting UPS Proteolytic Capacity was selected for the same project in 2019 and 2022 and again this year, and it will continue research for a total of nine years.
□ The research group of the Lab on Overcoming Neuronal Aging by Re-adjusting UPS Proteolytic Capacity consists of four professors: Professors Sungbae Lee and Jinsoo Seo at the Department of Brain Sciences, Professor Byunghoon Lee at the Department of New Biology, and Professor Jonggoo Kim at the Department of Physics & Chemistry. The research group, which consists of three departments, will bring together experts from various fields to conduct interdisciplinary research and establish more advanced neuronal anti-aging strategies. Furthermore, the research group will set up a global collaborative research system with Professor Yasuhiro Yamada at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Japan, and conduct collaborative research with research teams at home and abroad, including the Well Aging Research Center (Professor Youngsam Lee) and the Laboratory Animal Resource Center, DGIST.
□ “Based on interdisciplinary research within DGIST, our research group will combine perspectives from different fields and expand knowledge to introduce new approaches,” said Principal Investigator/Professor Sungbae Lee. “In collaboration with global partners who are taking the lead in the field of anti-aging, we will also establish new concepts and suggest innovative techniques to control neuronal aging.”
