□ DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) announced that Professor Jung Ho Hyun of the Department of Brain Sciences was selected for “Hanbitsa” (People Who Have Made Korea Shine), a program organized by the Biological Research Information Center (BRIC), in recognition of his work demonstrating the reliability of a preclinical animal model, which is critical to the development of treatments for schizophrenia.
□ “Hanbitsa” is a program that selects and introduces Korean researchers who have published papers in leading international journals with an Impact Factor of 10 or higher or ranked within the top 3% in their respective fields. It serves as a key indicator of the global competitiveness of Korean researchers.
□ Professor Jung Ho Hyun’s research team, in collaboration with Professor Taeyoung Lee and Visiting Research Professor Kisang Eom of the Department of Psychiatry at Kyungpook National University Hospital, conducted a systematic review of the “prenatal MAM model,” a representative animal model of schizophrenia. The findings were published in Biological Psychiatry, a world-renowned journal in the field of psychiatry, leading to Professor Hyun’s selection for “Hanbitsa.”
□ Because the causes of schizophrenia remain unclear, establishing an animal model that faithfully reproduces the disease is essential for developing effective treatments. However, as laboratories have used the model in different ways, objective verification of its reproducibility and validity has remained insufficient.
□ To address this issue, the research team applied a “systematic review” approach, comprehensively analyzing previous studies without bias in accordance with international standard guidelines. As a result, the team objectively demonstrated that the prenatal MAM model consistently reproduces developmental abnormalities in a specific brain circuit (ventral hippocampus–medial prefrontal cortex), a major cause of schizophrenia, as well as an excitatory–inhibitory imbalance in neural networks.
□ This achievement is the result of the successful integration of basic neuroscience and clinical medicine through the “DGIST–Regional Medical School Global Research and Education Collaboration Program,” and it is regarded as providing a foundation that further enhances the reliability of preclinical research for the future development of schizophrenia treatments and neuromodulation technologies.
□ “This study is an example of interdisciplinary research that connected basic neuroscience with clinical psychiatry through collaboration between DGIST and Kyungpook National University Hospital,” said Professor Jung Ho Hyun of DGIST. “It is particularly meaningful that, together with co-first authors Professor Taeyoung Lee and Dr. Kisang Eom, we were able to validate the reliability of preclinical research from an evidence-based medicine perspective. We will continue to devote our efforts to developing new therapeutic technologies.”
□ “Collaboration between basic and clinical research is essential to overcoming complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia,” said Professor Taeyoung Lee of Kyungpook National University Hospital. “I hope this study will lay the groundwork for the development of groundbreaking therapeutic technologies that can be translated into real-world clinical practice.”
