□ DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) has been selected for the “Collaborative Platform Development and Joint Research Support Project among Top-Tier Research Institutions” under the “2026 Collaborative Hub Development Project with Leading Overseas Research Institutions” by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Through this project, DGIST will establish a global platform with Japan's National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), the Korea Brain Research Institute, and the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine to overcome pediatric encephalopathy and develop AI-based therapeutic candidates.
□ The project will receive KRW 21.85 billion in government research funding over a 10-year period from 2026. With DGIST serving as the lead institution, the Korea Brain Research Institute and the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine will participate as collaborating and joint research institutions in Korea, while the NIPS and six universities in Japan will form a consortium to establish a world-class collaborative framework for research on ion channels.
□ Pediatric encephalopathy is an intractable neurological disorder caused by genetic ion channel abnormalities that lead to seizures and developmental and motor impairments. There is an urgent need to establish a research foundation for the integrated elucidation of the operating mechanisms and functional abnormalities of disease-causing ion channel variants.
□ Accordingly, the research team will focus on developing the key foundational technologies needed to realize precision medicine, including 1) identifying key ion channels associated with pediatric encephalopathy and patient-derived variants; 2) elucidating the molecular-level structural and functional mechanisms of disease-associated ion channels; 3) validating function across multiple scales at the cellular, neural circuit, and behavioral levels; 4) predicting variant phenotypes based on AI and computational models; and 5) identifying structure-based candidate compounds for functional correction and validating their therapeutic efficacy.
□ For successful research, the team will establish a “full-cycle international joint research platform” that integrates the systems neuroscience capabilities of Japan's NIPS, the electrophysiology and animal model capabilities of DGIST and the Korea Brain Research Institute, and the patient-derived variant discovery capabilities of the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine. Moreover, it will establish the Global Ion Channel Innovation Research Center (GI²RC), which will serve as a collaborative hub for global joint research and the training of next-generation talent.
□ The project will be led by Professor Kyuhyung Kim (Project Leader) of the Department of Brain Sciences at DGIST, with Hyun-Ho Lim (Deputy Project Leader) of the Korea Brain Research Institute, Professor Woong-Yang Park of the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, and Director Tadashi Isa of Japan's NIPS participating as collaborating researchers, closely integrating the expertise of each institution.
□ “This project is significant because it enables an integrated understanding of ion channel abnormalities from the molecular to the organismal level and lays the scientific foundation for new therapies by integrating AI technologies with structural biology,” said Professor Kyuhyung Kim of the Department of Brain Sciences (Project Leader) at DGIST. “We will do our utmost to lead global ion channel research with the world's leading research institutions and secure the key foundational technologies for precision medicine.”
□ Meanwhile, building on its outstanding interdisciplinary research capabilities in brain sciences, structural biology, and AI, DGIST plans to use the establishment of the GI²RC to further strengthen collaboration with leading overseas institutions and emerge as a global research hub leading efforts to overcome intractable neurological disorders.
