CNU awarded Excellent Academic Research Funds to researchers who honored the university by publishing their papers in world-class academic journals.
CNU held an award ceremony of the Excellent Academic Research Funds in the reception room of the university headquarters on December 14, 2021, to encourage excellent scholars including Professor Ahn Young-keun (Department of Medicine), who was awarded a research grant of 100 million KRW. Professor Ahn surpassed the standard of publishing a thesis alone or as a lead author in the three major international journals, Cell, Nature, Science, or sister journals with IF ratings higher than those of these journals. In addition, five professors who published their papers in international journals were awarded and congratulated with a research grant of 50 million KRW.
President Jung at the meeting complimented those researchers, saying, “The outstanding academic researchers of CNU have demonstrated their research capabilities to the world and raised the status of the university. We will continue supporting their and others’ research to reach our goal of fostering candidates for the Nobel Prize around the time CNU is welcoming its 100th anniversary.”
Professor Ahn has accumulated outstanding achievements in coronary interventions and cardiac regeneration. Particularly, he was found to have opened a turning point in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction by revealing a step-by-step reduction therapy for antiplatelet agents suitable for Korean patients. Related papers were published in the world-renowned medical journal The Lancet (impact factor: 79.321). The journal has a higher impact factor than Nature (impact factor: 38.579), a scientific journal well known to the general public.
Professor Eom Kwang-hyeon (Department of Medicine) also was selected as one of the excellent scholars, as he identified the pathophysiology of ventricular function-preserving heart failure through joint research with Professor Kook Hyun and presented a new concept of treatment. Their research results were published in Circulation (impact factor: 23.603), which is the most prestigious journal in the field of cardiovascular medicine. This was evaluated as having great clinical significance as a study result that overturned the vague belief that nitric oxide-donating agents would help patients with ventricular function-preserving heart failure.
A research team led by Professor Kim Jae-guk and Hwang Jang-yeon (ERC Advanced Research Center at CNU) developed the Artificial Intelligence-Based Material Discovery Platform that uses artificial intelligence to find elements with high potential as materials on the periodic table and undergo experimental verification. The results of the study were published as the cover paper of the November issue of Energy & Environment Science (impact factor: 38.532), a journal of the Royal Society of England.
Professor Lee Hyang-burm (Department of Agricultural and Biological Chemistry) is an expert in the field of phylogenetic classification and the evolution of fungi, especially microfungi, and recently drew attention from academia by suggesting a new taxonomy and species concept for taxa including the early-evolving fungi, Byeongkol, and Mycobacterium hairy. The related paper was published in the academic journal Fungal Diversity (impact factor: 20.372).
Professor Lee Jun-seung (Department of Chemistry) is a researcher with various research experiences in organometallic chemistry, coordination chemistry, and supramolecular chemistry. Recently, he published a paper summarizing various strategies and methods for the selective synthesis of iridium-based supramolecules in the journal Coordination Chemistry Reviews (impact factor: 22.315), which is expected to be of great help to researchers in related fields.
Professor Yang Hyeong-chae (Department of Medicine) found that the anatomical obstruction and the severity of obesity and sleep apnea differ according to the location where the airways of snoring and sleep apnea patients are blocked. He also showed that the response to treatment differs depending on the occlusion site, laying the foundation for personalized treatment according to individual characteristics. The paper was published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (impact factor: 21.405). Professor Yang is currently staying in the United States, so he did not attend the awarding ceremony.
