Three Research Teams at Ewha Selected for the 2022 Original Technology Development Project
- 작성처
- Date2022.07.15
- 10693
Three Research Teams at Ewha Selected for the 2022 Original Technology Development Project
As original technologies are increasingly important for promising industries in the future, three research teams of the College of Pharmacy and the ELTEC College of Engineering at Ewha Womans University were selected for the “Original Technology Development Project” organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea to secure technological competitiveness and growth potential.
(From left) Professor Sun Choi, Professor Jin-Byung Park, Professor Si Jae Park
The research team of the Global AI Drug Discovery Center (Director: Professor Sun Choi) at the College of Pharmacy was selected for the “2022 AI-Driven Innovative Drug Discovery Project” to lead the new drug development field using big data and artificial intelligence (AI).
The College of Pharmacy at Ewha was the only one that was chosen as a research institute to lead the “AI-Driven Drug Development Platform Project” and received the grade “S” (excellent) by successfully establishing the AI-driven drug development platform for the past three years and achieving excellent results through active convergence research. Thanks to these accomplishments, the team from the College of Pharmacy has been recently selected as the only Korean university research team to lead the “AI-Driven Innovative Drug Discovery Project.” The College of Pharmacy at Ewha, the leader of this project, and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Seoul National University, AI company AITRICS, AIGENDRUG, MediaZen, and Txinno Bioscience will receive a total of around KRW 4.1 billion for the next three years and seven months to conduct the task titled “Advancement of AI-Driven Drug Development Platform and Discovery of Innovative Drug Candidates.” The Ewha research team, led by Professors Sun Choi, Soosung Kang, and Jinha Yu, and the other five participants are expected to make great contribution to the development of new drugs and the pharmaceutical industry through their continuous joint industry-academic convergence research.
The research team from the Institute of Molecular Microbiology and Biosystems Engineering (Director: Professor Jin-Byung Park) of the Food Science and Biotechnology major at the ELTEC College of Engineering was selected for the “2022 Biomass-based Carbon-Neutral Bioplastic Product Technology Development Project,” which is designed to develop a technology to produce carbon-neutral biodegradable plastic.
The research team will receive a total of around KRW 4.6 billion for the next three years and six months and carry out a task titled the “Bio-Lactone Technology Development for the Production of Biodegradable Plastic” in collaboration with Kookmin University, the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology, and the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology. Bio-lactone is a polyester-based polymer fiber that is widely used as surgical sutures or food industrial packages, and is expected to contribute to addressing the existing problems related to plastic as it can be used as a key material for plastic production. Professor Jin-Byung Park of the Food Science and Biotechnology major, who is in charge of this research project, said, “Bio-lactone-based biodegradable plastic production technology will make great contribution to the production of biodegradable materials and plastics as well as development of new and renewable material production technology.”
The Biochemical Engineering Laboratory (Director: Professor Si Jae Park) from the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science major at the ELTEC College of Engineering was selected for the Production Process Development part of the “Biomass-based Carbon-Neutral Bioplastic Product Technology Development Project.” The laboratory will receive a total of around KRW 4.6 billion for the next three years and six months and conduct a task titled “Development of Original Technology of Synthetic Microorganism Platform for the Production of One-Step-and-One-Pot-based Next-Generation Biodegradable Bioplastic” in collaboration with Kyungpook National University, the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Konkuk University.
The research team will focus on the development of high-performance microbial strains that can produce everything in a single process from biomass and the raw material, to the final target product, that is property-tailored next-generation biodegradable bioplastics containing new monomers. Professor Si Jae Park, who is in charge of this project, said, “The Chemical Engineering and Materials Science major is focusing on the study on carbon neutrality to respond to climate change, and was recently selected for the ‘Low-Carbon Green Energy Chemical Process Research Project’ (Director: Professor Woo-Jae Kim), a part of the Ewha Frontier 10-10 Project. The task is related to biomass-based eco-friendly bioplastic production, which can contribute to carbon neutrality, and is expected to increase the possibility of commercialization of bioplastic through the development of process that enables the production of raw materials to the final products in a single process, thus playing an important role in the construction and vitalization of the carbon-neutral bioplastic industry ecosystem.”