SARS-CoV-2 disruption

The official name is SARS-CoV-2. It is the virus that causes a respiratory disease named CoViD-19. This de-facto pandemic is now causing significant disruption in school routines. It appears to be a matter of time that a significant portion of the N Center be blocked from entry due to need to disinfect areas touched by some infected people. As of 3/2, the university has implemented a policy to ban entry to all buildings without a mask. Classes for the first two semester weeks, starting from 3/9, will be entirely given on-line. All the teaching staff were asked to upload recorded video files for the first week's lectures. As to research activities, some BME labs have recommended graduate students to stay home for a while. On-line data connectivity in Korea is highly developed, accessible, and well utilized by all students. This is definitely a help to relieve headaches of many who must work from home. No quick ending of the disruption is in sight. Even after this incident is over, remote on-line working is likely going to be more and more prevalent and be crucial to how people do business in this age.

2020 begins with opportunities and some ... confusion.

First of all, the winter of 2019 ~ 2020 has been unusually warm. This is generally a good news for university employees and students. But then there came a corona virus scare, from about January 20th, which caused cancellations and postponements of a host of events. They include: graduation ceremony, college admission ceremony and freshmen welcome nights, annual scientific meeting of KSMRM, and other research meetings, formal and informal. On top of that, the university announced that the first week of the 2020 Spring semester will be delayed by one week, to March 9th, and even then the first two weeks will only have on-line classes, with recorded or streaming videos, so the students stay home. This is unprecedented, and effectively extended the winter vacation. While confusing, a positive side of this unusual happenings is, of course, more research time for the month of February, provided the virus outbreak should remain under control.

In terms of  opportunities, the GBME department has recently received a government grant for overseas trainee fellowship for graduate students and post-docs. In the Lab, Hyeong-Seop Kim is planning to spend 6 to 12 months in US to learn MRI RF coil design and fabrication. Separately, the Ministry of Education is accepting applications for a relatively large-scale educational grant, called Brain Korea IV, the 4th version of a popular, 7-year financial support program for the nation's graduate schools. Several faculty members of the BME department are working to draft the proposal, to be submitted by mid-April.