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.

2019 year-end photo opportunities

Year-end parties for the department, IBS-CNIR, and the MRI laboratory provided photo opportunities in the latter half of December. Jun-Ho Kim, in particular, was featured in a university research news for his work on spherical phantoms, which also appeared in an external media.

Meeting with GBME undergraduate students

The medical devices faculty of the GBME department held an undergraduate student Q&A session on Friday Dec 20 in a meeting room at the N Center. About 25 students attended, a majority being freshmen, with strong interest to share questions and concerns about their academic and career matters with peers and the faculty. The session was the first of the kind in the department, and was run smoothly thanks to the very helpful advices, candid answers, and supportive comments from the professors including the department chair Jang-Yeon Park. It is hoped that this meeting would stimulate more dialogues in the future between the students and the faculty of the department, as the department moves forward into its 6th year of foundation in 2020.

KSMRM year-end meeting in Gwangju

A workshop and social gathering took place on December 6-7 in Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, celebrating the year's end among the PhD members of the Korean Society of the Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Well-known for the exquisite culinary selections and traditions, the city of Gwangju was very well-received by the participants as an excellent choice for the venue of this event. A special thanks goes to Prof. Il-Woo Park, of Chonnam University, who took care of all the logistics of the two-day meeting. The workshop was held in a conference room inside the Chonnam University Hospital campus, and covered research lectures (Prof. Sung-Hong Park and others), society journal (iMRI) updates (Prof. Jaeseok Park), and discussions on next year's medical device funding from the Korean government (Prof. Yong-Min Chang). About 20 PhDs took part in the event, and had a good time exchanging professional information and personal greetings.

US military funding agency visit

A very interesting meeting was held on Friday, Nov 15th at the N Center, between the BME/CNIR researchers and delegates from the US military research funding agencies. The visitors represented all three services of the US armed force -- Air Force, Navy and Army. Many were based outside US, notably in Japan. Apparently they were on their way to visit a few different research institutes in Korea to promote funding opportunities for international collaboration and research support in basic sciences. A 45 min meeting with the PIs in the N Center was followed by a tour of the CNIR facilities, led by the Department Chairman Prof. J-Y Park. Kindly, Prof. J-W Son arranged the whole visit and drove many of the guests from Seoul to the SKKU campus in the morning. 

IBS Conference on Neuroimaging

A second IBS conference hosted by CNIR was held on Oct 11-12 in the Chemistry building on the SKKU campus in Suwon. The conference was funded by the IBS to host many renowned speakers from the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe. With famous names and free registration, the conference was well attended by local and domestic students and researchers. The 2-day conference was followed by the CNIR's annual Scientific Advisory Board meeting on Oct 14-15 at the N Center.