Biblography
Research Background
Since I became fascinated by the dynamic changes in neurotransmitters in response to stress when I was an undergraduate at Korea University, I have taken every opportunity to build a strong research background on the molecular mechanisms controlling physiological and pathological brain activities in psychiatric disorders. I have a strong background in animal behavioral evaluation and electrophysiology, which I acquired from graduate training in the Lab of Dr. Kyungho Shin at Korea University and in the Dr. Hoshi's Lab at University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine). Specially, during my doctoral degree with Dr. Naoto Hoshi at UC Irvine, I identified how channel-anchored protein kinase CK2 and protein phosphatase 1 reciprocally modulate the signaling cascade of the M-type potassium channel. This allowed me to develop expertise in cell biology and in vitro electrophysiology.
Although my primary focus was in physiological activity of the ion channel, my work utilizing neuronal excitability by the specific condition of ion channel reinforced the importance of transition of neuronal activity from physiological to pathological contributions for disease pathogenesis. To this end, I, as a postdoctoral fellow, joined the laboratory of Jiang-Hong Ye in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, Physiology and Neuroscience at the Rutgers University, an institution where I also benefited from a strong psychiatric pathology program. During Postdoctoral training under the guidance of Dr. Ye, which focused on the neuronal activity with ethanol intake, I developed an interest in post-alcohol comorbid psychiatric symptoms including anxiety and depression. During this period, I gained expertise in advanced ex vivo electrophysiology techniques and alcohol-related animal behavioral tests. This experience allowed me to investigate not only cellular intrinsic properties but also various synaptic characters regarding the addiction biology that were previously unanswerable for me due to technological limitations.
In order to further enrich my research in motivated behaviors and addiction, I chose to move to Mayo Clinic to gain more research experience particularly with genetic approaches using transgenic mice models under the guidance of my mentor, Dr. Doo-Sup Choi, the director of SC Johnson Genomics of Addiction Program in Mayo Clinic. Recently, besides in vivo electrophysiology techniques, I have set up fiber-photometry and microendoscopy single cell calcium imaging and conducted a series of experiments to define the role of genetically defined cell types in the cortico-striatal-pallidal circuits in the context-dependent reward seeking. Importantly, I have established further collaborations with Dr. Jeffrey Salisbury, the Scientific Director of Electron Microscopy Core Facility, and Dr. Su-Youne Chang, an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, and Dr. Paul Min, an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Mayo Clinic, which have greatly facilitated my use of high-resolution 3D reconstruction with Serial Block-Face Scanning Electron Microscopy (SBFSEM), in vivo multi-brain electrophysiological/electrochemical recordings, and large-scale imaging with computational analysis, respectively.
Since I became fascinated by the dynamic changes in neurotransmitters in response to stress when I was an undergraduate at Korea University, I have taken every opportunity to build a strong research background on the molecular mechanisms controlling physiological and pathological brain activities in psychiatric disorders. I have a strong background in animal behavioral evaluation and electrophysiology, which I acquired from graduate training in the Lab of Dr. Kyungho Shin at Korea University and in the Dr. Hoshi's Lab at University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine). Specially, during my doctoral degree with Dr. Naoto Hoshi at UC Irvine, I identified how channel-anchored protein kinase CK2 and protein phosphatase 1 reciprocally modulate the signaling cascade of the M-type potassium channel. This allowed me to develop expertise in cell biology and in vitro electrophysiology.
Although my primary focus was in physiological activity of the ion channel, my work utilizing neuronal excitability by the specific condition of ion channel reinforced the importance of transition of neuronal activity from physiological to pathological contributions for disease pathogenesis. To this end, I, as a postdoctoral fellow, joined the laboratory of Jiang-Hong Ye in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, Physiology and Neuroscience at the Rutgers University, an institution where I also benefited from a strong psychiatric pathology program. During Postdoctoral training under the guidance of Dr. Ye, which focused on the neuronal activity with ethanol intake, I developed an interest in post-alcohol comorbid psychiatric symptoms including anxiety and depression. During this period, I gained expertise in advanced ex vivo electrophysiology techniques and alcohol-related animal behavioral tests. This experience allowed me to investigate not only cellular intrinsic properties but also various synaptic characters regarding the addiction biology that were previously unanswerable for me due to technological limitations.
In order to further enrich my research in motivated behaviors and addiction, I chose to move to Mayo Clinic to gain more research experience particularly with genetic approaches using transgenic mice models under the guidance of my mentor, Dr. Doo-Sup Choi, the director of SC Johnson Genomics of Addiction Program in Mayo Clinic. Recently, besides in vivo electrophysiology techniques, I have set up fiber-photometry and microendoscopy single cell calcium imaging and conducted a series of experiments to define the role of genetically defined cell types in the cortico-striatal-pallidal circuits in the context-dependent reward seeking. Importantly, I have established further collaborations with Dr. Jeffrey Salisbury, the Scientific Director of Electron Microscopy Core Facility, and Dr. Su-Youne Chang, an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, and Dr. Paul Min, an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Mayo Clinic, which have greatly facilitated my use of high-resolution 3D reconstruction with Serial Block-Face Scanning Electron Microscopy (SBFSEM), in vivo multi-brain electrophysiological/electrochemical recordings, and large-scale imaging with computational analysis, respectively.
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Full Curriculum Vitae
My Full Curriculum Vitae is linked here. |
Upper figure: Electrophysiological recordings to show the spontanous excitatory post-synaptic currents (sEPSCs) in the direct-pathway median spiny neuron in the Dorsomedial Striatum