Kaang Bong-kiun

Kaang has published 110 research and review articles in a number of journals, including Nature, Science, Cell, Neuron, and Nature Neuroscience. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Brain. Kaang received the Life Science Award from the Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology (2008). He was awarded the Donghun Award from the Korean Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2012). He won the Kyung Ahm Prize (2012, $180,000) from the Kyung Ahm Foundation.

He received his bachelor's degree in 1984 and his M.S. in 1986 from the Department of Microbiology, Seoul National University. During his M.S. course, he developed an interest in molecular neuroscience, particularly, in how memory is stored in the brain at the molecular level. He then went to Columbia University where he was supervised by a Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel for his Ph.D. course and a brief postdoctoral study. He investigated the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory using a simple animal, the marine snail Aplysia. Under the supervision of Dr. Kandel, he received his Ph.D. in 1992. Kaang's Ph.D. thesis, which was entitled, “Studies of Long-Term Facilitation Using Gene Transfer Methods,” introduced the development of the gene delivery system in Aplysia neurons. He continued his research as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University until 1994, when he was appointed to a faculty position at Seoul National University, Korea.

Kaang Bong-Kiun was born in Jeju-do, South Korea, on November 21, 1961. He is a professor of neuroscience in the Department of Biological Sciences of Seoul National University. He is a Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.