15th Asan Medical Award Winners, Professor Shin Eui-cheol of KAIST and Professor Lee Jung-min of Seoul National University College of Medicine

The recipients of the 15th Asan Medical Award are Professor Shin Ui-cheol of the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering at KAIST, Professor Lee Jung-min of the Department of Radiology at Seoul National University College of Medicine, Professor Kim Sung-yeon of the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University College of Natural Sciences, and Professor Seo Jong-hyun of the Department of Radiology at Ulsan University College of Medicine (from left).

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] The 15th Asan Medical Award recipients have been selected as Professor Shin Ui-cheol of the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Professor Lee Jeong-min of the Department of Radiology at Seoul National University College of Medicine.

The Asan Social Welfare Foundation chose Professor Shin Ui-cheol for the Basic Medical Science category and Professor Lee Jeong-min for the Clinical Medical Science category as the 15th Asan Medical Award recipients. For the Young Medical Scientist category, awarded to medical scientists under the age of 40, Professor Kim Seong-yeon of the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University College of Natural Sciences and Professor Seo Jong-hyun of the Department of Radiology at Ulsan University College of Medicine were selected.

The award ceremony for the Asan Medical Award will be held on March 21 in the afternoon at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. Each recipient in the Basic Medical Science category, Professor Shin Ui-cheol, and the Clinical Medical Science category, Professor Lee Jeong-min, will receive 300 million KRW, while each recipient in the Young Medical Scientist category, Professor Kim Seong-yeon and Professor Seo Jong-hyun, will receive 50 million KRW, totaling 700 million KRW in prize money.

Professor Shin Ui-cheol of KAIST’s Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, selected as the Basic Medical Science awardee, was recognized for his contributions over the past 20 years studying immune responses to viruses and proposing treatment directions for viral infectious diseases.

In 2018, Professor Shin was the first in the world to discover that ‘bystander T cells,’ immune cells unrelated to the hepatitis virus, become activated during acute hepatitis A infection, causing liver damage. Subsequent research provided new clues for treating viral infectious diseases by discovering molecules that regulate T cells and identifying cell migration mechanisms necessary for activated ‘bystander T cells’ to move to infected tissues.

Professor Lee Jeong-min of Seoul National University College of Medicine’s Department of Radiology, awarded in the Clinical Medical Science category, was highly praised for his world-class achievements in imaging diagnosis, prognosis prediction, and interventional procedures for gastrointestinal diseases.

Professor Lee announced that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a ‘hepatocyte-specific contrast agent’ is more accurate than conventional computed tomography (CT) scans in diagnosing liver cancer, leading to the revision of international guidelines for liver cancer diagnosis and significantly contributing to increasing early detection rates of liver cancer.

Additionally, he published research analyzing treatment response after chemotherapy in rectal cancer patients using MRI ‘diffusion-weighted imaging,’ which visualizes the degree and characteristics of water molecule diffusion in human tissues. This established ‘diffusion-weighted imaging’ as an essential technique for evaluating chemotherapy response in various cancers, including rectal cancer.

The Asan Medical Award was established in 2008 by the Asan Social Welfare Foundation to encourage medical scientists who have achieved outstanding accomplishments in basic and clinical medical sciences. Awardees are selected through a comprehensive evaluation by the judging and operating committees, considering research consistency and originality, domestic and international impact, contribution to medical advancement, and nurturing of future talents.