Professor Won-Chae Choe’s research team at the College of Medicine and the Graduate School of Medicine has discovered a cellular stress response mechanism. The research findings were published in a paper called “Cyclophilin B is involved in p300-mediated degradation of CHOP in tumor cell adaptation to hypoxia” in the online edition of Cell Death and Differentiation, a journal of basic medical science published in partnership with Nature Publishing Group. Suggesting the possibility of preventing and treating cellular diseases, Professor Choe’s recent findings are particularly significant as they propose new research directions in the prevention and treatment of cellular diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor Choe noted “CypB protects cells against ER stress-induced cell death. When a tumor is treated with anti-cancer drugs, some cancer cells die at the onset but the surviving ones tend to build resistance through CypB. “In fact, cancer cells turned out to have a much higher level of CypB than normal cells. In this light, it will be possible to develop anti-cancer drugs by controlling the amount of CypB in cancer cells. In the case of Alzheimer’s disease, which is caused by cell death, it will be also possible to treat or prevent the disease through CypB injections.” This research was carried out entirely by the Graduate School of Medicine at Kyung Hee University with the participation of Professors Won-Chae Choe, Insug Kang, Sung Soo Kim, and Joohun Ha, as well as graduate students at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
On another delightful note, Kyung Hee University was ranked first in the performance review of the Higher Education Capacity Enhancement Project conducted by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology in the large private universities category (more than ten thousand students) in the Seoul metropolitan area. Kyung Hee has been selected in the project for six consecutive years since the project’s inception in 2008. The Higher Education Capacity Enhancement Project aims to improve academic excellence of undergraduate studies by encouraging universities to develop and manage their own programs. The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology conducts an annual review and awards incentives to universities that have produced outstanding results in improving academic quality and competitiveness.
