Dr. Chin Ha Chung is a professor at the School of Biological Sciences of Seoul National University. He received B.S. in Biology from Seoul National University and M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Alabama. Dr. Chung then joined the laboratory of Prof. Alfred L. Goldberg at Harvard Medical School, where he isolated protease La, the lon gene product in E. coli, which is the first identified ATP-dependent protease. After having his own lab at Seoul National University, he discovered three bacterial two-component ATP-dependent proteases consisting of distinct ATPase and protease subunits: ClpAP (protease La), CodWX, and HslVU (the bacterial proteasome homolog).
Dr. Chung then worked on the role of protein modification by ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins (e.g., SUMO, ISG15, and UFM1) in various cellular processes, focusing on cancer development. His group showed that ISG15 modification of proteins, such as p63 isoforms, plays a critical tumor suppressive function by promoting caspase-2-mediated cleavage. In contrast, UFM1 modification of proteins, such as ASC1 (a nuclear receptor co-activator), plays a crucial role in breast cancer development by promoting ERa transactivity. Dr. Chung is an editor of BBRC, and has been elected to the Korean Academy of Science in 2014.


Organizer : Joobae Park, M.D., Ph.D. (Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Korea)