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박지영 (UNIST)
Dr. Jiyoung Park is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in Korea. Dr. Park received her Ph.D.in biological sciences from Seoul National University in 2005, and continued her research at the Touchstone Diabetes Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA as a postdoctoral fellow and an instructor under the mentorship of Dr. Philipp Scherer, where she discovered and elucidate endotrophin as a key fibro-inflammatory factor in various metabolic diseases and cancers. Dr. Jiyoung Park started her own lab at the UNIST in 2014. Her research group has been investigating the molecular pathogenesis linking obesity, diabetes, and cancer risk. Recently, her research team has focused on three major topics: (1) the key mechanisms of adipose tissue remodeling in obesity and its related metabolic diseases, with particularly emphasis on compromised extracellular matrix protein functions- Type VI collagen and its derivative peptide, “endotrophin”, (2) the cells that adipose tissue-derived factors target, such as hepatocytes, muscle cells, and infiltrating tumor cells. With this regard, cancer-associated adipocyte (CAA) as crucial stromal cell types within the tumor microenvironment- this is a potential molecular link between obesity and cancer, (3) a novel concept- “hyperglycemic memory in cancer cells”, that is established molecular links between diabetes and acquired aggressiveness of cancer cells. The goal of her research is to develop better therapeutic strategies to control obesity, diabetes, and its associated cancers through discovering and understanding the integrated molecular targets involved in the pathogenesis of obesity, diabetes, and cancer progression. |
학회소개 