November 3 (Wed) - 5 (Fri), 2021
Jeju International Convention Center (Jeju ICC)

Dr. Woo is an associate professor in the Department of Life Sciences, Korea University. He received his PhD from POSTECH in 2007. During his PhD and postdoctoral training in POSTECH and ETH Zurich, he studied the structures and functions of anti-apoptotic proteins, E3 ubiquitin ligases, condensins, and ABC transporters. He started running an independent research group as a research fellow at the Center for RNA Research in IBS in 2013, and elucidated the structure of human Microprocessor, a key enzyme of microRNA biogenesis (2015 Cell and 2016 Cell). He further revealed the molecular mechanism underlying the single-nucleotide precision of this enzyme (2018 Mol. Cell). After he joined Korea University in 2017, he started working on the structures and gating mechanisms of gap junction intercellular channels (GJIChs). Direct intercellular communication through GJIChs plays crucial roles in numerous biological processes including synchronized cardiac contraction, tissue development, and neurotransmission. While the regulation of channel activity by various cellular signals has been known for a long time, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. His group recently determined the structure of Cx31.3 gap junction hemichannel at 2.3 Å resolution by cryo-electron microscopy (2020 Sci. Adv.), which revealed a pore conformation impermeable to ATP but selectively permeable to anions. His group is currently dedicated to the study on Cx43 and Cx36 GJIChs to understand the conformational changes required for channel gating. His group has also largely contributed to the development of the genome editing technology through the design and production of precise DNA base-editing enzymes (2021 nat. Biotechnol. and 2021 Sci. Adv.).