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

Grand challenge to discover the complex mechanism of cancer metastasis and the functional contribution of tumor microenvironment in cancer progression continues to expand worldwide. Advanced cancer theory, preclinical models, therapeutic targets, clinical biomarkers, and biotechnologies are indispensable for future precision oncology.
The 'Pioneers in Cancer Research' session will bring together experts from diverse fields to provide cutting edge knowledge of recent advances in cancer research at the basic, translational and clinical application levels. Significant focus will be placed on exploring novel signaling mechanisms and drug targets in cancer metastasis and cancer stem cells, as well as developing new preclinical models such as assembloids and liquid biopsy platforms for circulating tumor cell research.

Synapses are intercellular junctions specialized for fast and reliable transfer of neural information, and thereby connect billions of neurons into neural circuits. Numerous prior studies have established a subset of key molecular mechanisms and biological proceses by which neurons form and eliminate synapses throughout brain development. However, many fundamental molecular and cellular neuroscience questions remain unexplored. In recent years, advances in various neuroscientific technologies, including high-resolution imaging, optogenetics, single-cell genomics, and biophysics, and have allowed researchers to access and address key unresolved problems and questions. The goal of this symposium is to provide a platform for currently emerging neuroscience projects by facilitating the interaction of neuroscientists. In particular, this meeting will bring together young scientist-leading experts in the molecular and cellular basis of synapse formation and function, mechanisms of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity, and brain disorders-to discuss in depth the most recent advances in the field and stimulate new directions in future neuroscience fields. Dr. Jaewon Ko of DGIST will provide an introduction to this topic, and then five speakers will discuss their own recent findings that are relevant to the major theme of this symposium.

The cutting-edge researches in RNA biology provide new strategies to develop mRNA vaccine, drugs and therapeutic means that disrupt fatal viruses and cure diseases. Understanding RNA structures and functions at the single-cell level provides hints for important roles of coding and non-coding RNAs in immune systems against viral infection and malignant cells. In this RNA symposium, we are pleased to announce that Howard Y. Zhang from Stanford University School of Medicine (https://profiles.stanford.edu/howard-chang) will give his plenary presentation about his group's exciting stories in fundamental RNA biology. Three excellent speakers, Prof. Taesoo Kim from Ewha Univ., Prof. Jong-Eun Park from KAIST, and Dr. Yun Ju Kim from IBS, and one young scientist will also present their interesting (single-cell) RNA biology in animals and plants in this symposium.

Membrane contact sites (MCSs) are regions where two membranous organelles are closely apposed to facilitate molecular communication and modulate a functional integration of compartmentalized cellular processes. Evidences are accumulating to reveal that MCSs play key roles in controlling intracellular biomolecule flows and distributions. Many MCSs found among the mitochondria, ER, lysosome, plasma membrane and virtually all compartments of the cell. Communication between organelles is essential to coordinate cellular functions and the cell's response to physiological and pathological stimuli, for lipid, and ion transfer between organelles, generation of second messengers, organelle biogenesis and subcellular trafficking. Therefore, diverse evidences reveal MCS involved in different human malignancy, including metabolic disorder, cancer, and neurodegeneration. This session tries to describe how different MCSs can contribute to homeostatic and pathological phenotypes.

Autophagy is an intracellular lysosomal pathway that degrades protein aggregates and damaged organelles during various stress situations. Recent studies have revealed molecular mechanisms through which several types of autophagy (canonical and non-canonical autophagy) regulate different biological functions and intracellular homeostasis. Accumulating data suggest that autophagy is interconnected to N-degron pathway and protein ubiquitination system, although we are just beginning to understand the crosstalk mechanisms. It remains to elucidate how dysregulated autophagy lead to a variety of pathological responses during inflammatory and degenerative diseases. This session will discuss the recent advances of autophagy, particularly in the biological functions, action mechanisms, and therapeutic application/intervention. Our increased understanding of the roles and regulatory mechanisms for autophagy will bring into new possibilities for prevention and treatment of human diseases.

Social behaviors are essential elements in human life, of which dysregulations are associated many brain diseases such as autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. Recent advances in technologies have enabled us to investigate the biological substrates of social behaviors from genes to circuit levels. At this symposium, leading scientists studying neural mechanism for social behaviors will discuss recent advances in understanding distinct aspects of social behaviors from sociability to social memory. Contributions of different brain regions including the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens, and the cerebellum to social behaviors will be highlighted. Also, the speakers will present their exciting new results demonstrating how the environment affects social behaviors.

Understanding plant-microbe interactions at the molecular level is a promising approach to harness the benefits and alleviate pathogenic effect of microbes for crop improvement. This symposium covers recent scientific discoveries concerning these interesting and highly diverse relationships between plant and micrbes. Topics include plant immunity against pathogens, phytobiome, and symbiosis.

Many biophysical developments have been converging to study more delicate and complicate biological questions. Recently, particularly in structural biology, there were two ground shaking events; The first is the experimental revolution, so called the resolution revolution by cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM), which can visualize macromolecules at atomic resolution and cellular architecture at molecular resolution. This approach opens up many opportunities for biologists as Cryo-EM provides different levels of experimental information. The second revolution is coming upon the rising of computational biology. Now, the computational biologist, team of Alpha-Fold simply said they can predict and model the structure of unknown protein with atomic accuracy. If this is true, probably many biologists stop pipetting and start learning computer coding instead. In this session, we have outstanding speakers who will update these two aspects in recent structural biology.

The epigenetic regulatory mechanism is one of key transcriptional events during normal cellular processes like development, differentiation, proliferation, and aging as well as disease development and progression. In this session, we have four speakers who are actively contributing epigenetics field in basic and clinical research.

In this session, we would like to learn and discuss the trend of Parkinson's treatment using various stem cells such as iPSCs, orgainoids, fetal NPCs, etc., which have been accelerating recently. There is usually no treatment for neurdegenerative diseases, including Parkinson. As the development of treatments using stem cells continues, for the first time, scientists treated Parkinson's disease patients with their own skin cells and repurposed them to become key brain cells that kill the disease.

The session entitled "Microbiome science: still uncharted territory for the future" is organized for KSMCB 2021. Though numerous research papers have been reported to address the physiological impacts of microbiome in diverse biological processes, it still remains unclear of how microbiome controls physiological homeostasis in human beings. This scientific event brings together experts in the field of human microbiome research aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of the current stage of microbiome research, but more importantly to discuss challenges and opportunities in the field microbiome research.

This symposium is 'KSMCB-Women Bioscience Forum (WBF)' co-session which introduces new members as early career women scientists working in molecular and cellular biology. We expect this session would be effective for discussing recent research of young women scientists and further implications in biological science and treatment of a variety of diseases.

Since Dec. 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has spread globally and causing disastrous pandemic. Epidemiological, virological and pathogenetic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infection are under active evaluation. A better understanding of the pathophysiology associated with COVID-19 is critical to improve treatment and to develop effective prevention strategies. In this session, "Moving forward in response to the COVID-19 pandemic", will begin with a keynote addressed by Dr. Stanley Perlman, a renowned expert in zoonotic coronavirus infections. Recent progress in the virology, immunology, pathophysiology of zoonotic coronaviruses will be also presented and discussed by three excellent speakers, Dr. Jung-Eun Park, Dr. Man-Seong Park, and Dr. Eui-Cheol Shin, who have been hardly working on the zoonotic coronavirus infections. This session will be of broad interest to scientists across many disciplines who wish to gain a better understanding of the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and the current pandemic.

Plants are sessile organisms that have to deal with environmental changes where they are, thereby continuously adjusting growth and development over the entire life. Elucidating how internal and external cues are coordinated to spatially and temporally regulate plant growth and development is essential for understanding plant fitness and reproductive success. Plants have elaborated signaling mechanisms that utilize a complex network of interactions to orchestrate developmental processes, including germination, flowering, senescence, and shoot or root development. This session will highlight recent advances in plant signaling and development and discuss how different signaling networks integrate with gene regulatory networks to govern plant growth and development in response to everlasting environmental changes.

Recent advanced imaging techniques have elucidated unknown biological phenomena which have been limited with biochemical approaches. Bioimaging spans the observation of subcellular structures and entire cells over tissues up to entire multicellular organisms as well as biological functional processes of biomolecules. In the symposium various up-to-date imaging techniques and their achievements will be discussed by leading scientists in the field.

In this session, leading scientists in the field of mitochondria biology will present basic research on mitochondrial energetics and the latest knowledge of translational research on the development of therapeutics for mitochondrial and senescence related diseases.

Most of cellular processes are mediated by diffusible factors that bind to intracellular receptors and initiate signaling cascades. However, cells recognize and respond to physical stimuli. This is rooted in cell mechanics and dependent on a variety of cytoskeletal structures and biophysical processes that detect, modify, and respond to physical parameters of the environments. The combination of chemical and mechanical signals provides a wide range of means for cells to communicate with one another and with their extracellular settings during diverse pathological processes. Since cellular mechanobiology encompasses biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and mathematics it has provided a fertile ground for creativity and discovery. This highly specialized session aims not only to provide a collection of recent advances in the field, but, more fundamentally, to develop a common language among scientists who share the interest in physics of cells and enter the field with diverse backgrounds.

The threat of global pandemic from infectious disease outbreak has for centuries been recognized as an ever-present threat to humanity. However, it is only during the last 130 years that sufficient scientific understanding has emerged to provide insight on how to manage such specific public-health risk. In this context COVID-19 has hammered home the message that the best defense against the inevitable next outbreak is to be prepared in advance. Preparedness requires national and international level coordination of manifold resources, including, but not limited to: surveillance, diagnostic, basic- /clinical-research, therapeutics & vaccines. In this context, organizational networks (national and international) comprise a valuable asset facilitating coordination of basic- and translational-research, public-health activities, education & training; and even technology-transfer and business-development. Global coordination of such activities is facilitated when founded upon global common principles of equitable capacity building, and sustainable development goals, respecting human rights and the environment. Only in this way can the necessary actors for innovation and leadership together advance global health equity to meet public health needs for all. This special symposium session invites keynote speakers from organizations at the cutting-edge of scientific research readiness, and public-health pandemic preparedness such as WHO R&D Blueprint and GLOPID-r. (Speaking to Korean domestic and international scientific policy vision?), topics will cover basic and applied research activities from major research institutes as well as innovative funding for global infectious disease R&D. We will examine how and what might we do better to be ready in the face of the next infectious disease outbreak?

Inflammation is generally defined as a response to stimulation by invading pathogens or endogenous signals such as damaged cells that results in tissue repair or sometimes pathology, when the response goes unchecked. However, understanding of the mechanisms, context and role of inflammation during physiological immune responses and pathology is constantly evolving. This session will bring together scientists studying interactions between immune and stromal cells, and neuroimmune interactions to better understand the inflammation, and subsequent repair and regeneration. In addition, this session will examine our current understanding of diseases that impact the inflammation, with the goal of conceptualizing and developing anti-inflammatory therapies. We aim to provide the exchange of ideas that will strengthen the community of scientists interested in the fundamental mechanisms of inflammation and their translation into pharmacological approaches for the treatment of diseases.