September 28 (Wed) - 30 (Fri), 2022
Jeju International Convention Center (ICC Jeju)

Satellite Meeting l Tuesday, September 27 - Wednesday, September 28 (2days)

D-Days

Hee-Jung Choi’s research has focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of (1) Wnt signaling and (2) G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling through biochemical and structural analyses. Specifically, through structural studies of receptors, membrane proteins at the front-line in the signal transduction pathway, she aims to provide insight into receptor activation mechanism and contribute to structure-based drug design. Wnt signaling plays an important role in embryonic development and cell proliferation, and aberrant Wnt signaling is associated with cancers. Choi’s group has recently published several papers in high impact journals, showing how Frizzled receptors are activated by ligand binding (PNAS, 2018; Commun. Biol., 2022) and how Wnt signaling is regulated by inhibitor binding (Nat. Commun., 2020) at the molecular level. Choi’s lab is also interested in structural and functional studies of GPCRs, which are involved in diverse physiological functions, such as neurotransmission, cardiovascular actions, pain perception, immune responses, and sensation. As GPCRs are implicated in various human diseases, GPCRs have been intensively studied as drug targets; ~35% of FDA approved drugs act at GPCRs. Choi’s group has been especially interested in olfactory GPCRs and peptide GPCRs, including neuropeptide Y (NPY) receptors, whose physiological responses are associated with obesity. Choi’s group recently determined the structures of the NPY-receptor-G protein complexes by cryo-electron microscopy, which revealed the ligand binding specificity of NPY receptors and contributed to understanding the molecular mechanism of NPY receptor activation (Nat. Commun., 2022).
Hee-Jung Choi is currently a professor at the department of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University. She received her Ph.D. from Seoul National University in 1997, and continued her research at Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research associate. During her stay at Stanford University, she studied beta2-adrenergic receptor, which is a target for asthma drug, and solved the crystal structures of the inactive and active states of the beta2-adrenergic receptor for the first time under supervision of Prof. Brian Kobilka (Nature 2007, Nature 2011). Hee-Jung Choi started her own lab at the Seoul National University in 2012. For the last three years, she published 15 papers in the high impact journals, such as Science, Nature Communications, and Nature Chemical Biology.