Seo Sang Woo, who belongs to the Chemical Engineering integrated course of POSTECH, received the ‘Elsevier Journal Best Paper Award’ at the ‘Asian Congress On Biotechnology-2011’(ACB) which is a global symposium for Asian scientists. This year, the theme of ACB was ‘biotechnology for better life’.

He was tutored by Prof. Jung Chu Yaul, of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and researched with Prof. Sanguk Kim of Life Science and Yang Jae Sung and Kim In Hae, who belongs to the integrated course of Life Science at POSTECH. Also this study was supported by the Biomass Research Group of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Marine Bio New Material Industry Research Group of the Ministry of Land.

By presenting a thesis about the DNA of a colon bacterium, he showed a quantitative forecast method which can control the mass of translation of proteins, after transferring mRNA. The name of his thesis was ‘Synthetic 5’-Untranslated Regions for Fine-tunable and Predictable Expression in Escherichia coli.’

This research result is in one of the core technologies which enables the synthesis and reengineering of living things to produce bio-fuels and medicines. Thus, it will enable effective strain reform and then, it will be useful for various bio-chemistry industries.