Kyungsu Kang

Dr. Kyungsu Kang is a Senior Research Scientist at the Gangneung Institute of Natural Products, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) located in Gangwon-do, South Korea. He is also an Associate Professor in the Division of Bio-Medical Science & Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), South Korea. He received his B.S. (in Applied Biology and Chemistry), M.S. and Ph.D. (in Agricultural Biotechnology) degrees from the College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University, South Korea.

During his early phase of graduate training, he studied agricultural plant biotechnology fields, such as plastid genetic transformation in the monocotyledonous plant rice and the biochemistry of herbicide target enzymes. During his Ph.D. studies, he investigated the pharmacological effects of natural products and elucidated the molecular mechanism underlying their biological activity, especially topoisomerase inhibition, anticancer efficacy, and side effects of various plant lignans. As a post-doctoral scientist in Prof. Michael Ristow’s laboratory at ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich), Switzerland, Dr. Kang investigated the effect of plant flavonoid compounds on lifespan extension as well as their detailed cellular and biochemical mechanisms in the model animal Caenorhabditis elegans.

The main research topic of Dr. Kang’s laboratory is to discover bioactive natural products that can promote intestinal health and longevity. Dr. Kang and his members are interested in elucidating the biochemical and molecular mechanisms underlying the biological effects of various natural products. For this purpose, they are exploiting not only a tiny model nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, but also cultured human and animal cells.