Dr. Tae Kook Kim

A team of South Korean scientists on Sunday claimed to have created a “cellular fountain of youth”, or a small molecule, which enables human cells to avoid aging and dying.
 
The team, headed by Prof. Kim Tae-kook at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, argued the newly-synthesized molecule, named CGK733, can even make cells younger.
 
The findings were featured by the Britain-based Nature Chemical Biology online early today and will be printed as a cover story in the journal’s offline edition early next month.
 
“All cells face an inevitable death as they age. On this path, cells became lethargic and in the end stop dividing but we witnessed that CGK733 can block the process”, Kim said.

Dr. Tae Kook Kim is Professor of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he is a member of the Biomedical Research Center and NanoResearch Center, and is Director of the Molecular Medicine Imaging Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB). He was previously a faculty member of Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology, with a joint appointment at Seoul National University.
 
Tae Kook’s publications include Histone Modifications and Transcription Factor Binding on Chromatin: ChIP-PCR Assays, Chemical genomics and drug discovery (Korean), Diclofenac attenuates Wnt/β-catenin signaling in colon cancer cells by activation of NF-αB., A magnetic nanoprobe technology for detecting molecular interaction in live cells in Science, Small molecule-based identification of dynamic assembly of E2F-pocket protein-histone deacetylase complex for telomerase regulation in human cells, and Ectopic expression of the catalytic subunit of telomerase protects against brain injury resulting from ischemia and NMDA-Induced neurotoxicity. Read his full list of publications!
 
He earned his B.S. from Seoul National University in 1987, his M.S. from Seoul National University in 1989, and his Ph.D. on gene regulation mechanisms with Robert Roeder from Rockefeller University in 1994. He completed his postdoctoral research on human cell cycle and signaling mechanisms as a Damon Runyon Fellow in the laboratories of David Beach and Tom Maniatis at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Harvard University from 1994 to 1997.