The Institute for Basic Science has launched a new Chief Investigator (CI) group within the IBS Korea Virus Research Institute (KVRI) and a new research center within the IBS Institute for Photon Science at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), effective December 1.

A new Center, the Center for Virome and Applied Platform, has been established within the Korea Virus Research Institute. Within this Center, the first CI group — the Systems Virology and Spatial Immunomics Group — will be led by Professor PARK Jong-Eun of KAIST Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering. Professor Park, age 38, is a rising research leader known for pioneering work in single-cell transcriptomics and immune cell development.

Professor Park received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Seoul National University and continued his research at the IBS Center for RNA Research (Director KIM V. Narry). He later joined the international Human Cell Atlas project, led by the Wellcome Sanger Institute, as a core member. His scientific excellence has been recognized with the EMBO Advanced Fellowship (2020), awarded to outstanding early-career independent researchers.

His research has elucidated key mechanisms of immune responses underlying infection, aging, and autoimmune diseases within complex biological environments. Representative achievements include: identifying T-cell formation mechanisms in the developing human thymus (Science, 2020), constructing a fetal immune development atlas (Science, 2020), characterizing early action mechanisms of mRNA vaccines (Nature Communications, 2024), and uncovering physical tissue properties and early aging microenvironments in the liver (Nature Aging, 2025).

The newly established CI group will develop a research platform that reconstructs infection and immune responses as data-driven digital twins based on single-cell genomics, combined with spatial omics analysis to resolve virus-induced immune responses at the tissue level. “Infection and immunity are among the most dynamic processes in biology, and quantitatively understanding them is key to overcoming viral diseases,” Park said.

Meanwhile, at the GIST IBS Institute for Photon Science, the Center for Microbiome-Body-Brain Physiology has been launched under the leadership of Professor SUH Seong-Bae of the GIST Department of Life Sciences. Professor Suh earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and UCLA, respectively, and held positions at NYU School of Medicine and KAIST before joining GIST in 2025. He is regarded as a pioneer in the study of interoceptive neurophysiology, unraveling how sensory-neural circuits link the brain with internal organs.

Using the fruit fly as a model organism, Suh’s research has revealed fundamental principles of brain-gut circuits involved in feeding, metabolism, and hormonal regulation. Major achievements include: mapping how hungry fruit flies locate sugar even without taste (Nature Neuroscience, 2013; Neuron, 2015), identifying sugar-sensitive neurons that directly regulate insulin and glucagon (Nature, 2019), characterizing the gut–brain axis response to amino-acid deficiency (Nature, 2021), revealing internal state modulation pathways (Cell Metabolism, 2021), uncovering postprandial sodium-sensing mechanisms in enteric neurons (Nature Metabolism, 2024), and demonstrating gut–brain glucose signaling in mice (Neuron, 2025).

His contributions have been recognized with the Ajinomoto Prize (2015) for excellence in nutrition and metabolism research and the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2008).

The new research center will investigate how essential nutrients — carbohydrates, proteins, minerals — are sensed internally and how brain and gut circuits translate this information into feeding behavior, metabolic homeostasis, and hormone regulation. “Understanding the principles of internal sensation will deepen our insight into key physiological processes such as appetite, obesity, diabetes, and aging,” Suh said.

Acting IBS President KIM Yeongduk noted, “Professor PARK Jong-Eun is a young research leader at the forefront of single-cell-based immunology. By integrating KVRI’s strong virology capabilities with the new group’s analytical platform, we expect major advances in infection and immune-response research.”

He added, “Professor SUH Seong-Bae has pioneered sensory physiology inside the body and contributed innovative concepts for addressing major chronic diseases. We look forward to groundbreaking achievements through close collaboration with IBS research centers and leading institutions worldwide.”