Changjoon Justin Lee | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | Columbia University, University of Chicago |
Known for | GABA and glia research |
Awards | Science Day 2017 (2017), Kyung-Ahm Prize (2016), FILA Basic Science Award (2014), Scientist of the Year Award (KIST, 2011) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ion channel, neuron-glia interaction, astrocyte pathophysiology, cognitive glioscience, glioblastoma |
Institutions | Institute for Basic Science, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Emory University, Michael Reese Hospital, Columbia University |
Thesis | The Expression and Function of Kainate and AMPA Receptors in Nociceptive Dorsal Root Ganglion Neurons (2001) |
Doctoral advisor | Amy B. MacDermott |
Korean name | |
Hangul | 이창준 |
Hanja | |
Revised Romanization | Lee Changjun |
McCune–Reischauer | Lee Ch'angchun |
Website | Center for Cognition and Sociality – Cognitive Glioscience Group |
Changjoon Justin Lee is an American neuroscientist specializing in the field of glioscience. He served as the Director of Center for Neuroscience at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and later founded the WCI Center for Functional Connectomics as part of the World Class Institute Program. In 2015, he established the Center for Glia-Neuron Interaction before becoming co-director of the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality and head of the Cognitive Glioscience Group in 2018. He has been on the editorial boards of the journals Molecular Brain and Molecular Pain and is a chief editor of Experimental Neurobiology.
Born in a rural area of Gimpo City, Lee interacted with the natural world and raised livestock at home which inspired an interest in biology. [1] After completion of middle school, he left South Korea and moved to the US at age 15 and started high school at Rich Central High School, Olympia Fields, Illinois. While under an Illinois State Scholarship [2] and working as a junior research assistant in the lab of Professor Louis Seiden, Lee majored in chemistry and obtained his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1990. He then moved to New York where he enrolled in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Columbia University where he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in neurophysiology under the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics. His doctoral thesis adviser was Professor Amy B. MacDermott, whose lab he worked in as a research technician and later as a graduate research assistant upon recipient of his M.S.
Before the first year of his joint M.S. and Ph.D. study, he worked as a research assistant in Emily Foster's lab at Michael Reese Hospital. Within Columbia University, he was also a research technician in Professor Martin Low's lab.
He then completed a three-year postdoc position in the lab of Professor Traynelis at Emory University in the Department of Pharmacology. His sponsor was Dr. Stephen Traynelis and his research scope was the modulation of NMDA receptors by protease-activated receptors. [3] During the postdoc position, he visited the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and was influenced by Shin Hee-sup to join KIST, [1] which he did in 2004 as a senior research scientist. Working at KIST, he became a principle research scientist in 2010 and later a tenured research scientist in 2017.
Lee participated in establishing brain science research infrastructure at KIST, first as a founding member of the Center for Neuroscience with director Shin Hee-sup. The Center is now a constituent of KIST's Brain Science Institute. He also helped to establish the Neuroscience Program of the University of Science and Technology (UST). He also participated as a founding faculty of KU-KIST School of Convergence Technology. As a part of World Class Institute program (WCI), he founded the WCI Center for Functional Connectomics in 2009 [4] and served as the organizing deputy director of the center. [5] [6] [7]
In November 2018, Lee joined the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality as a co-director with Shin Hee-sup, who he had previously met and worked with at KIST. Shin led the Social Neuroscience Group until his retirement in 2020 [8] [9] while Lee leads the Cognitive Glioscience Group which focuses on four research areas: molecular glioscience, glia-neuron interaction, glial plasticity and cognition, and gliopathy. [10]
Lee's research group has contributed to the field of gliotransmission by creating several seminal publications on the channel-mediated gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate release from astrocytes. [11] [12] They later identified the biosynthetic pathway for astrocyte GABA and found monoamine oxidase B to be the key enzyme for GABA production [13] which raised the possibility that astrocytes can directly participate in cognitive processes via astrocytic GABA. [14]
His team also found a connection with GABA from reactive astrocytes and impaired memory in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease, leading them to propose astrocytic GABA might be a diagnostic tool, biomarker, and therapeutic target for both neurological diseases Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. [15] The research is notable as it revealed that astrocytes, like neurons, play a significant role in cognitive processes. [16] The findings also resulted in a technology transfer to MegaBioWood [17] which will be prepared for a phase I clinical trial in 2019. [18] In response to his Alzheimer's research related to causes of memory loss, Lee received the Science Day 2017 Presidential Medal of Honor. [19] [20]
It is known that glutamate is released from astrocytes but the exact method of their release, i.e., the release mechanism, has been controversial. [21] His team went on to discover two models of glutamate release; a fast mode through TREK-1 in the K2P channel [22] and a slow mode through the Best1 channel in hippocampal astrocytes. [12] They found that Best1-controlled glutamate release is related to receptor mediated synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus when PAR1 is activated. [23] These papers also show that the key modulator for excitation-inhibition balance in the brain is mainly dependent on the levels of glutamate and GABA. In addition to glutamate, Best1 can also release d-serine, which can act as a co-agonist of NMDA receptors to participate in synaptic plasticity. [24]
Some of his glioscience-related research has been with identifying and characterizing several astrocytic ion channels. His teams learned that the astrocytic two-pore potassium channel K2P has a passive conductance with a subunit composition of a heterodimer of TWIK-1 and TREK-1. [22] They also put forth the proposal that the heterodimer of TWIK-1 and TREK-1 could be a potential therapeutic target for epilepsy, depression, and anxiety disorders caused by concentrations of potassium ion. [25] The team found that the astrocytic volume-regulated anion channel (VRAC) is tweety-homolog (Ttyh), [26] which is notable as VRAC was proposed to be leucine-rich repeat-containing protein 8 (LRRC8). [27] Lee's research also showed that the astrocytic volume change through aquaporin-4 water channel is critical for synaptic plasticity. They demonstrated that a change in the volume can directly affect spatial memory in mice, meanwhile it affects memory and language-association learning in humans. [26]
Reactive gliosis has often referred to as the basis for neuroinflammation, which has implicated them in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases [28] [29] [30] but their in vivo functions have not been fully tested due to the lack of an appropriate experimental model. When Lee's team developed an astrocyte-specific toxin receptor model, they found that the astrocytes selectively became reactive, which identifies severe reactive astrocytes as a key factor in Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration. [31]
Lee has been involved in the development of several research-related software projects, including Mini Analysis and Easy Articles, both distributed by Synaptosoft. [32] His nervous system research software was the reason Lee was scouted by Shin Hee-sup to conduct research in Korea. [33]
Astrocytes, also known collectively as astroglia, are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord. They perform many functions, including biochemical control of endothelial cells that form the blood–brain barrier, provision of nutrients to the nervous tissue, maintenance of extracellular ion balance, regulation of cerebral blood flow, and a role in the repair and scarring process of the brain and spinal cord following infection and traumatic injuries. The proportion of astrocytes in the brain is not well defined; depending on the counting technique used, studies have found that the astrocyte proportion varies by region and ranges from 20% to around 40% of all glia. Another study reports that astrocytes are the most numerous cell type in the brain. Astrocytes are the major source of cholesterol in the central nervous system. Apolipoprotein E transports cholesterol from astrocytes to neurons and other glial cells, regulating cell signaling in the brain. Astrocytes in humans are more than twenty times larger than in rodent brains, and make contact with more than ten times the number of synapses.
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In biochemistry, the glutamate–glutamine cycle is a cyclic metabolic pathway which maintains an adequate supply of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the central nervous system. Neurons are unable to synthesize either the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, or the inhibitory GABA from glucose. Discoveries of glutamate and glutamine pools within intercellular compartments led to suggestions of the glutamate–glutamine cycle working between neurons and astrocytes. The glutamate/GABA–glutamine cycle is a metabolic pathway that describes the release of either glutamate or GABA from neurons which is then taken up into astrocytes. In return, astrocytes release glutamine to be taken up into neurons for use as a precursor to the synthesis of either glutamate or GABA.
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Smile, Mom is a 2010 South Korean television drama starring Lee Mi-sook, Park Won-sook, Ji Soo-won, Yoon Jung-hee, Ko Eun-mi and Lee Jae-hwang. The weekend theater drama aired on SBS from November 6, 2010 to April 24, 2011 on Saturdays and Sundays at 20:50 for 50 episodes.
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Hee-sup Shin is a South Korean neuroscientist whose work focuses on brain research of genetically engineered mice via gene knockout in order to better understand the human brain. His research resulted in him being named a National Scientist by the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology. He is a former co-director of the Center for Cognition and Sociality leading the Social Neuroscience Group in the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) located at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
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Voice is a South Korean crime-thriller television series starring Lee Ha-na, Jang Hyuk, Lee Jin-wook, and Song Seung-heon which follows the lives of 112 emergency call center and dispatch team members as they fight against crimes using the sounds that they hear. It premiered on OCN on January 14, 2017. The first season concluded on March 12. The second season aired from August 11 to September 16, 2018. The third season aired from May 11 to June 30, 2019. The fourth season was premiered on June 18, 2021, and it aired on every Friday and Saturday at 22:50 KST on tvN till July 31, 2021.
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The Wind Blows is a 2019 South Korean television series starring Kam Woo-sung, Kim Ha-neul, Kim Sung-cheol, and Kim Ga-eun. It aired on JTBC's Mondays and Tuesdays at 21:30 (KST) from May 27 to July 16, 2019.
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The release of glutamate during brain anoxia or ischaemia triggers the death of neurons, causing mental or physical handicap. The mechanism of glutamate release is controversial, however.
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