A new research article, entitled “Assessing the representativeness of single-center EMR data on ten cancer types: A comparative analysis with national statistics from South Korea (2011–2021)”, authored by Won Jung-Hyun and Howard Lee, was published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics(IJMI). IJMI is a leading international journal that publishes high-impact research on the development, implementation, and real-world evaluation of health information systems and clinical informatics technologies.

This study evaluated whether single-center electronic medical record (EMR) data from Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) could represent a real-world data source for oncology research in South Korea. To address this, the study analyzed annual incidence and prevalence patterns for ten major cancer types (e.g., breast, gallbladder/biliary tract, gastric, kidney, liver, lung, pancreatic, prostate, thyroid cancers, and leukemia) from 2011 to 2021 using national cancer statistics from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS) as reference. The study also examined age and gender distributions between two datasets. The results showed that the SNUH EMR data included 8.2% of national incident cancer cases and 10.7% of prevalent cases. The study also found no significant differences in age and gender distributions across all cancer types between the SNUH EMR and national data. In addition, strong correlations in annual trends were observed for several major cancers, including breast, lung, and pancreatic cancers. Overall, this study showed that single-center EMR data can be a valuable, representative clinical resource for oncology research in South Korea. At the same time, the study emphasizes that the underrepresentation of certain cancer types and external temporal factors, such as changes in clinical guidelines or major healthcare disruptions, should be carefully considered when generalizing findings from a single institution to broader populations.

On Friday, December 26, 2025, CCADD had the annual Year-End Workshop at Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. The workshop brought together all current CCADD members, part-time students and winter interns. Throughout a full day of presentations and discussions, CCADD members reflected on the year 2025 and looked ahead to 2026.

The workshop began with arrival and reception, followed by a series of presentations covering research progress, academic development, and practical lessons learned. As the first speaker, Seoyoon opened the program with a session titled “Looking Back on the Year 2025,” highlighting CCADD’s accomplishments in 2025 and celebrating the achievements of its members.

The yearly report was followed by Suhyun, who shared key takeaways from a year of full-time work at CCADD across two phases, from undergraduate research to the first semester of the master’s program. Then, Seeun presented “Preparation for the 1st Oral Presentation,” reflecting on her year-long research and walking through her conference-presentation preparation process. After that, Sunyoung delivered a presentation titled “Life in the Industry vs. Graduate School,” in which she introduced the role of a Clinical Project Leader at Daewoong Pharmaceutical Company highlighting key differences between life in industry and life as a master’s student. As the last session before lunch, David delivered a talk about the things he wished he had known early on, including having a daily habit of reading papers and making a usable personal template to take notes of what you learned from papers.

Following the morning sessions, participants took a break for lunch and then toured the main library at Seoul National University’s Gwanak Campus, exploring its study spaces, archives, and facilities. After the tour, members gathered for a photo time and captured group photos inspired by this year’s Pantone Color theme.

Soyoung presented “How I Learned Actually to Write” and explained what she learned while writing during the second half of 2025 under the supervision of Prof. Howard Lee. Then, Sungwook delivered a workshop talk titled “How I Became the Pre-crastinator at CCADD.” In the talk, he defined a “pre-crastinator” as someone who finishes tasks early and stays in the lab late to keep studying. It was followed by Chaeyoung, who shared her journey for the 2025 Google Solution Challenge, from ideation and development to presenting at the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines. She also reflected on pitching on an international stage and the lessons learned through receiving the award.

After a short break, the workshop continued with sessions focused on practical milestones and next-year planning. In the afternoon session, Seoyoon presented “First Grant Proposal: What I Learned and What I Wish I’d Known,” sharing key challenges and lessons from her first grant project management experience. In the tenth session, Yujin led “Looking Ahead to 2026 at CCADD,” presenting a vision for the center’s research trajectory in the coming year.  It also compiled target conferences for future submissions and concluded with a shared aspiration for deeper research in 2026.

Moreover, in the session, "AI 2027: Where we were, where we are, and where we will be", David went over the prospective report, "AI 2027," in which the authors made predictions on what will happen to the state of AI arms race between US and China. In addition to peeking into the future of AI, David emphasized the need for shifting gears toward using agentic AIs and understanding their inner workings by briefly discussing important developments in the field of agentic AI.

The most significant part of the workshop came in the closing talk, where Prof. Howard presented a paradigm shift from +AI to AI+. He contrasted a domain-first approach with an AI first approach and explaining how research strategy changes under an AI+ framework. He emphasized CCADD’s future direction toward AI-centered approach and proposed holding a “CCADD AI+ Conversion Meeting” in the early 2026 to brainstorm and define core research themes and strategies.

The workshop concluded with closing remarks from Prof. Howard, and everyone gathered for dinner. The 2025 CCADD Year-End Workshop provided members with an opportunity to exchange ideas, reflect on progress, and align on shared goals for the year ahead.

David Seung U Lee, a Ph.D. student at CCADD, and Seeun Park, an undergraduate researcher and the soon-to-be Master’s student at CCADD, received the Outstanding Presentation Awards at the 2025 Fall Conference of the Korean Society of Medical Informatics (KOSMI).

David presented his study titled "Improving Large Language Model-Based Drug-Drug Interaction Prediction Using Conformal Prediction." His research demonstrated that incorporating input features with coverage guarantees, verified through conformal prediction, significantly improves the performance of LLM-based DDI prediction in both in-context learning and fine-tuning settings.

Seeun Park, presented her study titled “Improving Synthetic Clinical Note Generation via Expert Prompting Reflecting Linguistic and Structural Characteristics.” Her research proposes a data augmentation framework that incorporates the knowledge of medical professionals into LLM-based prompting, coupled with a feedback-driven iterative generation loop. This approach enables the model to produce synthetic clinical notes that more closely reflect the characteristics of real-world clinical notes.

These awards highlight the growing importance of LLMs in the healthcare industry and recognizes the potential impact of our work in advancing AI-driven medical text generation.

Prof. Howard and his team (David and Yujin) presented their works at the 2025 American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP) Annual Meeting, held in Phoenix, Arizona, from September 14–16, 2025. Under the theme “Leveraging Innovative Approaches to Transform Clinical Pharmacology,” the conference gathered experts to exchange insights on the evolving landscape in the field of clinical pharmacology.

The team delivered three poster presentations: 1) “Optimized In-Context Learning Outperforms Finetuning for Clinical Information Extraction across Diverse Healthcare Settings,” 2) “A Set of Inputs with Coverage Guarantee Enhances the Prediction of Drug Interactions,” and 3) “Constructing a Domain-Specific English–Korean Parallel Dictionary for Clinical Pharmacology and Regulatory Science Using a Large Language Model”. The presentations attracted considerable attention and prompted engaging exchanges among participants. The team’s research showed that in-context learning can serve as a data-efficient alternative to finetuning for clinical information extraction, offering practical guidance for applying large language models in healthcare settings with limited resources. They also demonstrated that incorporating input features with coverage guarantees, validated through conformal prediction, enhances the performance of LLM-based drug–drug interaction prediction. Lastly, the team showed that a domain-specific English–Korean parallel dictionary helps overcome language barriers and strengthens communication in clinical pharmacology and regulatory science.

As for the sessions in the ACCP conference, it began with a plenary session on optimizing patient outcomes through individualized pharmacotherapy. Subsequent symposia explored a wide range of critical topics, including diversity plans outlined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), therapeutic strategies for maternal and pediatric populations, innovations in dosing for preterm infants, therapeutic drug monitoring for biologics, and the application of artificial intelligence. Each meeting offered a clear picture of where clinical pharmacology is heading. The focus on individualized pharmacotherapy and model-informed drug development showed how artificial intelligence and mechanistic modeling are reshaping trial design and outcome prediction. At the same time, discussions on therapeutic drug monitoring for biologics and dosing in preterm infants revealed the field’s growing ability to tailor therapy for vulnerable populations.

Collectively, the conference underscored the expanding role of clinical pharmacology at the intersection of data science, patient diversity, and regulation. For the team, presenting at ACCP 2025 was not only an opportunity to share their own research but also a chance to situate their work within the broader trends shaping the field. The experience affirmed the value of their research trajectory and highlighted promising new directions for interdisciplinary and globally relevant contributions to clinical pharmacology.

This winter, CCADD welcomes six interns- Minsol Kim, Suhyun An, SeoYoon Jang, Seeun Park, Yura Choi and Nayoung Ku -  for the 2025 Winter Internship Program.

Minsol Kim is majoring in veterinary medicine at Seoul National University. She is interested in exploring the application of domain knowledge in the process of AI model development by utilizing her knowledge of pharmacology, toxicology, and physiology. Her goal is to build a solid foundation in AI and gain hands-on experience analyzing clinical data and investigating the drug development process. Through the 2025 CCADD winter internship program, she aims to explore potential career paths in the field of drug discovery.

Suhyun An is a student majoring in Stem Cell and Regenerative Biotechnology at Konkuk University. She previously worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Immunopharmacology Laboratory at Seoul National University College of Medicine, where she studied drug toxicity. Her current research interests include Drug-Drug Interactions (DDIs) and drug repurposing using artificial intelligence (AI). Her previous training primarily involved wet lab research. The CCADD internship will allow her to gain experience in data science applied to drug development, which will serve as a critical foundation for achieving her future research goals.

SeoYoon Jang is majoring in Systems Biotechnology at Chung-Ang University. She has a keen interest in AI and data science, which led her to complete the 2024 Boostcourse <DATA SCIENCE PROJECTS> coaching study program. Subsequently, she developed an interest in drug delivery and interned at the Lab of Drug Delivery and Cell Therapy at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine. Her growing passion for integrating AI into drug development led her to a winter internship at the CCADD. Through this internship, she aims to gain proficiency in data analysis tools and deepen her domain knowledge, with the goal of becoming a researcher specializing in AI-driven drug development.

Seeun Park is a senior at Yonsei University, double majoring in Biotechnology and Public Administration. She is willing to explore clinical pharmacology and regulatory science during this winter internship program. With passion in healthcare and safety, she focuses on gaining more experience and knowledge on artificial intelligence for clinical drug development and more specifically epigenetic study and policy analysis in Korea. It is her goal to work on expertise for the improvement of disease prevention and control.

Yura Choi is an undergraduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Kyung Hee University. She is passionate about AI-driven drug development, applying data science to pharmaceutical research. Through the LAIDD program, she has gained valuable insights into how AI can be applied to drug development. She aims to contribute to drug development and explore innovative therapeutic modalities by leveraging AI-driven data analysis. Currently, she is participating in the CCADD winter internship to strengthen her AI and data science expertise and deepen her understanding of research in drug development.

Nayoung Ku is an undergraduate in life science and AI convergence at Handong Global University. She previously earned a Bachelor’s degree in psychology at the National Institute of Lifelong Education by Examination for Self-Education. Nowadays, Nayoung mainly develops prediction modelling and optimization algorithms with various datasets. She had been a research assistant at Biodata Laboratory, Handong Global University, focusing on cancer diagnostic machine learning models using tumour-educated platelet (TEP) RNA-seq data for a year. Recently, she did a capstone project on NLP for an ovarian cancer diagnostic model using TEP RNA-seq pre-processed data, which showed her creativity in analytic approach. She received the Daewoong Pharmaceutical CEO Award at the JUMP AI 2024 Drug Discovery Competition, sponsored by the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association. In the competition, Nayoung and her team developed an advanced multi- perceptron to predict IC50 values for IRAK4 inhibitors by applying novel and strategic approaches to accelerate drug discovery processes. With her enthusiasm for enhancing the efficiency of drug discovery, she participates in this internship to experience real-world clinical data and its analysis, like electronic medical records. With a heart of admiration, she is yearning to learn the extraordinary methodology of CCADD. 

We hope that during their winter internship, they will build confidence in their area of expertise, develop independent learning skills to explore new knowledge, and dedicate their enthusiasm to gaining a comprehensive understanding of drug development and regulatory science throughout these two months.

On May 15th, CCADD members gathered for a Teacher’s Day dinner and expressed their appreciation to Prof. Howard. The event brought together CCADD members, graduate students, and student researchers in a warm and collegial setting. Despite the rainy weather, CCADD alumni—Dr. Siun Kim, Dr. Yoona Choi, and JungHyun Won—added a special significance to the evening and the lasting bonds formed within the lab. 

During the dinner, attendees shared updates on their research, academic experiences, and personal reflections. The most memorable moment of the evening was when the graduate students and CCADD members presented Prof. Howard with handwritten letters expressing appreciation and respect for Prof. Howard’s guidance. The messages conveyed sincere appreciation for Prof. Howard’s continued support. CCADD members’ letter included a quote that captured the spirit of Teacher's Day: “A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others.” Prof. Howard expressed heartfelt thanks.

The event provided an opportunity to welcome new members and recognize the ongoing contributions of current CCADD researchers. In addition, the event served as a meaningful moment to reconnect with CCADD alumni. Above all, the gathering was a chance to once again express sincere gratitude for Prof. Howard’s enduring mentorship and support. The evening was both meaningful and enjoyable for all who attended.

Yura Choi is currently an undergraduate researcher at CCADD after successfully completing the 2024 Winter Internship Program. She is majoring in Chemistry at Kyung Hee University. During her internship, she participated in developing a deep learning-based Drug-Drug Interaction (DDI) prediction model, utilizing protein information to enhance model performance. Through this project, she gained hands-on experience in data processing, programming, and predictive modeling. She continues to explore various approaches to DDI prediction modeling and has a growing interest in ADMET prediction and PK/PD modeling. She aims to apply AI-powered data analysis to contribute to novel drug development strategies and innovations. 

On Friday, December 27, 2024, the 2024 CCADD Year-End Workshop was successfully held at the Seoul National University (SNU) Yongon Campus. The event was attended by Prof. Howard Lee, CCADD members, interns, and alumni. Notably, Research Professor Yoona Choi joined the event in person, while Prof. Asa Johansson and Dr. Tae Kyu Chung participated online, adding an international dimension to the program.

The workshop began with a brief icebreaking session, followed by a series of meaningful presentations. The first presenter, Yunjin Choi, shared her growth and learning experiences over the past six months in her presentation titled “The Serendipitous Road: Lessons from the Past 6 Months.” Next, Yujin Kim reflected on her first year as a graduate student, highlighting her research projects, achievements, and key takeaways. In the afternoon session, Junghyun Won provided a retrospective on her 4.5 years as a graduate student, offering valuable insights into the diverse experiences of graduate life.

The main session reviewed CCADD's accomplishments in 2024, celebrating the research group's growth and achievements. Prof. Howard Lee commended the group’s continued success in research and publications. The workshop then shifted its focus to 2025, with a session outlining a roadmap emphasizing emerging AI concepts and innovative research ideas aligned with the latest trends.

Three special lectures added depth and inspiration to the workshop. Dr. Tae Kyu Chung, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Francisco, delivered a lecture titled “Postdoc Diaries: A Glimpse of Life in the US,” offering a vivid account of his life and research abroad, which resonated strongly with the audience. Research Professor Yoona Choi reflected on her year as a research professor at Child Cancer and Rare Disease Project, Seoul National University Hospital. Her presentation detailed the challenges and achievements of her rigorous research journey, offering valuable insights for fellow researchers. Prof. Asa Johansson from Uppsala University delivered a lecture titled “Pharmacoepidemiology in the Era of Precision Health,” introducing the latest developments in precision medicine and pharmacoepidemiology. Her session provided an opportunity for attendees to exchange ideas with an international expert.

The workshop concluded with an inspiring speech by Prof. Howard Lee, who has been serving as the Dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at SNU. Prof. Lee praised CCADD's remarkable achievements throughout 2024 and expressed his strong support for the group’s ambitious goals in 2025. The 2024 CCADD Year-End Workshop provided members and alumni with a valuable opportunity to strengthen their relationships, exchange ideas, and align on a shared vision for the journey ahead.