In a news show by YTN, entitled 'The Issue Diagnosis for COVID19', Prof. Howard Lee stressed the importance of vaccination in pregnant women.The US CDC strongly recommended COVID19 vaccination in pregnant and nursing mothers, and Korea has adopted the same policy. However, the current vaccination reservation rate in that population in Korea is only 2% or so, mainly because of the concern about the vaccine side effects. 

Prof. Lee also discussed what kind of opportunities follow-on COVID19 vaccine developers might have. They included new formulation including lyophilized vaccine, new route of administration such as intranasal mist or inhalation vaccines, and new vaccines targeting at variants. Toward the end of the show, Prof. Lee required the Korean government listen to true experts before they make any COVID19 policies and systems. 

The news show was aired on October 16, 2021, and the full program can be watched at the following YouTube page. 

Effective September 1, 2021, Siun Kim will serve as the new lab chief for CCADD. Yoomin Jeon, the former lab chief, stepped down and will continue to be working as a regular member of CCADD. Siun, as the new lab chief, commented, "I feel great honor, privilege, and responsibility to take on this important role." 

Prof. Howard Lee thanked Yoomin for her faithful service since March, 2019. Under Yoomin's leadership, CCADD has been able to evolve to a well-functioning organization. Yoomin also has been spearheading to bring new research funds to CCADD, which is the single most important accomplishment that has made CCADD self-sustaining financially. Not only that, Yoomin has played an indispensable role in expanding the research fields of CCADD, including artificial intelligence-guided clinical trail feasibility assessment and real-world data analytics. 

CCADD wished the best of luck for both Siun and Yoomin. Well done, Yoomin! Welcome, Siun!

On September 30, 2021, Prof. Howard Lee was invited to a live news show, COVID-19 Pandemic, by Arirang TV, an English-speaking broadcasting company in Korea. Prof. Lee introduced the current status of vaccine developments against COVID-19 in Korea, led and sponsored by local biopharmaceutical companies. According to Prof. Lee, there are 10 vaccine candidates in Korea currently under clinical development, phase 1 through 3. Fifty percent or five of those 10 candidates are still in phase I of clinical testing, with 4 and 1 in phase 2 and 3, respectively. Prof. Lee explained, "The vaccine platforms are as diverse as they can be." 

Toward the end of the show, Prof. Lee also discussed the issues pertaining to the vaccine development program by Korean biopharmaceutical companies as a follower. They include design issues, securing a full amount of comparative vaccines, multinational site management, and commitment of the government to purchase or pre-order the vaccine if successfully developed. More details of the news show can be watched by clicking the YouTube link below: 

Prof. Howard Lee emphasized the availability of oral drugs to transition back to the pre-pandemic normal in the midst of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases mainly driven by the highly infectious delta variant. In the COVID-19 Pandemic, a news show by Arirang TV, Prof. Lee detailed what are the prerequisites if the society as a whole can live with the corona virus. 

"Now, people are starting to realize there is an untapped area, probably of more impact, which is to help patients at early stage of the disease go through it in a milder and easier way, Oral COVID-19 drugs can facilitate this transition as smooth and fast as possible." Prof. commented. 

More comments by Prof. Lee can be found at the following YouTube link: 

Prof. Howard Lee was featured in a broadcasting news show by Arirang TV, entitled "COVID-19 Pandemic", on August 5, 2021. Prof. Lee joined this TV show remotely since he was in the US. Below are several comments Prof. Lee made in the show, emphasizing and introducing recent activities of new drug development against COVID-19, particularly antiviral agents. 

"Developing a new vaccine every time variant viruses emerge is like going round in circles. Simply, this kind of endless chasing the tail is not going to work in a situation like the COVID-19 pandemic."

"... more and more COVID-19 drug developers are being redirected to treatments that can be taken orally or even nasally!"

"Molnupiravir... is a fake, dysfunctional building block that the virus uses to copy itself... it can be taken orally in early COVID-19 test-positive patients before they get sick or hospitalized."

A full YouTube videoclip for Prof. Lee's comments can be watched by clicking the following links. 

Prof. Lee discussed several ways to increase patient accessibility to advanced biotherapeutics at an online forum on July 9, 2021, sponsored by the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. The forum was primarily motivated by the recent introduction of innovative advanced biotherapeutics such cell/gene therapy, CAR-T, immunooncology treatment, and antibody-drug conjugate. 

Following the main discussant's overview on the issues, Prof. Lee pointed out that the current health insurance reimbursement system in Korea is not suitable for advanced biotherapeutics, most of which are likely to fail the so-called cost-effectiveness test set and required by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service or HIRA because of their astronomical costs. For example, a typical round of treatment with KYMRIAH® or tisagenlecleucel by Novartis will cost a patient ~$500,000 although it is a life-saving drug for patients with rare, but highly fatal form of lymphoma (adults) and leukemia (children). 

Prof. Lee's speech and his follow-up discussion can be watched at YouTube as below. 

Prof. Howard Lee was appointed to Chief Clinical Development Officer (CCDO), Rosetta Exosome, South Korea, June 14, 2021. In this capacity, Prof. Lee will lead and oversee the clinical development program of REX101, a genetically engineered bacteria-derived exosome. Exosome or extracellular vesicles are d by organisms, unicellular to complex multicellular, are believed to be the core communication tool between a multitude of cells. Rosetta Exosome, founded in 2016 as a spun-off startup from Prof. Yong Song Gho's laboratory at Postech Lifesciences, has investigated the biomedical applications of exosomes to the development of diagnostics and therapeutics. To this end, Rosetta Exosome has commissioned a research project to CCADD in association with a grant application submitted to the Korea Drug Development Fund or KDDF early June this year. 

Convergence Newsletter, a yearly news article published by Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, Seoul National University, highlighted two stories from CCADD.

First, the afterword of Chaeyun (then chemical and biological engineering major at Korea University) and her reflection on the 2021 Winter Internship at CCADD received a spotlight dividend in the 2020 Winter Joint Research Program corner.

Looking back on what she did, she is glad that she jumped at the opportunity. For her, being part of the project, “Predicting drug-drug interaction based on machine learning,” was a storehouse of lessons. She was able to gain hands-on experience in the area she had been passionate about, and she could gain a concrete understanding of machine learning technology and its applications to pharmacology. Also, she fondly recalls how she could pick others’ brains while trying to keep up with the rigorous “Book Reading” schedule, during which the CCADD members, interns included, finished off three textbooks on Natural Language Processing and Python. As her closing remark, she admitted the internship experience was a gratifying step toward living her dream as an aspiring future pharmacologist, and she thanked all the lab members, and especially Prof. Lee, for the opportunity and all the supports they’d shown to her.

Next in the Issue Focus section, which showcased the wonderful accomplishments of the professors at Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Prof. Lee made the headlines. The highlight covers the news that 세종도서 has named the book Siun Kim (a PhD student at CCADD) and Prof. Lee co-wrote, “바이오 의약품 시대가 온다,” as one of the greatest works in 2020. The book was touted for how it effortlessly explicates the complicated drug-approval process. Also, by being comprehensive in its cover of the knowledge (e.g., basic biology) and the domain-specific one (e.g., monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies, and the difference between generics and biologics), the book gently nudges readers toward thinking like biologists and engages them in the collective effort to raise awareness of biologics. This book also has its merit in being accessible to the readers outside the scientific domain, and it’s inviting readers from diverse swaths of to the question of how we will make the great leap forward to the future of biologics.