Jeon Y, Lee N, Baek S, Choi JD, Jhee S, Lee H. A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo- and Active-Controlled, Escalating Single-Dose Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetic, Pharmacodynamic Profiles of Subcutaneous Eflapegrastim in Healthy Japanese and Caucasian Subjects. Drugs R&D (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40268-021-00379-8

Prof. Howard Lee met approximately a total of 1,700 viewers live at the After the Rain, a YouTube channel focusing on various healthcare issues. This live stream was arranged to promote a book Prof. Lee has just published as the lead author, entitled “There was no such thing as K-Qurantine”. YeSol Hong and Jung-Hyun Won are also the coauthors of the book.

A full video clip can be watched by clicking the following link:

The Corona Fighters Live invited Prof. Howard Lee to go over the issues pertaining to the recent upswing of COVID-19 cases in Korea, in association with a book that he has just edited and published, entitled 'There is no such thing as K-Quarantine.' YeSol Hong and Jung-Hyun Won also contributed to the book as one of the co-authors.

In this talk, Prof. Lee shared a story as to why he came up with an idea of publishing a book that scientifically and systematically criticizes the flaws and defects of the K-Quranine, which has been praised by the Korean government. Prof. Lee disagreed, "The K-Qurantine is just a political propaganda. No reality is there." 

A full video can be watched at the following YouTube page.   

‘There's no such thing as K-Quarantine', coauthored by Prof. Howard Lee, Jung-Hyun Won, Yesol Hong and 13 others, was published on December 15, 2021. The book focuses on the problems, failures, and indignity of the K-Quarantine that are unlikely to be included in any government-published white paper. Prof. Lee, the editor and lead author of ‘There's no such thing as K-Quarantine', planned this book in a hope that the mistakes and failures associated with the groundless and unscientific K-Quarantine will not be repeated in the future when similar public health crises occur.

The book consists of four parts. Part one vividly describes how society overcome the adversities and difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Jung-Hyun Won, Yesol Hong, and Prof. Lee wrote a chapter in Part one that summarized what had happened during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., 2020-2021) in South Korea and other countries (e.g., China, Japan, Israel), and reviewed how each country responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Part two presents the light and shadow of the K-Quarantine through the eyes and perspectives of experts in each field. In one of the chapters in Part two, Prof. Lee criticized the vaccine supply policy of the Korean government during the pandemic, which did not put much effort into securing a sufficient number of vaccine doses as early as possible, risking public health in South Korea.

Part three introduces the readers to the responses from other countries to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by discussion how different they have been from the K-Quarantine. 

Part 4 summarizes a virtual forum discussion among the co-authors, which Yesol Hong, Jung-Hyun Won, and Prof. Lee organized. Yesol Hong, Jung-Hyun Won, and Prof. Lee prepared questions and agendas in advance, and Prof. Lee led the discussion.

In the preface, Prof. Lee commented, “Our future is not dark. We can do better next time by learning from the failure. I hope this book will may contribute to that transition. I dedicate this book to everyone who lost their precious lives due to COVID-19.”

Yoomin Jeon and Siun Kim were awarded the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 2021 KSCPT Conference.The Best Oral Presentation Award aims to recognize outstanding scientific papers delivered through oral presentations at the conference. The awards were given to oral presentations of the paper titled "A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo- and Active-controlled, Escalating Single-dose Study to Evaluate Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetic, and Pharmacodynamic Profiles of Subcutaneous Eflapegrastim in Healthy Japanese and Caucasians" and "An Annotated Corpus and Natural Language Processing Model for Drug Safety Information Extraction from Free-texts Reporting Adverse Events" for Yoomin and Siun, respectively. 

Yoomin presented the results of a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of eflapegrastim following subcutaneous administration to healthy subjects. Eflapegrastim (Rolontis®) is a novel, long-acting Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) being studied as a treatment for neutropenia that utilizes Hanmi's Labscovery, a proprietary platform technology. 

Siun presented an annotated corpus for extracted Korean adverse events using free-texts from the KAERS (Korean Adverse Event Reporting System) database. To this end, Siun Kim developed deep learning models that automatically extract medication and adverse event information, cooperating with MILAB in Seoul National University.

As of November 1, researcher Jun-sik Moon moved to PMATCH., a start-up company that develops service and online platforms based on the innovative application of artificial Intelligence.

For the last two years (2019.10~2021.10) Jun-sik has worked hard to apply mathematical principal into the medical field, in particular, to enhance the result for artificial intelligence models from the Small Grant Exploratory Research (SGER) Program to develop a model for assessing clinical trials feasibility. Participating in workshops and projects related with artificial intelligence, he actively helped his fellows when mathematical approach was required.

Jun-sik briefly stated that, through novel programs and varied activities in CCADD, he experienced the significant time when he had an opportunity to broaden his horizons being on good terms with his colleagues. He also did not forget to mention that the treasured memories of CCADD will be in his heart and to thank Prof. Howard Lee and CCADD's members.

CCADD is looking forward to fulfilling his potentiality at PMATCH. beyond the confines of interdisciplinarity and always applauding for his coming carrier.