Four CCADD members attended the SNU-Hokkaido University joint symposium held in Sapporo, Japan. On the second day of the symposium, professors and students of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology of Seoul National University  met members of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology of Hokkaido University and shared their research ideas, experiences, and results. The participants from the two universities introduced their research progress on a variety of topics, varying from computer-human interaction study to the development of new drug entities using machine learning technology. 

Dr. Soohyun Kim of CCADD gave an oral presentation, where she discussed if therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of vancomycin is cost-effective in elderly patients. According to Dr. Kim, the cost-effectiveness of vancomycin in this population might not be so cost-effective as was previously anticipated, but could be cost-effective in patients admitted to the intensive care unit. In the following poster session, Dr. Jeong-An Gim presented the results of a pharmacoepigenomic research (Difference in DNA methylation and pharmacokinetics parameters of tacrolimus between two periods of a bioequivalence test with tacrolimus). Dr. Kim tried to provide a basis for tacrolimus pharmacoepigenomics and may provide a clue to the different dose of tacrolimus through his research. Yoomin Jeon, a PhD student at CCADD, introduced a new research project, entitled "A Dimensionality Reduction Model to Increase the Efficiency and Accuracy of Clinical Trial Feasibility Assessment Using Electronic Medical Records." Yoomin’s poster was associated with a new grant CCADD received recently from the National Research Foundation (PI: Prof. Howard Lee). Another PhD student, Siun Kim, presented his research with Dr. Soohuyn Kim about the validity of the equivalence margin in the phase 3 trial with CT-P13, an Infliximab biosimilar. He had an opportunity to discuss the implication and the future plan of the study with researchers of Hokkaido University.

Those attending the symposium from CCADD were able to meet with many young Japanese professionals and researchers in various fields. They  look forward to seeing them again at a joint symposium at Seoul National University next year.

Two CCADD members, Dr. Soohyun Kim (PhD in statistics) and Siun Kim (BS in biology) gave presentations at the 2018 Korean Statistical Society Fall Conference , held on November 2-3 at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea. Dr. Kim gave an oral presentation of an update of her research on optimal experimental design. Additionally, Siun presented a poster discussing the appropriateness of an equivalence margin used in a clinical trial with CT-P13, an infliximab biosimilar, developed by Celltrion. Dr. Kim’s presentation was well received from her peer statisticians, who have been actively working in the field of experimental statistics in Korea. Interestingly, statisticians at Celltrion dropped by Siun’s poster and asked several questions. On the first day of the conference, Dr. Kim joined a tutorial session on deep learning from a statistician’s point of view.