CCADD welcomes Le Dinh Tuan as a new researcher.

Tuan studied Computer Science at the University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University. Afterward, he spent two years as a research assistant at the Multimedia Communication Signal Processing Lab (MCSP Lab) and received his master's from Artificial Intelligence Convergence Department, Pukyong National University. Tuan's research interests centere around statistical and machine learning (especially deep learning) methods for clinical data analysis.

As a researcher under the supervision of Professor Howard Lee, Tuan will actively partake in the current projects at CCADD pertaining to medical artificial intelligence. At the same time, he will seek to further his knowledge on applying the artificial intelligence technology to the fields of medicine and pharmaceutical sciences.

CCADD is thrilled to welcome Tuan to our team and looks forward to his contributions to our ongoing research efforts.

The 2023 Winter Internship at CCADD has begun. For this year’s internship, CCADD has Jaeho Hyun, who will study and experience the on-going research projects at CCADD.

Jaeho Hyun is a senior in biomedical engineering at Korea University. He studied mechanical system design engineering at Hongik University until the second year in college before he transferred to Korea University starting his junior year. His motivation for transfer was his interest in finding engineering solutions to solve problems in the medical field. Prior to this internship, he studied artificial intelligence (AI) technology in Seoul Information and communication technology (ICT) innovation square in the summer 2022. The program deepened his interest in applying technical knowledge to addressing real world problems pertaining to healthcare and medicine. During the internship at CCADD, he intends to expand his knowledge and explore various applications of real-world data analysis and AI technology in drug development sciences.

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.

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!

Prof. Howard Lee was invited to a session at the Spring Conference, 2021, organized and sponsored by The Pharmaceutical Society of Korea, April 22, 2021, held in the K-Hotel, Seoul, Korea. In the session, Prof. Lee introduced the audience to a dimension reduction model that CCADD has developed to make clinical trial feasibility assessments efficient, practical, and realistic. The research project has been supported for three years by the National Research Foundation of Korea, which is expected to end by this year. Based on the positive results of the research, particularly in the area of type II diabetes mellitus, a patent has been filed, and CCADD plans to expand it to other disease areas too. Prof. Lee has emphasized in the session that artificial intelligence technologies can and should be applied to clinical drug development to make it more versatile and agile. His talk was well-received. 

CCADD congratulates Dr. Kyeong-Ryoon Lee's appointment as Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences (MMBS). The news of Dr. Kyeong-Ryoon Lee's promotion came out on January 26^th, and his new appointment will take effect on March 1^st, 2021.

Dr. Kyeong-Ryoon Lee received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Science at College of Pharmacy, Seoul National University. His research area includes pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism, transporters, and modeling and simulation. Furthermore, Dr. Lee's expertise in artificial intelligence-based modeling, which can be implemented throughout the preclinical and clinical stages of the drug discovery process, has earned him the current position as a research scientist at Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB). 

Dr. Lee's appointment was actually the renewal of his visiting professorship. Dr. Kyeong-Ryoon Lee first joined CCADD on February 2018 as Adjunct Assistant Professor. Since then, Dr. Lee has contributed to CCADD a lot, being a valuable asset for CCADD, not only in research, but in mentoring graduate students.

Once again, CCADD congratulates Dr. Kyeong-Ryoon Lee on his achievement as he is plotting a new path to explore an untapped terrain. CCADD also hopes that Dr. Lee's promotion boosts synergy between CCADD and him. 

Prof. Howard Lee and some CCADD members including Yoomin Jeon, Yoona Choi, and YeSol Hong visited AstraZeneca Korea (AZK) on December 3, 2020. AZ is a research-intensive pharmaceutical company based in the UK and has recently developed a vaccine against COVID-19. AZK invited Prof. Lee to a big data seminar series, and he talked about the role of medical big data including real world data and artificial intelligence (AI) in drug discovery and development. Prof. Lee also discussed how pharmaceutical companies could prepare themselves for the active and efficient adoption of big data and AI technologies for the day-to-day drug development activities. 

Yoona and YeSol are actually a former employee to AZK, in the departments of medical affairs and marketing, respectively. Thus, this visit was a kind of homecoming, and everyone welcomed them.The visit was also a great opportunity for CCADD to introduce its research fields and capabilities to pharmaceutical companies. This opportunity will enable CCADD for exploring many collaboration projects with those who are involved in actual drug development, which will certainly fill a gap for CCADD such that academic research is well aligned with the reality.     

Prof. Howard Lee spoke about the utility of artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical drug development at the KDDW or Korean Digestive Disease Week 2020, organized by the Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, on November 20, 2020, held at the Swiss Grand Hotel Convention Center. The conference was aired online and the program is shown below:

The title of Prof. Lee's presentation was 'Artificial Intelligence in Drug Development: Clinical Pharmacology Perspective', and he talked about the potentials and pitfalls of AI in clinical drug development. In his talk, Prof. Lee emphasized the fact that most of the AI technologies that have been ever adopted in drug development are primarily in the area of drug discovery, whereas the preclinical and clinical developments have not witnessed active adoption of AI technologies although this trend can change all of a sudden. Particularly, Prof. Lee set aside the one-thirds of his presentation as to how CCADD could have developed a series of machine learning models to reduce the dimensionality of eligibility criteria to assess clinical trial feasibility using several feature selection algorithms. Below is the photo of those who have contributed to the work Prof. Lee introduced in his talk at the conference.