2024 Korean Society of Biological Engineering Fall Capstone Design Competition BB Jump Grand Prize Winner / Lee, Ki-woong (Department of Biofermentation and Fusion, 20), Kim, Si-eun, Min, Ji-woo, and Chae-min Lee (22)

Kookmin University students Si-Eun Kim, Ji-Woo Min, Ji-Woong Lee, and Chae-Min Lee (advisor Cho, Hyeon-Yeol) won the grand prize (President's Award of the Korean Society of Biotechnology and Bioengineering) at the '2024 Korean Society of Biotechnology and Bioengineering Capstone Design Contest BB Jump' (Biotechnology and Bioengineering Jump) held on September 27 at the Jeju International Convention Center.

[Department of Biofermentation and Convergence students (from left to right) Si-Eun Kim, Ji-Woo Min, Ki-Woong Lee, and Chae-Min Lee (Advisor Cho, Hyeon-Yeol)]

The competition, organized by the Korean Society of Biological Engineering, was held as part of the program within the Korean Society of Biological Engineering's Autumn Conference and International Symposium, held last month from 25th to 27th, to foster biotechnology talents with creative and comprehensive design capabilities.

The students participated in the competition as a team (team name: Aptamer Engineers) through the Biohealth Material Production Process Innovation Talent Development Project (Director Lee Inhyung, Vice Director Cho Hyun-yeol) and the LINC3.0 Project. The students presented the results of producing aptamers, a substance composed of DNA or RNA that can detect target substances, in the form of a hydrogel, which greatly increased the detection efficiency compared to the existing structure, and as a result, the judges evaluated it as a technology that is highly complete from idea planning to result and has high potential for future utilization.

“It was meaningful to share our research with students and professors by presenting DNA apta-hydrogel as a capstone design at the 2024 BB jump Biotechnology Society Capstone Design, and we had the opportunity to receive various feedback from them,” said Aptamer Engineers, “In the future, we plan to conduct optimization experiments to increase the dopamine binding efficiency of the apta-hydrogel and improve the accuracy of electrochemical measurements, and we expect that these studies will contribute to the development of precise detection and early diagnosis of neurotransmitters such as dopamine in neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease.”