News

April 01, 2025 

From April, the Genome Institute at Samsung Medical Center (SGI) has been reorganized into the Translational Genomics Center (TGen).                                   Minyong has been appointed as the director of the center and will lead TGen moving forward! 

Congratulations, and there is great anticipation for the future of TGen! 

Jan 01 , 2024  &  Feb 01, 2025 

We are thrilled to introduce two new members to our team, Jeyong and Jun Yeon!

Jeyong joined the MS-PhD Integrated Program at SAIHST this March, while Jun Yeon is preparing to start the PhD program later this year.

Both are passionate about translational genomics, with a particular focus on single-cell analysis of the tumor microenvironment.

Let’s warmly welcome Jeyong and Jun Yeon! 

Aug 01 , 2023 

We'd like to welcome Seongmi, Jungho and Jong Hoo, who joined us  this month. 

They are preparing for entering MS-PhD Integrated Program of SAIHST next year, and we are really excited to have them in our lab!

Welcome! 

April 19, 2023

Our group was finally selected as the Team leader of the "Stem Cell Atlas Project" funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea, by collaborating with Seoul National University (Prof. Shin) and Sungkyunkwan University (Prof. Won). 

This project is named as "STAR (STem cells Atlas of uRologic organs)  Project, and our team will be supported for approximately 3,800,000 dollars for the next five years.

This is a really good opportunity for our group to take a next step!

Congratulations!

Feb 01, 2023

We'd like to welcome Kyu Tae, who joined us as a new member to the Kang lab since Jan, 2023.  He is going to enter the MS-PhD Integrated Program in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of SAIHST this year. His research interests are bioinformatics and cancer genomics, particularly single cell analysis and immuno-genomics.

Welcome Kyu Tae!

Dec 06, 2022 

Sanghoon joined as a new member to our group this month. He is going to enter the PhD course in the Department of Digital Health of SAIHST next year. He is also worked in Geninus, a leading company of single cell sequencing in South Korea. His research interests are bioinformatics and immunogenomics, particularly single cell RNA sequencing analysis.

Welcome Sanghoon!

Nov 07, 2022 

We'd like to welcome Ijun, who joined us as a new member to the Kang lab since Sep, 2022. She is going to enter the MS-PhD Integrated Program in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of SAIHST next year. Her research interests are bioinformatics and cancer genomics, particularly single cell analysis.

Welcome Ijun!

September 01, 2022 

New post-doc researcher, Dr. So-Ra Jeong, joined our laboratory this month. She recnetly completed her M.S. & Ph.D. course in Molecular Biology from the Department of biotechnology, Korea university.  Her research interests are cancer biology, immuno-oncology, gene therapy  and tumor organoids.

Welcome So-Ra!!! 

May 10, 2022 

Our work, entitled "Molecular Subtypes Based on Genomic and Transcriptomic Features Correlate with the Responsiveness to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Metastatic Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma", which was mainly conducted by Byul A, has been accepted for publication in Cancers. This is the first paper of genomic analysis work using our pipelines and in-house data.

Congratulation, Byul A!

May 01, 2022  

Eunjung finally received Basic Science Research Grant (Mid-career grant) funded by NRF. The topic of this project is "Lineage plasticity of prostate cancer into neuroendocrine differentiation via YAP/TAZ signaling pathway". She will be supported by this grant for next four years. 

Congratulations, Eunjung!

01  Oct, 2021

Minyong decided to join Samung Genome Institute (SGI) as a Director of Single Cell Genomics Lab. 

Our lab and SGI will actively collaborate and focus on the single cell sequencing for future projects to discover the novel targets of emerging cancer therapies, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors.

01  Sep, 2021

Minyong finally accepted for 2021 Bio/Medical technology commercialization support project funded by Seoul Metropolitan Government.  The topic of this project is "Intravenous approach for De novo RNAi-based oncolytic virus therapy in castration-resistant prostate cancer". Kang lab will collaborate with Curigin (Venture company) and Jinwoo in Kyung Hee Univ. for this project. 

We will be supported by this grant for next two years.  Congratulations!

Aug 01, 2021 

Soo Yeon and Ji Yeon joined the our lab as undergraduate student interns this month. Particularly, Soo Yeon  is third year student of Dept. of Biological Science in SKKU and participated in Research Experience Program of SAIHST.  Research interests of them are cancer organoid and precision medicine.  

Welcome All!

May 01, 2021 

Byul A (Asther) finally received Basic Science Research Grant funded by NRF. The topic of this project is "Integrative transcriptomic analysis and molecular classification in patients with metastatic prostate cancer for predicting therapeutic responsiveness". She will be supported by this grant for next three years. 

Many Congratulations, Asther!

April 30, 2021 

Minyong was invited to 2021 KUA R & D workshop, and gave a talk on "Individual Basic Research Project: A to Z".

He enjoyed this meeting and communicated with many other researchers.

April 01, 2021 

Samsung Medical Center (SMC), particularly with our lab, and Oncocross (Venture company for AI based drug development) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for conducting the joint research to overcome resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapy in urological cancers by analyzing transcriptomes based on AI platform. 

https://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2021040213135065892

Congratulations!

March 25, 2021 

Minyong was invited to the ACE 2021: Prostate Cancer - mHSPC Medical Education Symposium  sponsored by Janssen in Mar 25, 2021. 

He gave a talk on "Understanding the rapidly evolving treatment landscape of mHSPC: How to optimize patient outcomes?" 

March 10, 2021 

The article, entitled "Potential of circulating tumor DNA as a predictor of therapeutic responses to immune checkpoint blockades in metastatic renal cell carcinoma " was finally published in Scientific Reports (Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 10;11(1):5600. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85099-4)

In this study, we showed that dynamics of ctDNA levels in plasma by targeted deep sequencing was associated with the therapeutic response of patients with mRCC who were treated with first-line anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4 combination therapies. This work was collaborated with Samsung Genome Institute and Geninus, and this is the first translational research paper by Minyong as a corresponding author. 

Congratulations!

February 27, 2021 

Minyong participated in the Joint symposium of Korean Association of Urogenital Tract Infection and Inflammation & Korean Urological Research Society in Feb 27, 2021. 

He talked about "Genomic features of response to immune checkpoint blockades in patients with metastatic RCC"

February 26, 2021 

Minyong was invited to the DR. CR symposium [Opdivo + Yervoy] sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in Feb 26, 2021. 

He gave a talk on "Real-world experiences of immune checkpoint inhibitors in mRCC: Integrating clinical and genomic data". 

Dec  24, 2020 

Minyong received 2021 CRP (Creative Research Program) Grant funded by SMC.  The topic of this project is "genomic features of sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma using laser microdissection". He will collaborate with Young Seok in KAIST, who is the expert of cancer genomics, for this project. 

Minyong will be supported by this grant for next two years.  Congratulations!

Dec 16, 2020 

The article, entitled "Creation of bladder assembloids mimicking tissue regeneration and cancer", by our collaborative team, Shin lab in POSTECH, was published by Nature (doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-3034-x). Minyong participated in this study as a co-author.  

Shin lab is one of the most important collaborator of us, and we have conducted our main projects in regard to tumor organoid of kidney cancer and prostate cancer with his team for several years. 

Congratulations!

Dec 01, 2020 

We'd like to welcome Kang Hee, who joined us as a new member to our lab this month. She is the fourth-year student of the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering of Jungwon University. Actually, she is going to enter the MS-PhD Integrated Program in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of SAIHST next year. Her research interests are bioinformatics and cancer genomics.

Welcome Kang Hee!

Nov 06, 2020 

Research team of Seong Soo and Minyong finally received the Korea Medical Device Development Fund supported by KHIDI. They are collaborating with Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital and Cebika for performing multi-center phase III RCT, and the research topic is "Functional outcome and safety of hypothermic robot-assisted radical prostatectomy using BelloCool™". These research teams will be supported by this grant for next two years. 

Congratulations!

Nov 01, 2020 

Eujung joined the Kang lab as a new research fellow this month. She received a PhD (2007) in Dept. of Life science from the University of Seoul in Korea. She has worked as a Post-doctoral fellow in Mount Sinai Medical School and NYU Medical School in U.S.  as well as KAIST and Ajou Medical Center in Korea for more than 10 years.  She is an expert in molecular biology, particularly cancer biology, such as Hippo signaling pathway and WNT pathway.  

Actually, the Kang lab has expanded quite a bit this year with receiving several research grants and joining new members in our team.

Welcom Eunjung! We are lucky to have you join us! 

Nov 01, 2020 

We are excited to announce the addition of new member to our team. Kyung jo joined the Kang lab to pursue his Ph.D. in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of SAIHST next year. His research interests are cancer organoid and molecular oncology.  Welcome Kyung jo!

Oct 10, 2020

Minyong received a Best Presentation Award from the Korean Urological Oncology Society (KUOS) at the annual conference of KUOS for his work on "Identification of transcriptomic alterations and driver genes associated with enzalutamide resistance", which has been mainly performed by Byul A (Asther) as the 1st author.

Congratulations!

Sep 25, 2020 

Minyong and Sejin, as a collaborative team, received a 2020 SMC-SKKU matching grant funded by Samsung Medical Center & Sungkyunkwan University. Sejin is an assistant professor in the Department of Immunology, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine. He is an expert in immuno-oncology research, particularly in T cell biology, such as tumor-infiltrating T cells. The topic of this project is the novel immunogenomic biomarker for predicting treatment responses of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with metastatic RCC by using T stem cell isolation & culture method from biopsy tissues. 

Sept 15, 2020 

Minyong received a research fund donation from his patient who already donated $10 million to the hospital last year. 

The research topic of this project is the genomic features of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. 

Thanks and respect for the patient who donated this research fund!

July 31, 2020 

Minyong participated in the Korean Urological Congress and Expo 2020 in July 31, 2020. He talked about "Small renal masses in the NGS era: Intratumoral heterogeneity and the risk of metastasis?" in the plenary session. 

May 01, 2020 

Dr. Byul A (Asther) Jee joined Kang laboratory as a new post-doc researcher in May, 2020. She received a PhD (2017) in Bioinformatics from The Ajou University of Korea and working as a Post-doctoral fellow in prof. Woo lab which is a leading research group of the cancer genomics in Korea. She is an expert in cancer genomics, particularly RNA sequencing and whole-exome sequencing analysis. We are really excited to have her in our lab!

Welcome Byul A!

February 28, 2020 

Minyong received a 2020 Young Investigator Grant funded by NRF.  The topic of this project is cancer organoid and T cell co-culture system development derived from patients with renal cell carcinoma. He will be supported by this grant for next three years. 

Congratulations!

February 28, 2020 

Research team of Seong Soo who is the chairman in Dep. of Urology in SMC and Minyong finally received a 2020 Midcareer Researcher Grant funded by NRF. The research topic is "tumor evolution and heterogeneity using cancer organoid derived from advanced prostate cancer patients". They will be funded by this grant for next three years. 

Congratulations!

January 01, 2020 

New post-doc researcher, Dr. Iftikhar Ali Khawar, joined our laboratory to study for prostate and kidney cancer research this month. He completed his PhD in Cancer Biology from The Catholic University of Korea and working as a Post-doc in Department of Health Science and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Science and Technology, Sungkyunkwan  University. 

WELCOME Ali !!! 

November 16, 2019

Minyong was invited to Public Education Program for Science, "Science Touch", supported by the Seoul Science Center and the National Research Foundation of Korea, in November 16, 2019. He talked about the translational research and physician-scientist for the general public.

September 26-29, 2019

Minyong participated in annual symposium of URS at Bern in Switzerland from September 26 through 29, 2019, as a Korean member of URS. He gave a talk on patient-derived cancer organoid system in patients with renal cell carcinoma, and also enjoyed academic and social meetings with many other researchers who came from all of the world.

September 01, 2019

Minyong joined as a adjunct professor in the Department of Health Science and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Science and Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan  University from this month.

We are finally able to open our lab to post-graduate students in SAIHST !

August 24, 2019

Jungwon (1st author, clinical fellow) and Minyong (correspondence) received an Academic Award from the Korean Urological Oncology Society (KUOS) at the annual conference for his paper on the systemic inflammatory response markers in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Congratulations!

August 24, 2019

Minyong received a Best Presentation Award from the Korean Urological Oncology Society (KUOS) at the annual conference of KUOS for his work on the tumor infiltrating CD8 T cells in renal cell carcinoma patient.

Congratulations!

December, 2018 

Minyong received a Research Grant for young investigators supported by Samsung Medical Center in this month. The research topic is "circulating tumor cells in patients with renal cell carcinoma who are treated by targeted therapy". Minyong will be supported by this grant for next two years. 

Congratulations!

November 08, 2018 

The official blog of Samsung Medical Center introduced the story of Minyong on his clinical expertise and research interests  on kidney and prostate cancers (http://ohhappysmc.com/221387054629)

September 30, 2018 

Minyong finally received a Research Grant supported by NRF, collaborated with Yong-Mahn in KAIST as a group leader and other researchers. The research topic is "kidney organoid platform establishment for drug screening and disease modeling". Minyong will be funded by this grant for next five years, and this grant will be a seed money for the Kang Lab! 

Congratulations!!!