Research

Disease prevention is invaluable, yet the mechanisms underlying disease development remain highly complex and incompletely understood. Our laboratory's mission is to identify novel strategies for disease prevention. We adopt a multidisciplinary approach that integrates epidemiology, genomics, and in-vitro organoid systems to elucidate the pathophysiology of diseases, with a primary focus on—but not limited to—cancer.  We aim to address the following fundamental questions.

What are the unknown causes of cancer?

• Over half of the causes of cancer are known. But the remains have yet to be explored. Under robust epidemiological methodology, we analyze large-scale national health data, such as NHIS, KoGES, or UK-biobank, to find causal associations. In addition, we primarily gather data to investigate the cause of cancer in terms of field epidemiology.

• We also conduct general or clinical epidemiologic studies, including estimation of the burden of disease, collaboration with clinicians, and development of disease prediction algorithms.

  1. Preventable Cancers Caused by Infection in Korea From 2015 to 2030

  2. Etiome Study Using Molecular Epigenetic Markers and Lung Organoid in Korean School Meal Service Workers (Etiome Study in S-meal Workers): Study Protocol

  3. Association Between Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers and the Risk of Lung Cancer Among Patients With Hypertension From the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Health Screening Cohort

  4. Ginseng Tea Consumption and Liver Cancer Risk: A Prospective Korean Multi-center Cancer Cohort Study

How do germline variants and somatic mutations influence disease development and progression?

• Despite the discovery of numerous disease-associated variants/mutations, their mechanism affecting phenotype have not been fully understood.

• We conduct bioinformatic analysis, including GWAS, QTL, single-cell sequencing, and wet-lab experiments, to explore the effect of variants on disease.

  1. Novel genetic variants associated with chronic kidney disease progression

  2. Genome-wide association study for metabolic syndrome reveals APOA5 single nucleotide polymorphisms with multilayered effects in Koreans

  3. Discovery of functional variants regulating lipid metabolism in an East Asian population (Under review)

What are the molecular changes during early oncogenesis?

• How normal cells become cancerous is in the dark, where we could find clues for cancer prevention.

• We explore the cancer evolution mechanism utilizing an in vitro normal organoid model with genetic or non-genetic manipulation.

  1. Genetically engineered human lung organoid models for lung cancer evolution study

  2. Epithelial plasticity in lung cancer evolution: insights from organoids