Biohybrid Research Center of Sogang University-Harvard University-USD Brought in
- Selected as a new task for the 2021 Overseas Excellent Research Institute Cooperation Hub Construction Project, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT,
Establishment of international cooperation model through joint research with Harvard University -

In 2021, for the ‘Overseas Excellent Research Institute Cooperation Hub Construction Project,’ sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the ‘Biohybrid Research Center’ was finally selected. Sogang University’s Institute for Biological Interfaces (Director: Professor Shin Kwanwoo, Department of Chemistry), Harvard University in the United States, and Universitas Sanata Dharma (USD, hereafter) in Indonesia will participate in this project, which will receive a research grant of KRW 300 million annually for three years (beginning this year). 

Professors from Sogang’s Department of Life Sciences and Department of Chemistry will be participating under the supervision of the Institute for Biological Interfaces, while Professor Kevin Parker of Harvard University will conduct joint research. Professor Parker, who is affiliated with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University, is also director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University and the Advanced Therapy Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Sogang University and Harvard University have been continuously conducting joint-research efforts and mutual exchanges of researchers and students over the past seven years. Based on the results of these active exchanges, and with the participation of Indonesia’s USD Faculty of Pharmacy, the university plans to expand its network for international cooperation and to enable the inflow and outflow of excellent global human resources. USD is a Jesuit university in Indonesia that has been conducting human-resource exchanges with Sogang’s Department of Natural Sciences for the past several years. The USD Faculty of Pharmacy will be receiving technology developed through joint research between Sogang University and Harvard University and will examine the application of such technology as medicine, dispatching students and faculty to Sogang University and Harvard University to participate in research education and training.  

During the project period, Sogang’s researchers and students will be dispatched to world-class research institutes, and Harvard researchers will visit our university to conduct joint research, as well. In particular, through this central project, we are planning toward joint commercialization of the artificial-tissue technology jointly owned by Sogang University and Harvard University, as well as joint commercialization of the protein-based bio-ink technology jointly announced in Nature Materials earlier this year. In 2020, the industry-academic cooperation foundations of the two universities signed a memorandum of understanding on sharing and utilization for joint participation in patented technology with a startup company called ‘Boston Meat.’ 

Professor Shin Kwanwoo, the director of the center, said, “It seems that we were selected for this project in consideration of the world-class infrastructure at our disposal, such as the ultra-high-resolution microscope possessed by the Institute for Biological Interfaces, the role of Sogang University personnel at Harvard University through mutual exchanges held over the past several years, and close cooperation with USD.” He then added, “With active support from each university, we will establish the center as Sogang University’s most successful model for international cooperation.”