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“When I ask where my research is being used, I am asked to look at a Samsung QLED (quantum light emitting diode) television. This is because in my thesis, a method that can mass produce quantum dots, which are colored semiconductors, in the desired sizes. “
Starting on the 5th of next month, the winners of the Nobel Prize of the Year will be announced, starting with the Prize for Physiological Medicine. Maybe the first Korean Nobel Prize will come out. Clarivate Analytics, a global academic information analysis company that has predicted annual Nobel Prize winners with tweezers, has selected a Korean scientist as one of the top Nobel Prize winners this year.
Clarivate announced on the 23rd that Taek-Hwan Hyun, Senior Lecturer at Seoul National University (Head of Nanoparticle Research Division, Basic Sciences Research Institute), is a prominent scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year. . Professor Hyun was selected as a Chemistry Award nomination for his research achievements in the precise synthesis of nanoparticles for a wide range of applications, along with Professor Mounsey Barwendi of MIT and Professor Christopher Murray of the University of Pennsylvania.
Since 2002, Clarivate has selected excellent researchers with the top 0.01% of thesis citation frequencies in the fields of physiology, physics, chemistry, and economics as Nobel Prize candidates. Of the 336 researchers nominated so far, 54 (16%) have won the Nobel Prize. Of these, 29 were awarded within two years of Clarivate’s nomination. In Korea, Professor Yu Ryong Yoo of KAIST in 2014, Professor Nam-gyu Park of Sungkyunkwan University in 2017, and Professor Rodney Luoff of Ulsan Institute of Sciences in 2018 were nominated for the Chemistry Award.
◇ Research in nanoscience that saw the light in 20 years
Professor Hyun said, “After becoming a professor at Seoul National University in 1997, I dropped out of my studies in the United States and jumped into emerging nanoscience at that time, and I saw the light in 20 years.”
At that time, the Clinton administration declared nanoscience a new engine for national development and a research boom ensued. In 2001, Professor Hyun succeeded in synthesizing homogeneous nanoparticles by gradually increasing the temperature in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Until then, when the nanoparticles were synthesized, the size was irregular and the particles of the desired size had to be selected separately.
With Professor Hyun’s research as an opportunity, the way to synthesize nanoparticles used in various places, from solar cells to cancer diagnosis and treatment, was opened as desired. This article has been cited so far 1660 times in articles by other scholars.
Subsequently, the method of massive synthesis of nanoparticles published in ‘Natural Materials’ in 2004 was cited up to 3,000 times. In this article, Professor Hyun surprised the academic community by presenting a method to produce 1000 times more nanoparticles at a cost of one thousandth of the cost of conventional methods. This article gave rise to QLED TV.
Professor Hyun took home the best science awards in Korea, including the Korea Best Science and Technology Award, the Ho-Am Award, and the POSCO TJ Park Award. In 2018, the National Research Foundation of Korea selected six Korean scientists who exceeded the average number of citations of articles cited by Nobel Prize winners in the past 10 years, including the current professor. Since 2010, he has also served as deputy editor of JACS, the world’s best academic journal in the field of chemistry.
Professor Hyun said: “Whether or not you receive the Nobel Prize, we have published all the articles that will be the criteria for evaluation. We will take on a new challenge in treating incurable diseases without drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. the United States (FDA) “. It has already managed to improve sepsis and Alzheimer’s dementia in nanoparticle animal experiments with researchers at Seoul National University School of Medicine.
Will I still be greedy? Professor Hyun said: “The two quantum dot researchers, which became the basic principles of QLED televisions, have not yet received the Nobel Prize,” he said. “I will hope to receive them first.”
◇ 24 leading researchers for the Nobel Prize in Science and Economics announced
On this day, Clarivate announced 24 leading researchers and scientists who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Science and Economics. By field, there were 4 in physiology, 7 in physics, 6 in chemistry, and 7 in economics.
In the field of chemistry, in addition to nanocrystal researchers, Professor Stephen Birchwald from MIT in the United States and Professor John Hartwewick from UC Berkeley of organometallic chemistry, and Professor Makoto Fujita from the University of Tokyo in Japan for their studies of supramolecular chemistry through self-assembly. High.
In the field of physiology, Pamela Bjorkman, Professor at the California Institute of Technology, and Professor Jack Strominger, Harvard University, were selected for their contribution to the development of new drugs and vaccines by developing a major complex protein of histocompatibility (MHC) involved in molecular immunity. Yusuke Nakamura, Director of the Japan Cancer Research Institute, has been selected as a candidate for the Physiological Medicine Award for her contributions to research on inherited polymorphic markers that paved the way for personalized cancer treatment, and for her contribution to reveal the origin of the neurological disorder Rett syndrome, Professor Huda Jogbee of Baylor Medical University in the United States. .
In the field of physics, Dr. Thomas Carroll and Dr. Louis Pekora of the US Naval Research Center for Nonlinear Mechanics, Professor Hong Ji-Dye of Stanford University in the US And Alex Zettle from UC Berkeley for the development of boron-carbon nanotubes, and Professor Carlos Frank from the University of Durham in England. And Professor Julio Navarro from the University of Victoria in Canada and Dr. Simon White from the Max Planck Institute in Germany were nominated for the award for their studies on galaxy formation and evolution, space structure, and dark matter.
