Team

Jason is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Biomedical Sciences at Korea University College of Medicine. He completed his B.S. in Biological Science from the University of California Santa Barbara and graduated with an M.S. in Health Science and Technology from Sungkyunkwan University, focusing on Functional Genomics. Later, he received his Ph.D., also from Sungkyunkwan University, where he shifted his research focus to Cancer Genomics. While serving as a senior scientist at Samsung Medical Center, he specialized in tumor evolutionary dynamics and pharmacogenomics in various solid tumors. Building upon his expertise in exploring the cancer genome, he started his own independent research lab at Korea University in 2019, focusing on a wide spectrum of different tumor types, including glioblastoma, ovarian, colorectal, and gastric adenocarcinomas. Jason’s main scientific interests can be categorized into two main questions, which seek to: 1) identify essential driver mechanisms of evolutionary trajectories and biological response to therapy and 2) characterize key process dynamics that govern such composition. 

Harim is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sa Lab at Korea University. He received his undergraduate degree in Applied Chemical Engineering and Computer Engineering from Chonnam National University and a doctoral degree in Bioinformatics and Cancer Genomics from Sungkyunkwan University. He was previously employed as a researcher at Cancer Proteogenomic Analysis Consortium, National Cancer Center, and as a senior scientist at AIMED Bio afterward. His previous research interests involved exploring and identifying multi-omics-based biomarkers for glioblastoma and its molecular diversification based on racial populations. In the Sa Lab, Harim is currently analyzing the evolutionary dynamics of longitudinal cancer patients based on their treatment response for addressing precision oncology treatment.

Young-Tak is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. He completed his bachelor's degree in Computer and Communication Engineering and a doctoral degree in Brain and Cognitive Engineering at Korea University, where he also worked as a research professor in the same department. His previous research consisted of the development of neurosurgical applications for traumatic brain injury through integrating neuro-monitoring and neuro-imaging technology. His current research focus is on the implementation of precision medicine and clinical decision support through AI-enhanced synthesis of multimodal clinical data, combining genomics with medical imaging and physiological signals. He is also analyzing the landscape of radiogenomic interactions to build a machine learning-based model to identify diverse tumor microenvironment compositions in breast cancer patients. 

Sungjae is currently a clinical fellow in the Department of Neurosurgery at Korea University Anam Hospital. He received his medical degree from the Korea University College of Medicine and interned at Seoul National University Hospital. He also received resident and clinical fellow training from Seoul National University Bundang Hospital in the Department of Neurosurgery. He has previously worked as a public health doctor at Public Health Center, Korea, and as a house officer at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Singapore. Sungjae's current research interests are spine tumors, spine degenerative disease, and spine trauma. His current research project involves developing an NGS data process pipeline as well as analyzing the transcriptome complexity of bone metastasis at spatial resolution to identify potential therapeutic targets. 

Byunghyun is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. He completed his B.S. in Food Bio and Biotechnology and M.S. in Biotechnology from Sungkyunkwan University. He has previously undergone an internship program at Korea Food Research Institute. During his M.S. program, Byunghyun has specialized in the identification of ideal compounds for the sustainment of well-being through exploring regulatory gene pathways in regard to metabolism activity. He is currently focused on identifying novel therapeutic targets for refractory diseases using deep learning methods for personalized treatment and the impacts of gender differences on the GBM genome, transcriptome, and proteome.

Dayoung is a Ph.D. student at KU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology, Korea University. She is currently co-mentored by Jason K. Sa and Seok Chung. She graduated with a B.S. in Biotechnology from Konkuk University and completed her M.S. in Material Science and Engineering from Seoul National University. She has also obtained professional experience as a student researcher at KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology). Her previous research interests involved the development of a hydrogel microfluidic 3D culture system for lung cancer cells, mimicking the tumor microenvironment. Dayoung is currently studying the cancer genome of lung adenocarcinoma patients who received various treatments, including immunotherapy and EGFR-Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors at early versus metastatic stages.

Ji Yoon is an M.S.-Ph.D. student at Korea University in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She completed her B.S. with a double major in Biosystems and Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. Her current primary research interest is in the evolutionary dynamics of the cancer genome between pre- and post-treatment from clinical trials. Ji Yoon also focuses on disease prediction modeling via screening for candidate proteins that are involved in metabolism. Her ongoing research consists of an investigation of molecular and clinical characteristics between young and old breast adenocarcinoma patients based on different ethnic origins as well as exploring the developmental stages of anaplastic meningioma by analyzing the transcriptional cellular state of tumor cells and tumor microenvironment via single-cell analysis, in hopes of identifying novel biomarkers for potential therapeutic opportunities. 

Jiwon is an M.S.-Ph.D. student at Korea University in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Sciences at Handong Global University and acquired professional experience as a researcher at Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Jiwon is currently interested in identifying essential genomic aberrations that are involved in lung adenocarcinoma development and underlying mechanisms that are therapeutically exploitable within clinical practice. She is also exploring the molecular properties of upper tract urothelial carcinoma that distinguishes it from traditional bladder urothelial carcinoma. Through comprehensive pharmacogenomic analysis, she seeks to identify molecular correlates that determine the pharmacological response to chemotherapy and immunotherapy in urothelial carcinoma.

You Jin is an M.S.-Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. She graduated from Konkuk University with a B.S. in Biology. She has been previously employed at Geninus as a chromium technician/researcher. Her research interests involve integrative analysis of advanced solid tumors and immunological diseases at single-cell resolution. You Jin is currently analyzing and integrating the complex molecular profiles of glioblastoma patients using multi-region sequencing with spatial transcriptomics as well as drug response from tissue slice culture to determine the degree of subclonal complexity that affects overall patient prognosis in glioblastoma.

Jisoo is an M.S. student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. She graduated with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, primarily focusing on bioinformatics, at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She has previously interned at Syntekabio, practicing and developing quality control procedures for next-generation sequencing pipelines and designing data-flow steps for AI-driven compound screening. She is interested in pursuing the discovery of cancer biomarkers for early diagnosis and determining how genetic variations affect overall drug responses, especially in regard to anti-cancer compounds. Jisoo is currently analyzing the landscape of pharmacogenomic interactions in colorectal adenocarcinoma patients using multi-omics data and implementing various machine-learning algorithms to identify the underlying resistance mechanisms as well as predictive biomarkers. She is also in charge of analyzing the molecular landscape of 10,000 Korean advanced pan-cancer patients, a continuation of our previous project published in Cancer Discovery.

Dayoung is an M.S. student at Korea University in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She completed her B.S. degree in Systems Biomedical Science from Soongsil University and joined the Sa Lab in 2022. Dayoung's current research involves the exploration of tumor evolutionary dynamics at single-cell resolution in response to immune checkpoint blockades in various solid tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma, MSI-high gastric adenocarcinoma, basal or squamous cell carcinoma, lung adenocarcinoma, and breast adenocarcinoma, in hopes of identifying critical features underpinning c response and enable novel biomarker discovery.

Nam Sung is currently a Masters's student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Korea University. He received his bachelor's degree from Soongsil University with a major in Systems Biomedical Sciences. His previous research involved the identification of various miRNA regulators that are uniquely enriched in each breast cancer subtype. Now in the Sa Lab, he is working on different analytical approaches to capture essential predictors of response to chemotherapy in ovarian and colorectal adenocarcinoma via the integration of multi-layer sequencing data. He is also interested in the identification of drug-resistant mechanisms as well as novel biomarker discovery for potential clinical application.

Jisoo graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology. During her undergrad, Jisoo spent three years as a research assistant in the Rong Li Lab, identifying genetic dependencies in aneuploidy yeast. Her primary task was to establish a high-throughput genetic screen, targeting essential genetic pathways in aneuploidy yeast using yeast genetics and microscopic techniques. She successfully identified a genetic dependency of growth and survival in aneuploidy on the ART-Rsp5 endocytic pathway.  Additionally, she was selected as a post-baccalaureate intramural research training award fellow at the National Institute of Health, working in the Neal Young Lab and focusing on hematopoiesis and bone marrow failure. She actively participated in several clinical and basic research projects related to aplastic anemia, to investigate the underlying mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities using murine models of bone marrow failure for potential clinical application. In the Sa Lab, she is currently interested in exploring big data-driven pharmacogenomic interactions to identify lineage-specific therapeutic responses to identify potential molecular determinants.