KAIST Distinguished Professor Lee Sang-yeop Selected as Member of the Royal Society of the UK

Professor Sanghoon Lee, Department of Bio and Chemical Engineering, KAIST. Provided by KAIST

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] KAIST announced on the 7th that Distinguished Professor Lee Sang-yeop (Vice President for Research) of the Department of Bio and Chemical Engineering at KAIST was appointed as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, together with Chair Professor Kim Bit-naeri of the Department of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University.

The joint appointment of Professor Lee and Professor Kim as members of the Royal Society is the first case in Korea.

The Royal Society, established in 1660 in the United Kingdom, is the world's most prestigious academic society, with scientists such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein having been members, and has produced over 280 Nobel laureates to date.

The society selects up to 10 foreign members annually based on "substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge."

In Professor Lee's case, he pioneered systems metabolic engineering and developed foundational technologies such as strategies and methods necessary for the development of numerous microbial cell factories.

He was also recognized for developing technologies that produce products such as gasoline, diesel, biodegradable plastics, various monomers used as raw materials for polymers, and natural active substances with the world's first and highest efficiency.

Recently, Professor Lee developed high-efficiency production strains and fermentation processes for succinic acid and glutaric acid, raw materials for polyesters, and also produced carminic acid, a red edible pigment from natural products, for the first time in the world.

In particular, KAIST explained that with his appointment as a foreign member of the Royal Society, Professor Lee became the only scientist in the world to be registered as a foreign member in all three of the world's top academies: the US National Academy of Engineering, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of the United Kingdom.

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