Six Medical Staff at Seoul National University Hospital Awarded Geunjeong Medal and Minister of Health and Welfare Commendation

Professor Koo Bon-kwon, Department of Cardiology, Seoul National University Hospital (from left), Professor Song Yong-sang, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Professor Kang Hyung-jin, Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents, Professors Park Chang-min and Nam Joo-kang, Department of Radiology, Professor Image, Department of Neurology.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] Seoul National University Hospital announced on the 2nd that six medical staff members received the Geunjeong Medal and the Minister of Health and Welfare Commendation at the '2022 Government Awards for Contributions to Health and Medical Technology Promotion' ceremony held on the 30th of last month.

This award is given to researchers who have contributed to the development of health and medical technology by producing outstanding results through health and medical R&D. The awarded medical staff are Professor Koo Bon-kwon of the Department of Cardiology, Professor Song Yong-sang of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Professor Kang Hyung-jin of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents, Professors Park Chang-min and Nam Joo-kang of the Department of Radiology, and Professor Lee Ji of the Department of Neurology.

Professor Koo Bon-kwon, who received the Geunjeong Medal in the excellent research category, was recognized for his achievement in developing new diagnostic and treatment methods for cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death in advanced countries, by publishing over 500 papers in major journals through collaboration with domestic and international researchers. Furthermore, it is evaluated that he contributed to changing clinical and treatment guidelines for patients worldwide and to new health policy decisions.

In addition, five medical staff members received the Minister of Health and Welfare Commendation. In the excellent research category, Professors Kang Hyung-jin, Park Chang-min, and Song Yong-sang were awarded. Professor Kang was recognized for his contribution to the advancement of advanced regenerative medicine by successfully administering the first domestically produced chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy to pediatric leukemia patients in a hospital-led clinical trial in April. He was selected as an awardee for establishing an 'Integrated System for CAR-T Production, Administration, and Treatment Management' to facilitate the clinical entry of many new CAR-T candidate substances developed in Korea.

Professor Park was awarded for developing an artificial intelligence-based image reading assistance system and proving its medical usefulness through meticulous and extensive validation studies, thereby contributing to the clinical introduction of medical AI technology. He developed AI that automatically analyzes lung cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis, and major thoracic diseases from chest X-ray images and led the early clinical adoption of thoracic imaging AI by developing and validating a prognosis prediction model based on chest CT images.

Professor Song was recognized for elucidating the relationship between unique genetic variations in Koreans and the human papillomavirus (HPV), the cause of cervical cancer, and for being the first to establish a self-testing method using HPV. He was also evaluated for contributing to the establishment of a platform for ovarian cancer prevention, treatment, and prognosis prediction by confirming the diagnostic effect of ovarian cancer through microbial metagenome analysis and discovering ovarian cancer-specific biomarkers.

In the new researcher category, Professors Nam Joo-kang and Lee Ji were awarded. Professor Nam, as a medical professional and developer, possesses abundant technical skills in big data construction, AI model development, and validation, and was selected for conducting large-scale and multinational prospective validation studies of AI models.

Professor Lee was recognized for contributing to the advancement of health and medical care by elevating headache research capabilities to an international level through studies on cerebrovascular abnormalities in headache disorders, clinical and imaging characteristics, pathogenesis, treatment methods, and research on headaches and neurological diseases using brain imaging and AI.

The awardees expressed that these achievements were possible thanks to the dedication and active cooperation of all participants, including co-researchers. Professor Koo Bon-kwon said, "Through collaboration with many domestic and international researchers, we developed new methods to diagnose and evaluate cardiovascular diseases, and demonstrated through multicenter multinational clinical studies that these methods can be applied in actual clinical practice. Taking this award as an opportunity, I will do my best to ensure that the new cardiovascular disease diagnosis and treatment methods developed under Korea's leadership are applied to patients worldwide and that these technologies can change academic, medical, and socioeconomic paradigms."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.