Pukyong National University Research Team Wins Award for "Starfish Antimicrobial Substance Research"

The research team from the Department of Biotechnology, College of Fisheries Science, Biomedical Science Laboratory at Pukyong National University (President Bae Sanghoon) won both the Young Scientist Presentation Award and the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the 67th Annual Meeting and International Conference of the Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2025.

At this conference, held on August 21 and 22, 2025, at the Grand Moment in Busan, Putri (Atma Triatma Putri), a government-invited foreign scholarship student (GKS) and master's student in this laboratory, received the Young Scientist Presentation Award for her paper titled "Invertebrate-type Lysozyme from Starfish (Patiria pectinifera): Recombinant Production and Bio-assay."

Master's student Putri (right) and researcher Ana at Pukyong National University. Provided by Pukyong National University

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This presentation was highly evaluated for identifying an invertebrate-type lysozyme (an antimicrobial enzyme) based on transcriptome data from the starfish Patiria pectinifera, producing the lysozyme using recombinant protein technology, and then measuring its activity strength, spectrum, and enzymatic activity against various bacterial strains.

The research found that the lysozyme, when produced as a recombinant protein, exhibited antimicrobial activity against a broad range of bacterial strains. However, its activity was lower compared to C-type lysozyme.

Additionally, Anastasia Kubarova, a senior researcher in the same laboratory, received the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award for her work titled "Purification and Characterization of an Antimicrobial Peptide from the Body Wall of the Starfish, Patiria pectinifera."

She was highly praised for her research, which involved purifying a novel antimicrobial peptide from the body wall and gill tissue extracts of the starfish, an echinoderm, and analyzing its properties. The study revealed that this peptide consists of 18 amino acids and contains six cysteine residues.

Professor Park Namgyu of the Biomedical Science Laboratory stated, "These studies are fundamental research achievements that have discovered new antimicrobial proteins and peptides from starfish and analyzed them at the molecular level. We plan to continue our bio-research to elucidate the activity strength and mechanisms of these newly discovered antimicrobial substances through follow-up studies."

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