[Bio's New Frontier, Anti-Aging] ④ K-BIGHART Dreaming of a Korean Version of IMEC

Interview with Luke Lee, Founding Director of K-BIGHART and Chair Professor at POSTECH

A Chip that Simultaneously Measures 100 Disease Genes

Continuous Disease Monitoring with a Single Drop of Saliva

Strategy for Building a Korean-Sty

① "The Fight Against Aging" Becomes a Global New Industry

② Big Pharma Has Yet to Solve Anti-Aging Drugs—A Window Opens for Korea

③ Samsung Was Ahead of Google in Anti-Aging Research: Why Is It Now 13 Years Behind?

④ K-BIGHART Dreams of a Korean Version of IMEC

The endgame in the competition to develop anti-aging drugs is ultimately "measurement." As anti-aging drugs and biomarker competition emerge as global issues, Korea has begun building a molecular diagnostics chip infrastructure that spans infectious diseases, cancer, and anti-aging. For the first time, the five-year blueprint of the National Biochip Research Institute—which has received an investment of 113 billion won—has been revealed.

At the heart of this national biochip project is POSTECH's Global Healthcare Medical Engineering Research Institute (K-BIGHART). The plan is to establish, within five years, two major infrastructures: a molecular diagnostics platform capable of simultaneously measuring over 100 biomarkers on a single chip, and a dynamic organoid chip that mimics the human bloodstream environment to artificially induce aging and discover new biomarkers. The primary goal is to create a personalized molecular diagnostics biochip that can track the progress of aging in daily life using just a single drop of saliva. This marks Korea’s first national-level investment aimed at making the country a global hub for precision early diagnosis and anti-aging diagnostics.

K-BIGHART is a national research institute building next-generation healthcare platforms across five pillars: ultra-precision diagnostic and ultra-high throughput analysis chips, organoid-based disease model chips, cell and gene therapy chips, molecular diagnostics and therapy chips, and quantum-based ultra-precision biosensing chips—all based on BioMedical Integrated Circuits (BIC) that apply semiconductor processes to biotechnology. While the center develops chips for chronic diseases and infectious diseases, the anti-aging chip is one of the flagship applications of its molecular diagnostics platform.

The project is led by Luke Lee, Distinguished Professor at POSTECH and a world-renowned authority on bionanophotonics and microfluidic chips (microfluidic devices). Professor Lee previously served as a professor at UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich, and Harvard Medical School. He has an impressive track record of founding three companies based on research conducted in the United States, which were later acquired by global big pharma corporations such as Merck, Pfizer, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. He is regarded as one of the researchers with the deepest understanding of the commercialization path for chip-based bioindustries.

As the inaugural director of K-BIGHART, Professor Lee recently told The Asia Business Daily in an interview, "Aging is the greatest medical need faced simultaneously by Korea and the world, and one of K-BIGHART's main objectives is to address this through a chip-based molecular diagnostics infrastructure." He predicted that as the competition to develop anti-aging drugs accelerates, the key to victory will ultimately be the diagnostic infrastructure—specifically, organoid-based disease model chips and ultra-precision diagnostic and ultra-high throughput analysis chips that can quantitatively measure the stages of aging.

The primary goal is an integrated molecular diagnostics chip that can detect over 100 aging-related biomarkers at once—that is, a chip that integrates sample preprocessing, amplification, and detection. Until now, mainstream aging diagnostics have relied on analyzing one marker at a time from blood or urine samples. There is currently no cutting-edge commercial product capable of simultaneously measuring 100 biomarkers on a single chip to precisely diagnose an individual’s biological age, rate of aging, and risk of geriatric diseases in a short time.

Professor Lee explained, "To process dozens of markers simultaneously, the reactors on the chip must be highly integrated, and the entire process from sample preprocessing to detection must be seamless. While individual technologies exist in limited forms, there is still no highly integrated chip-to-world interface that unites them into a single, integrated manufacturing process offering both early diagnosis and personalized anti-aging treatment guidelines."

The critical issue is the chip mass production infrastructure. Integrating 100 biomarkers on a single chip and handling everything from preprocessing a drop of saliva to multiplexed detection within a single device requires microfabrication capabilities at the level of semiconductor manufacturing. Professor Lee compared the work of embedding hundreds of microfluidic reactors onto a single chip to an extension of semiconductor processing itself. This is why, for K-BIGHART's next phase, he is emphasizing the establishment of a "BIC Foundry"—a unified manufacturing hub for the world's first mass production of BioMedical IC (BIC) chips.

The initiative takes inspiration from the Belgian nonprofit semiconductor research institute IMEC, but the strategy is to establish, for the first time globally, a BIC foundry in Korea dedicated to top-tier BIC chip development and production. IMEC covers 75% of its operating costs through contract manufacturing for global semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics and TSMC. Japan and Switzerland are also pursuing similar models. In Japan, electronics giants have formed a consortium to make joint investments with the government in stem cell reprogramming infrastructure, while in Switzerland, Roche and the Dutch government are concentrating resources on individual researchers—such as Dr. Hans Clevers, a world authority in stem cell biology and organoid research.

Director Lee recalled his visit to IMEC this January, saying, "What impressed me the most was that they develop brain chips, diagnostic chips, and organoid chips with a workforce of 6,600 people, including many PhD-level researchers. To generate high-quality research outcomes, abundant human resources and capital are essential," he emphasized.

He added, "The essence of anti-aging is to age gracefully and healthily. The goal of the diagnostic infrastructure K-BIGHART is building is to enable people to detect in advance when dementia might begin or which organs may age first, so they can improve their lifestyle beforehand and avoid becoming a burden to their families."