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Uncovering the Key to Driving Employee Support During Organizational Changes
When organizations undergo major shifts, such as restructuring or adopting new working systems, employees often face uncertainty about how to understand and respond to those changes. Researchers at SKKU have identified that a team leader’s authentic dedication to change inspires employees to embrace it as well, especially when the leader demonstrates strong moral values and ethical conduct. In today’s fast-moving world, schools, companies, and organizations constantly undergo transformations to grow and stay competitive. However, major changes can often make people feel anxious, overloaded, or confused about their roles. When faced with such uncertainty, team members look carefully at their direct supervisors to decide whether the new plan is genuinely good or merely an added burden. A SKKU research team led by Dr. Hyunjoo Lee and Prof. Jiseon Shin surveyed 42 team leaders and 282 employees across two different time points during a company-wide restructuring. By observing real-world interactions over three months, the study examined how leaders’ mindsets spread to their team members and translate into concrete actions. The findings showed a powerful chain reaction: when team leaders believe that a new initiative is necessary and worthwhile, team members naturally adopt the same positive attitude. This shared commitment leads employees to go the extra mile by actively helping others adapt and championing the new goals. At the same time, it significantly reduces counterproductive behavior, such as taking excessively long breaks, ignoring duties, or resisting workplace guidelines. Most importantly, the research team discovered that ethical leadership acts as an essential amplifier. Ethical leaders are fair, honest, and care about doing things the right way rather than just chasing quick results. When leaders demonstrate integrity, employees view their messages as authentic and trustworthy. Under high ethical leadership, the positive influence of a leader's commitment on employee cooperation becomes remarkably strong. Conversely, when ethical standards are low, employees doubt their leaders' motives—weakening cooperation and causing support for change to fall off. “Organizational change cannot be achieved simply through top-down directives. What matters is how strongly leaders themselves are committed to change and how that commitment carries over to employees,” said Prof. Jiseon Shin. “In particular, ethical leadership serves as a vital anchor, making leaders’ commitment far more credible and persuasive to employees. These findings offer practical insights for organizations navigating major transitions.” ▲The Impact of Leaders' Commitment to Change on Employee Behavior: The Moderated Mediation Role of Ethical Leadership SKKU Research Story Linking leaders' commitment to change to employees' attitudes and behaviors during organizational change: The role of ethical leadership Journal of Business Research (DOI) JS Jiseon Shin Contact: jishin@skku.edu
- No. 399
- 2026-10-06
- 498
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Professor Inyoung Chae demonstrates the Powerful Engagement and Customer-Driving Effects of ‘Micro Ads’
A research team led by Professor Inyoung Chae of SKK Business School, together with Professor Beth L. Fossen of Indiana University and Professor Philip Kim of Texas Christian University in the United States, has demonstrated that ultra-short “micro ads” lasting 10 seconds or less are significantly more effective than longer, more elaborate advertisements at driving immediate online visits and consumer engagement. The researchers evaluated the effectiveness of micro ads using a multimethod approach that included TV advertising data and a field experiment involving social media advertisements for a nonprofit organization. The results showed that micro ads of 10 seconds or less aired on television increased website visits within five minutes of airing by 10% to 40% compared with longer advertisements and outperformed even 30-second ads by 13% to 28%. In social media environments, shorter micro ads also generated more clicks and greater community engagement, including likes and shares, even when they conveyed the same information as longer ads. The researchers identified “impatience,” a characteristic of modern media users who prefer to reach conclusions quickly, as a key factor behind this phenomenon. When viewers in the experiment were first nudged to think about the future, a prompt that encourages patience, the advantage of micro ads disappeared. While consumers may easily become bored or lose concentration when watching longer advertisements, short ads that communicate their key message quickly reduce the burden on viewers and are more likely to prompt immediate actions such as online searches or website visits. In particular, micro ads that revealed the brand name early rather than withholding it, and that used language building anticipation, were especially effective at driving website traffic. The findings offer a highly economical and practical marketing strategy for companies facing rising advertising production and placement costs amid changes in the media environment. In addition to being less expensive to produce, micro ads can substantially reduce TV advertising costs, allowing companies to attract considerably more consumers with the same advertising budget. The study, published in the Journal of Marketing, one of the leading academic journals in the field of marketing, is expected to serve as an important academic and practical milestone for contemporary marketing strategies increasingly centered on short-form content. SKKU Research Story SKKU RESEARCH STORY The Impact of Ad Length on Ad Effectiveness: Do Micro Ads Work? Journal of Marketing (DOI) IC Inyoung Chae Contact: inyoung.chae@skku.edu
- No. 398
- 2026-10-01
- 1152
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4D fMRI CrossFormer: Toward Explainable and Trustworthy AI for Brain Disorder Diagnosis
A research team at InfoLab led by Prof. Tamer Abuhmed, has developed a new vision transformer architecture called the 4D fMRI CrossFormer (4DfCF) to analyze four-dimensional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. The research aims not only to improve AI-assisted diagnosis of brain disorders, but also to move toward a more transparent and trustworthy computer-aided diagnosis system, where clinicians can examine the evidence behind an AI prediction rather than relying only on a final result. Unlike a single brain image, fMRI records a sequence of three-dimensional images, allowing researchers to observe how brain activity changes over time. This provides valuable information about brain function but also makes the data difficult to analyze because both where activity occurs and how it changes over time must be considered. 4DfCF was designed to analyze these spatial and temporal patterns together. It examines brain activity at different scales and learns both nearby and long-distance relationships between brain regions, helping the model capture complex patterns across the whole brain. A key goal of medical AI is to help clinicians understand why a model has reached a particular decision. The researchers therefore applied an explainable AI technique to 4DfCF predictions. The resulting visual maps showed which brain regions contributed most strongly to the model's predictions. This means that instead of simply producing a label such as 'disease' or 'no disease,' the system can also provide visual information about which parts of the brain influenced the prediction. Such explanations do not replace a physician's judgment, but they can provide additional evidence for clinicians and researchers to review when evaluating an AI-assisted decision. The researchers assessed 4DfCF using benchmark fMRI datasets containing scans from individuals with different neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, including ADHD, Alzheimer's disease, and autism spectrum disorder. The model outperformed the comparison models evaluated in the study across the three datasets, achieving an F1-score of 96.28% on the ADNI Alzheimer's disease dataset. The study also showed that a model first trained on one fMRI dataset could learn another dataset faster and achieve improved performance. This suggests the possibility of developing reusable pretrained AI models that could eventually be adapted to different brain disorders and neuroimaging tasks. 4DfCF is also relatively lightweight. The main model contains approximately 10.34 million parameters, while the smaller 4DfCF-T version contains about 4.18 million, requiring considerably fewer computational resources than several large comparison models. This efficiency is important for processing large neuroimaging datasets and could make future deployment on hospital servers and research computing systems more practical. The significance of 4DfCF therefore goes beyond diagnostic accuracy. The research brings together several important requirements for future medical AI: performance, efficiency, scalability, and explainability. By analyzing complex brain activity while also allowing researchers to visualize the regions that influenced its predictions, 4DfCF represents an effort toward medical AI systems that are not only accurate, but also more transparent and easier for human experts to evaluate. The current results are based on benchmark research datasets rather than clinical deployment, so further validation across hospitals and patient populations will be necessary. Nevertheless, the work provides a foundation for developing trustworthy AI-assisted computer-aided diagnosis systems that support, rather than replace, medical professionals. ▲4DfCF and its explainable-AI analysis. Left: 4DfCF analyzes fMRI by learning brain-activity patterns across space and time. Right: explainability maps visualize brain regions that contributed to predictions for ADHD, Alzheimer's disease (ADNI), and autism spectrum disorder (ABIDE), providing interpretable information alongside the model's predictions. Recombined from Figs. 1 and 6 of the paper. SKKU RESEARCH STORY 4DfCF: 4D fMRI CrossFormer Vision Transformer IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (DOI) AT Abuhmed Tamer Contact: tamer@skku.edu
- No. 397
- 2026-09-22
- 2119
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Developing New Asymmetric Catalytic Reactions for the Synthesis of Complex Molecules
Professor Do Hyun Ryu’s research team in the Department of Chemistry has developed two new asymmetric catalytic methods for the precise synthesis of complex molecules using chiral organic catalysts. The team demonstrated that a single catalyst can promote two different carbon–carbon bond-forming reactions with high selectivity. They also developed a method to selectively construct complex ring structures with multiple stereocenters from simple starting materials. Both studies were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a leading international journal in chemistry. The selective synthesis of molecules with the desired structure is important for producing complex molecules such as pharmaceuticals and natural products. In particular, precisely controlling where a reaction occurs and how atoms are arranged in three-dimensional space is essential because these structural features can determine the properties and functions of a molecule. However, controlling multiple reaction sites and stereocenters at the same time remains a major challenge in organic synthesis. In the first study, conducted in collaboration with Professor Hyunwoo Kim’s research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the researchers developed a unified catalytic platform that uses a chiral organic catalyst to achieve two different asymmetric carbon–carbon bond-forming reactions with high selectivity. The team successfully achieved a highly selective asymmetric allylation reaction that had previously been difficult to control and applied the same catalyst to another carbon–carbon bond-forming reaction, the aldol reaction. A key feature of this study is that one catalyst can precisely control two different reactions. The catalyst selectively activates the desired reaction site while also controlling the three-dimensional structure of the resulting molecules, allowing various chiral compounds to be synthesized with high selectivity. The products could be further converted into a range of useful molecules and were successfully applied to the synthesis of biologically active natural products, including (+)-dimethyl citramalate. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations also revealed how the catalyst controls both the reaction site and the three-dimensional structure of the products. In the second study, the research team developed a new catalytic reaction for the highly stereoselective synthesis of tetrahydrofuran ring structures from simple starting materials. Tetrahydrofuran is a five-membered ring containing one oxygen atom and is an important structural framework found in many biologically active natural products and pharmaceuticals. Previously, the synthesis of such complex three-dimensional structures often required starting materials that already contained a specific stereochemical structure. The research team overcame this limitation by using a chiral organic catalyst to construct multiple stereocenters from simple starting materials without pre-existing stereocenters. The resulting compounds could be further transformed into more complex structures. The method was also applied to the preparation of a synthetic intermediate for (+)-altholactone, a natural product with anticancer activity, demonstrating its potential for the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceutical candidates. Although the two studies focus on different chemical reactions, both share the goal of precisely controlling reaction sites and three-dimensional molecular structures using chiral catalysts. Together, the studies expand the potential of efficient asymmetric synthesis. Professor Ryu said, “These studies demonstrate new possibilities for building complex molecular structures more precisely and efficiently. We expect these approaches to be extended to a wider range of asymmetric reactions and provide useful strategies for the efficient synthesis of valuable compounds, including pharmaceuticals and natural products.” In the first study, Professor Do Hyun Ryu of SKKU and Professor Hyunwoo Kim of KAIST served as co-corresponding authors. Terim Seo, Rameshwar Prasad Pandit, and Dong Gyu Kim of SKKU and Donghun Kim of KAIST contributed as co-first authors. In the second study, Professor Do Hyun Ryu served as the corresponding author, with Hosung Lee and Dong Kyu Kim of SKKU as co-first authors. This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT), by a Korea Basic Science Institute (National Research Facilities and Equipment Center) grant funded by the Ministry of Education. ▲ Asymmetric Allylation and Aldol Reactions Enabled by a Unified Organocatalytic Platform ▲ Chiral Lewis Acid-Catalyzed Synthesis of Key Pharmaceutical Structures SKKU Research Story SKKU RESEARCH STORY A Unified Strategy for Catalytic Asymmetric Allylation and Mukaiyama Aldol Reactions of 1,2-Dicarbonyl Compounds Angewandte Chemie International Edition (DOI) Highly Enantio- and Diastereoselective Synthesis of Tetrahydrofuran Frameworks via Chiral Lewis Acid–Catalyzed Formal [3+2] Cycloaddition of Allylsilanes Angewandte Chemie International Edition (DOI) DR Dohyun Ryu Contact: dhryu@skku.edu
- No. 396
- 2026-09-16
- 2344
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Department of Biomedical Engineering Professor Mikyung Shin Named 2026 Asian Young Scientist Fellow
Professor Mikyung Shin of the Department of Biomedical Engineering has been named one of twelve recipients of the 2026 Asian Young Scientist Fellowship (AYSF), the fellowship announced on September 4, 2026. Professor Shin was selected in the Physical Sciences category as an interdisciplinary researcher working across physical and life sciences. The Asian Young Scientist Fellowship is a privately funded program that supports early-career researchers across Asia in pursuing creative, transformative science. Candidates must be within ten years of completing their doctoral degree and hold a full-time academic position in the region. Each fellow receives $100,000 over two years, along with access to the AYSF's academic network and annual conference, to be held this year on November 9, 2026, at the University of Hong Kong. The AYSF Committee recognized Professor Shin for her contributions to the development of adhesive and electroconductive hydrogels for muscle tissue repair and selected her to support her next research direction: the exploration of adhesive and conductive hydrogel fillers designed to have dual functions with inhibition of brain tumor recurrence and enhanced neuronal regeneration. Professor Shin's research addresses a long-standing challenge in bioelectronics and tissue engineering — conventional implantable materials, such as stiff elastomers and rigid metal electrodes, are often far stiffer than the soft, dynamic tissues they are meant to interface with. Her lab has instead developed a series of tissue-adhesive, electrically conductive hydrogels designed to closely match the mechanical properties of biological tissue while enabling both electrical stimulation and signal recording for tissue repair. Among her group's key achievements is a multilayered adhesive bioelectronic patch that adheres to beating cardiac tissue in under half a second without any external stimulus, reported in *Nature Electronics* (2023). Built from a fibrous self-healing polymer network, a stretchable liquid-metal conductive composite, and a mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogel layer, the patch conformally follows the heart's motion and has enabled stable, long-term electrocardiogram monitoring and precise cardiac mapping in freely moving animal models. Her group also developed an injectable, gold-catalyzed hyaluronic acid hydrogel capable of forming an electrically conductive, tissue-adhesive gel in situ, reported in *Nature* (2023). Because the hydrogel can be delivered through a syringe directly into damaged muscle or nerve tissue, it allows immediate electrical bridging across an injury site — enabling closed-loop, robot-assisted rehabilitation in which real-time muscle signals trigger coordinated robotic support, and supporting accelerated tissue regeneration over the longer term. Building on this body of work, Professor Shin's future research — the focus of her AYSF-supported project — will extend the group's expertise in adhesive, conductive hydrogels to the central nervous system. The goal is to engineer an injectable hydrogel filler that can be applied directly into the cavity left after surgical resection of a brain tumor. Unlike the peripheral nervous system, the adult brain has very limited capacity for spontaneous regeneration, and current treatments largely fail to address the loss of neural tissue itself. ▲ Figure 1. Representative previous research outcomes by Professor Mikyung Shin regarding conductive and adhesive hydrogel interfaces and electrodes SKKU RESEARCH STORY Adhesive bioelectronics for sutureless epicardial interfacing Access Publication (DOI) MS Mikyung Shin Contact: mikyungshin@skku.edu
- No. 395
- 2026-09-04
- 3011
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Engineering Spleen-Targeting Bacterial Nanoplatform to Reprogram Immune Cells and Prevent Cancer Recurrence
A research team led by Professor Yong Taik Lim at the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University (first author: Ph.D. candidate Jin-Ho Choi), announced the development of an engineered nanoplatform named t-SMC (trained immunity-mediated splenic myelopoiesis converter), which precisely targets the spleen to reverse splenic myelopoiesis toward an antitumoral immune phenotype. In general, tumor progression severely disrupts systemic immunity. In particular, cancer cells stimulate the spleen—a critical command center that generates and regulates blood immune cells—corrupting myeloid lineage cells that should otherwise fight tumors into "protumoral immune cells" that foster tumor growth. As a result, even when primary tumors are surgically excised, this compromised immune environment frequently leads to tumor recurrence and metastasis. To overcome these limitations, the research team engineered a bio-hybrid microbial platform (t-SMC). They employed a "peeling-off and masking-up" strategy by precisely modifying the surface of a trained immunity-inducing Mycobacterium and coating it with human serum albumin to ensure safe, stable intravenous delivery to the spleen. Furthermore, an enzyme-activatable immune booster (TLR7/8 agonist) was integrated into the platform, designed to be selectively delivered to and reprogram immune cells within the spleen. Once delivered, the platform induces potent "trained immunity" by reprogramming the epigenetic landscape of macrophages and extramedullary hematopoietic stem cells in the spleen. In essence, it retrains suppressed and corrupted immune cells into "antitumor immune warriors" capable of launching robust attacks against cancer. Crucially, trained immunity operates through innate immune mechanisms, offering broad-spectrum protection that does not rely on specific tumor antigens. These newly trained splenic myeloid cells then travel through the bloodstream to the tumor site, transforming the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment into a pro-inflammatory, antitumoral battleground. In a surgical recurrence model of colon cancer, preoperative administration of t-SMC combined with standard postoperative adjuvant therapy (anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade and oxaliplatin chemotherapy) achieved complete inhibition of tumor recurrence in 50% of the treated mice and resulted in a 62.5% long-term survival rate. This demonstrates that the platform effectively turns immunologically unresponsive "cold tumors" into therapy-responsive "hot tumors," overcoming resistance to conventional checkpoint blockades. Professor Yong Taik Lim's team stated, "This study demonstrates that a bacteria-based nanoplatform can normalize the function of the spleen—a central hub of immune regulation—and effectively block postsurgical tumor recurrence. We are currently developing subsequent cancer immunotherapies based on this same nano-immunoengineering concept. We anticipate that these technologies will evolve into preoperative neoadjuvant immunotherapies, substantially improving survival outcomes and response rates in patients with refractory cancers." This study was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Republic of Korea. The findings have been published online in the latest issue of Advanced Materials, a world-renowned journal in materials science and nanobiotechnology. ▲ An engineered Trojan Mycobacterium, developed via a “peeling-off and masking-up” strategy, functions as a powerful splenic myelopoiesis converter. This spleen-targeted nanomedicine induces trained immunity to reprogram immunosuppressive myeloid reservoirs into antitumoral effectors. SKKU RESEARCH STORY Anisotropic Masked Mycobacterium Potentiates Amplified Antitumor Trained Immunity via Spleen Targeting and Myelopoiesis Conversion Access Publication (DOI) LT Lim Yong Taik Contact: yongtaik@skku.edu
- No. 394
- 2026-09-03
- 2722
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Development of an LLM-Based Platform for Generating New Materials Synthesis Recipes
A research team led by Professor Sung Beom Cho of the School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with the teams of Professors Jin Sung Park and Hyunsouk Cho of Ajou University and Professor Ju Li of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has developed a "closed-loop materials synthesis planning platform" that uses a large language model (LLM) to propose synthesis conditions and procedures for complex new materials and iteratively refine them based on experimental results. The scientific community has recently been using various computational methods to rapidly identify promising new material candidates. However, actually synthesizing these materials requires extensive trial and error to determine specific conditions, such as which precursors to use and at what temperature and for how long the reaction should run. To reduce this trial and error, the research team devised a workflow in which the LLM searches existing literature for similar synthesis cases and proposes recipes suited to the new material. The team first built a database by extracting key synthesis information — target materials, precursors, synthesis conditions sush as temperature, rpm, pressure, and time — from 4,407 open-access solid-state synthesis papers published in academic journals. The team then applied retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) method, which searches for similar existing synthesis cases based on a researcher's desired material and conditions and proposes candidate recipes accordingly. When the proposed recipes were compared against conditions reported in actual papers, they scored an average of around 4 out of 5 on key synthesis variables. The team went on to use this AI platform to conduct synthesis experiments for an oxy-selenide-based solid electrolyte material for all-solid-state batteries, including previously unreported candidates. Under the 600°C condition initially proposed by the AI model, several impurity phases formed instead of the target material; but when the team fed these results back into the model, it proposed a follow-up recipe that progressively lowered the synthesis temperature. Based on this, the team sequentially tested conditions at 450°C and 400°C, and within just a few experiments succeeded in synthesizing a single-phase new material with no detectable impurities. This research demonstrates the potential to reduce trial and error and shorten development timelines in materials design by combining human scientists' experimental experience with AI's ability to draw on a vast body of literature. Just as middle and high school students refer to existing recipes online and adjust ingredients and conditions based on their cooking results to develop recipes of their own, future scientists are expected to use AI to quickly incorporate experimental results, reduce unnecessary trial and error, and efficiently develop synthesis methods for a wide range of new materials. The findings were published in Advanced Materials, a leading international journal in materials science, and an image visualizing the research was selected as the back cover of the issue. ▲The closed-loop process by which synthesis recipes proposed by the LLM are iteratively refined based on experimental results, and the synthesis results for the new oxy-selenide-based material SKKU RESEARCH STORY Closed Loop Solid State Synthesis Planning for Materials Discovery with Large Language Models Advanced Materials (DOI) SC Sung Beom Cho Contact: sungcho@skku.edu
- No. 393
- 2026-08-26
- 2685
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World’s First Oral Microbiome-Based Nanomedicine to Supercharge Anti-Cancer Immunity
A joint research team—led by Professor Young Seok Cho from the School of Medicine, alongside Professor James J. Moon from the University of Michigan—has successfully developed the world’s first oral, microbiome-based nanomedicine. By leveraging natural metabolites produced by gut bacteria, the new drug significantly enhances the ability of immune cells to attack cancer cells. This breakthrough study was published in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology, one of the world's premier journals in nanoscience and medicine. In recent years, "immunotherapy" (such as anti-PD-1 drugs) has emerged as a revolutionary treatment option that reawakens the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. However, its effectiveness has been limited because only a small fraction of patients respond positively. To overcome this challenge, the research team focused on the connection between gut microbiome and immunity. They discovered that a microbial metabolite called 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) acts as a powerful immune booster, safely driving the body’s defenses against tumors. The study revealed that DHB strongly promotes "stemness" in CD8+ T cells—the primary immune cells responsible for destroying cancer. Normally, T cells become exhausted and lose their fighting power due to overactive sugar breakdown processes (glycolysis). DHB blocks this metabolic exhaustion and turns on a survival switch, enabling T cells to stay active and attack cancer cells over longer periods. Despite its promise, natural DHB presented a major obstacle: once ingested, it rapidly breaks down and disappears from the body within minutes. To solve this, the team applied advanced nanotechnology. They chemically modified DHB into a stable prodrug and further encapsulated it into an oleic acid-based oral nano-emulsion (named Prodrug 201). This oral nanomedicine drastically extends the time the drug stays in the bloodstream, boosting its overall absorption rate (bioavailability) by 14.3 times. In animal models with colorectal cancer, melanoma, and breast cancer, the oral nanomedicine effectively directed refreshed, stem-like T cells right into the tumor sites, leading to dramatic tumor shrinkage. When combined with immune checkpoint blockade therapy, it completely eradicated tumors in test models and created long-term immune memory to prevent cancer recurrence. "This study unveils the molecular secret of how gut microbial metabolite regulate our immune system and successfully translates that knowledge into a convenient, oral medication through nanotechnology," said Professor Young Seok Cho, who led the research. "By converting previously untapped microbial resources into a safe and scalable nanomedicine, this work builds a critical foundation for commercializing next-generation microbiome-based cancer immunotherapies." ▲ The gut microbial metabolite DHB promotes the formation of antigen-specific, stem-like CD8+ T cells by suppressing glycolysis and modulating the Akt-mTORC1-Myc pathway. Oral nano-emulsion formulation of DHB significantly improves its bioavailability, demonstrating potent anti-tumor efficacy when combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors. SKKU RESEARCH STORY Oral Nano-Delivery of a Gut Microbial Metabolite Enhances T Cell Stemness for Cancer Immunotherapy Nature Nanotechnology (DOI) YC Youngseok Cho PURE Profile → e: 0.75rem; color: #666; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.01em;">PURE 프로필 →
- No. 392
- 2026-08-12
- 3414
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Discovery of Promising Evidence"Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy" May Reduce Internet Gaming Disorder in College
A research team led by Professor Anderson Sungmin Yoon and Minah Kim has developed a "Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Gaming (MBCT-G)" program to address internet gaming disorder among college students, and has found promising evidence of its therapeutic effectiveness. The research was conducted under the close supervision of the world-leading scholar, Willem Kuyken, director of Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and has drawn significant attention from academic circles worldwide for presenting a new therapeutic alternative-using psychological intervention to ease internet gaming disorder, a growing public health issue among young adults. Internet gaming disorder refers to a state of excessive immersion in gaming severe enough to seriously disrupt daily life. This is particularly common among college students, who often turn to gaming to relieve academic or career-related stress as they begin living independently, away from parental supervision. To address this problem, Professor Yoon’s research team newly adapted and modified "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy"—previously used to treat depression—to fit the specific characteristics of gaming disorder. The program combines mindfulness meditation training — which helps students observe their thoughts, emotions, and impulses objectively when a strong urge to game arises — with cognitive therapy that helps them decenter from these urges and respond more skillfully. The research team conducted an experiment involving 46 college students at high risk of internet gaming disorder. Over the course of an eight weeks’s intervention, participating students practiced mindfulness meditation, social skills, and self-care strantegies each week, while also planning and carrying out alternative pleasurable activities—such as physical activities, social/recreational activities, and creative hobbies—that allowed them to find enjoyment in daily life beyond gaming. As a result, students who completed the program showed a meaningful reduction in gaming addiction symptoms, along with decreases in stress and anxiety. Above all, the most significant outcome was a marked improvement in students' "self-control"—their ability to overcome the urge to game on their own. This effect remained even one month after the program ended, demonstrating a sustained effect. Professor Yoon of SKKU explained the significance of the research, stating, " This study offers promising evidence for a psychological intervention that could help college students and adolescents break the vicious cycle of impulsively immersing themselves in gaming during particularly challenging periods in their development.." He added, "If widely adopted by college counseling centers and gaming addiction prevention centers, MBCT-G could help address IGD-related problems more efficiently, as its group-format delivery requires fewer clinical resources.." Meanwhile, this research was supported by research funding from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency for the development of game-based digital therapeutics technology. SKKU RESEARCH STORY A Pilot Study of a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Internet Gaming Disorder Among College-Aged Students in South Korea Mindfulness (DOI) A Anderson Sungmin Yoon Profile →
- No. 391
- 2026-08-07
- 3353
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Filling Polymers with Charge, Reconnecting Broken Pathways
A research team led by Professor Kang Bosoek of the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology(SAINT), Department of Nano Engineering, and Department of Semiconductor Convergence Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University has developed two new molecular design technologies to enhance the electrical conductivity of organic electronic materials. One technology generates a greater number of charge carriers within a polymer, while the other connects transport pathways so that charge can move without interruption. The findings were published respectively in the international journals Journal of the American Chemical Society and Nature Communications. The paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society was also selected as a Cover Article. Organic semiconductors are lightweight and flexible materials expected to be used in next-generation displays, wearable electronics, and sensors. However, for practical use in electronic devices, their electrical conductivity must be improved—which requires generating a sufficient amount of charge and ensuring that the charge, once generated, can move rapidly through the material. Through two separate studies, the research team addressed these two challenges in a complementary way. The first study developed a molecular-level design technology that generates a greater number of charge carriers within a polymer. The team covalently attached the polar molecule aminoalkylsilane to the n-type conducting polymer PBFDO, substantially increasing electron concentration. As the bonded polar molecules aligned in a consistent direction, they naturally induced electron generation without relying heavily on external dopants. As a result, the electrical conductivity of the thin film improved to over 3,000 S cm−1, achieving a high doping efficiency of up to approximately 1.79 free electrons per polymer repeat unit. This is the first study to raise the doping limit to a near-theoretical level, demonstrating potential applications across a range of organic electronic devices, including polymer electrodes and light-emitting devices. The second study proposed a new strategy for designing the charge transport pathway itself. By thinly coating a conducting polymer onto a thin film of a two-dimensional covalent organic framework (2D COF), the team implemented a "molecular bridge" structure that connects charge transport pathways broken by the polycrystalline structure. This structure allows the conducting polymer to serve as a bridge linking separated COF crystals, enabling charge to move more smoothly. The optimized COF–conducting polymer heterostructure thin film showed an electrical conductivity improvement of 109 times compared to a single COF thin film, and approximately 10 times compared to a single conducting polymer thin film. The team also succeeded in fabricating a uniform, large-area thin film at the scale of a 2-inch wafer, and when applied to a nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas sensor, the film detected concentrations as low as 74 ppb with a rapid response time of approximately 20 seconds. Professor Kang Bosoek said, "This research addressed, at the molecular level, the two key factors that determine the performance of organic electronic materials—charge generation and charge transport," adding, "We plan to expand this research toward high-performance electronic devices by developing heterojunction structures with a variety of semiconductor materials." The research team recently published a study in Nature Communications proposing a plateau transistor that maintains a constant current by leveraging the localization of polarons, the charge carriers in organic electronic materials. Building on this, the team is expanding its research scope beyond charge generation and transport to explore the use of charge states as a new information-processing function. skku research story SKKU RESEARCH STORY Near-Theoretical-Limit Doping of Poly(benzodifurandione) through Carbonyl-Driven Aminoalkylsilane Attachment Journal of the American Chemical Society (DOI) Molecular bridge engineering in covalent organic frameworks for enhanced electronic transport Nature Communications (DOI) Small polaron-mediated zero differential transconductance of 2D semiconductor/CoFe2O4 heterojunctions for plateau transistor applications Nature Communications (DOI) BK Boseok Kang PURE Profile →
- No. 390
- 2026-08-04
- 2834
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Professor Il Jeon's Team Develops Surface Acoustic Wave-Based Reconfigurable AI Semiconductor Device
A research team led by Professor Il Jeon of the Department of Nano Engineering and the Sungkyunkwan Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT) at Sungkyunkwan University, including Dr. Sihyeok Kim and Dr. Jang Woo Lee, has developed a next-generation artificial intelligence semiconductor device capable of independently implementing long-term and short-term memory within a single device using surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The research team proposed a new concept of a reconfigurable artificial synapse that overcomes the limitations of conventional memristors by selectively controlling long-term and short-term memory through electrical signals and surface acoustic waves, respectively. The developed technology is expected to contribute to the realization of ultra-low-power neuromorphic computing and next-generation AI semiconductor devices. As the performance of artificial intelligence continues to improve, the amount of power required for data processing is also increasing rapidly. Neuromorphic computing, which performs memory and computation simultaneously in a manner similar to the human brain, has therefore attracted considerable attention as a next-generation computing technology. Artificial synapses capable of implementing both long-term and short-term memory are essential for neuromorphic computing. However, conventional memristors generally rely only on electrical stimulation to control memory behavior. Repeated electrical stimulation can cause device degradation and reduced reliability, while also making it difficult to independently control long-term and short-term memory. To address these limitations, the research team employed surface acoustic waves, which are mechanical waves that propagate along the surface of a solid, as a new control signal. By integrating a monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) memristor and a SAW device onto a single platform, the researchers designed the system so that electrical signals were responsible for forming long-term memory, while SAWs were used to control short-term memory through a non-contact mechanism. This configuration enabled the team to realize a reconfigurable artificial synapse in which previously stored long-term memory remained intact, while short-term memory could be selectively generated and erased. The researchers reproduced biological short-term synaptic plasticity by adjusting the intensity, pulse width, and interval of the SAWs. They also confirmed that short-term memory could be repeatedly controlled without damaging electrically stored long-term memory. In addition, the device maintained stable operation without performance degradation even after more than 10,000 seconds of repeated operation. When the device was applied to reservoir computing, it achieved a recognition accuracy of 96.1% in a character classification task, demonstrating its potential as practical neuromorphic AI hardware. The researchers stated, “Conventional memristors rely on repeated electrical stimulation to implement both long-term and short-term memory, which limits device reliability and reconfigurability. This study is significant because it presents a new neuromorphic device platform in which electrically stored long-term memory can be preserved while only short-term memory is selectively controlled in a non-contact manner using surface acoustic waves.” They added, “In the future, we plan to combine large-area integration technologies with surface acoustic wave control over a wide range of frequencies to develop more energy-efficient next-generation AI semiconductors and neuromorphic computing systems.” SAW-Based Reconfigurable 2D TMD Memristor SKKU RESEARCH STORY Surface Acoustic Wave-Guided Reconfigurable Memristor Access Publication (DOI) JI JEON IL Profile →
- No. 389
- 2026-07-28
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Development of a New Indicator to Speed Up Metallic Glass Discovery
A research team led by Dongwoo Lee, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), working with a team led by Yanhui Liu at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has developed a new electrical resistivity-based indicator for rapidly screening alloy compositions with high glass-forming ability. The findings were published in Advanced Materials. Metallic glasses are alloys with a unique structure in which atoms are arranged irregularly, as in glass, rather than in the ordered arrangement found in conventional crystalline metals. Many metallic glasses exhibit high strength and wear resistance and can be precisely formed into complex shapes, making them promising materials for robotic components, aerospace systems, and next-generation medical devices. However, glass-forming ability (GFA), which describes how readily an alloy forms a glass rather than a crystal, is difficult to predict. Researchers have traditionally had to fabricate numerous compositions and evaluate them individually using X-ray diffraction or thermal analysis. This process requires considerable time and expense, making the discovery of new metallic glass compositions challenging. The research team focused on electrical resistivity, which changes as the atomic arrangement an alloy evolves. The team fabricated thin-film libraries with continuous composition gradients and conducted controlled annealing experiments on approximately 3,500 alloy compositions. Alloys with high GFA showed relatively small decreases in electrical resistivity after annealing, reflecting their greater resistance to the development of long-range crystalline order. In contrast, alloys with low GFA crystallized more extensively and exhibited much larger resistivity drops. Measuring the electrical resistivity of a single composition takes only a few seconds, making the approach hundreds of times faster than conventional diffraction or calorimetry-based characterization. The method can rapidly map GFA trends across broad composition spaces without complex fabrication or and characterization procedures. The researchers also confirmed the same composition-dependent trends in melt-spun ribbon samples produced through a markedly different cooling and solidification process, further demonstrating the reliability of the approach. “The electrical resistivity change measured in this study provides a fast and intuitive readout of atomic disorder and crystallization resistance,” Lee said. “It is like having a map for navigating an enormously complex multicomponent alloy space containing hundreds of millions of possible combinations. We expect this approach to substantially accelerate the discovery of next-generation bulk metallic glasses and the development of related advanced materials.” This research was supported by the BK21 Four Project's graduate student overseas training program, the Technology Innovation Development Program of the Korea Technology and Information Promotion Agency for SMEs (TIPA) under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Schematic illustration of a metallic-glass discovery platform that fabricates hundreds of alloy compositions in a single run and rapidly evaluates their glass-forming ability based on changes in electrical resistivity upon crystallization. SKKU RESEARCH STORY Electrical Resistivity Change upon Crystallization as a Robust Descriptor for Metallic Glass Forming Ability Access Publication (DOI) DL Dong Woo Lee PURE Profile →
- No. 388
- 2026-07-28
- 3236