Medical Research Center(MRC) Awarded to YU, a Front-Leading Research Center Support Project sponsored by Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and National Research Foundation of Korea
Smart-aging Convergence Research Center Sets Up
To Cure Aging Disease, Create Anti-aging Health Business, Enhance Quality of Life
[2015-6-10]
Let’s Age Young and Smartly till Nighty Nine
Yeungnam University(‘YU’) became to lead the Smart Aging National Project sponsored by big fund of the Government.
The Front-leading Research Center Support Project in basic medical area, the Medical Research Center(MRC) was awarded to YU. It is a sponsored by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The Front-leading Research Center Support Project was firstly kicked off in 1990 in order to explore and cultivate an excellent research organization possessed with world-level creativity and capability and hence solve scientific difficulties and social issues. It is divided into three research areas such as medicine(MRC), science(SRC) and engineering(ERC).
YU plans to set up the Smart-Aging Convergence Research Center (directed by MD. Kim Jae-Ryong) and continue to carry out the project till Feb. of 2022. Industry-University-Government will invest a total of over $11 million of funds in this Project which are consist of $6.7 million from government budget, $2.8million from university, $0.7million from Daegu Metropolitan City, $0.7million from Gyongsangbukdo Province and $0.2million-equivalent investment in kind from participating companies. The Laboratory Animal Center situated at Daegu Gyeongbuk Medical Cluster Valley, Dong-A ST as a pharmaceutical company and A&RT as a drugs R&D company will join this Project.
Under the slogan of “Let’s Age Young and Smartly till Nighty Nine”, the Smart Aging Center aims to concentrate its research capability on new diagnostic and curing methods of aging diseases using the control of blood-vessel aging.
The aging population is now a world issue as mentioned by the world prospect which foresees aging population older than 65 will over 40% by 2060. According to BCC Research, a world-level technical market search company, anti-aging industry market in the world will grow up to $420 billion dollars by 2030. The domestic anti-aging market is forecast to reach around $28 billion dollars by 2020 (SERI, 2013). YU became to lead the Smart Ageing Project at this point of time and, therefore, is expected to create a significant added value in terms of national economic aspect.
YU has operated from 2005 to Feb of last year the Research Center of Senile Blood Vessel Disease (Director M.D. Kim Jae-Ryong) sponsored by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Such previous performance was recognized and an opportunity to lead this large scale national project was again awarded to YU. Particularly, YU has possessed lots of human resources as the faculty and researchers who are excellent in medical/pharmaceutical/clinical areas related with aging and aging-disease fields. The specific research results of aging mechanism and its control have been continuously published in the SCI-level journals to strengthen an international reputation and positioning.
“We will hopefully put anti-aging drugs and new antibody medicines to practical use and commercialize them. And, the development of new diagnostic and curing methods of aging disease will give us an opportunity to create new business of anti-aging health industry. This will allow us to contribute to the growth of local pharmaceutical and bio industries and furthermore human health, life extension and quality of life”, said the director of the Smart Aging Convergence Research Center, YU’s faculty of college of medicine M.D. Kim Jae-Ryong.
Meanwhile, a total number of 49 proposals were submitted to apply for the 2015 Front-leading Research Center Support Project. Totally 8 proposals, composed of 3 proposals for MRC and 5 proposals for SRC, were finally selected this year.
