Check out our new paper in Neuron! We wear coats, turn on heaters, and enjoy hot drinks on cold days. Strikingly little is known about this everyday behavior—even a forebrain region, not to speak of a cell type. We finally discovered and characterized them.

Jung, S.^#, Lee, M.^#, Kim, D. -Y.^#, Son, C., Ahn, B. H., Heo, G., Kim, M., Park, H. -E., Koo, D. J., Park, J. H., Lee, J. W., Kim, S. -Y. (2022). A forebrain neural substrate for behavioral thermoregulation. Neuron. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.09.039. ^#Equal contribution

Thermoregulatory behavior is a basic motivated behavior for body temperature homeostasis. Despite its fundamental importance, a forebrain region or defined neural population required for this process has yet to be established.

We found that Vgat-expressing neurons in the lateral hypothalamus (LH^Vgat neurons) are required for diverse thermoregulatory behaviors. The population activity of LHVgat neurons is increased during thermoregulatory behavior and bidirectionally encodes thermal punishment and reward (P&R). While this population also regulates feeding and caloric reward, inhibition of parabrachial inputs selectively impaired thermoregulatory behaviors and encoding of thermal stimulus by LH^Vgat neurons.

Furthermore, two-photon calcium imaging revealed a subpopulation of LH^Vgat neurons bidirectionally encoding thermal P&R, which is engaged during thermoregulatory behavior, but is largely distinct from caloric reward-encoding LH^Vgat neurons.

Our data establish LH^Vgat neurons as a required neural substrate for behavioral thermoregulation and point to the key role of the thermal P&R-encoding LH^Vgat subpopulation in thermoregulatory behavior.

Huge thanks to our team of stellar grad students, especially co-first authors Sieun, Myungsun and Dong-Yoon. It is truly an honor and privilege to work alongside them. Congrats!!!

Also view Sung-Yon’s 20-min talk on this work!

Ben won an Excellence Award from the COVID-19 Student Paper Competition, held by SNU Institute of Health and Environment. Congrats!!

Our first student Dong-Yoon won the Best Poster Presentation Award from SSIB 2021 (Annual Meeting of the Society for the Ingestive Behavior) held on July 12-16 online.

Congratulations on the 7th prize in conferences!!!

The 24th Annual Meeting of the Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences was held on May 20-21, 2021 at Songdo Convensia in Incheon. At this conference, Karl Deisseroth (Sung-Yon’s thesis advisor from Stanford University) gave a Plenary lecture–it described absolutely mind-blowing and insightful discoveries in a gripping narrative! Everybody really loved the lecture, and Sung-Yon said he was really great and grateful to re-connect to my thesis advisor in this way through the pandemic.

And Myungsun won the excellent poster presentation award for his work towards thermoregulatory behavior. Congratulations!!!

Dong-Yoon, the very first graduate student of K-Lab, won the Outstanding Presentation Award from the Annual Spring Conference of Korean Endocrine Society, which was held on April 8-10, 2021 at Yeosu Expo Convention Center. Dong-Yoon gave a talk in front of Korean experts in the field at this on-offline hybrid symposium.

He won six prestigious awards from both domestic and international conferences! It will be exciting to see his future research endeavors and further good news that he will bring. Congratulations again!

Minyoo received Excellent Research Award from SNU BK21 Agency on Jan 28, 2021. Congratulations!!

Dong-Jun, who led a beautiful collaboration with Somin Lee from Prof. Noo Li Jeon’s lab and Seongchan Kim from Dal-Hee Min’s lab at SNU is published in ACS Nano! (Online publication date: Nov 24, 2020).

Three-dimensional (3D) visualization of tumor vasculature is a key factor in accurate evaluation of RNA interference (RNAi)-based antiangiogenic nanomedicine, a promising approach for cancer therapeutics. However, this remains challenging because there is not a physiologically relevant in vitro model or precise analytic methodology. To address this limitation, a strategy based on 3D microfluidic angiogenesis-on-a-chip and 3D tumor vascular mapping was developed for evaluating RNAi-based antiangiogenic nanomedicine. We developed a microfluidic model to recapitulate functional 3D angiogenic sprouting when co-cultured with various cancer cell types. This model enabled efficient and rapid assessment of antiangiogenic nanomedicine in treatment of hyper-angiogenic cancer. In addition, tissue-clearing-based whole vascular mapping of tumor xenograft allowed extraction of complex 3D morphological information in diverse quantitative parameters. Using this 3D imaging-based analysis, we observed tumor sub-regional differences in the antiangiogenic effect. Our systematic strategy can help in narrowing down the promising targets of antiangiogenic nanomedicine and then enables deep analysis of complex morphological changes in tumor vasculature, providing a powerful platform for the development of safe and effective nanomedicine for cancer therapeutics.

Together, we anticipate that the robust strategy, which combines the use of 3D in vitro microfluidic platform with 3D imaging-based analysis on in vivo whole tumor vasculature, will provide a more relevant assessment on the efficacy and safety of potential nano-therapeutics.

Sung-Yon was elected as a member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST). Congratulations!

Media reports (in Korean): Chosun Ilbo Dong-a Science

Dong-Yoon won “AMOREPACIFIC Great Global Next Generation Research Awards” from KSMCB on Nov 12 for his well-deserved efforts and achievements! He also won the Best Research Paper Award from the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics on Dec 9. Congratulations!

And Sieun received a poster award on Nov 17 at the 23rd annual meeting of KSBNS for her presentation of the work currently under revision. Yay!

Finally, Sung-Yon won “Scitech Korea Young Neuroscientist Award” from KSBNS on Nov 16. He also won Minister Prize for Advancing Health Technology, Ministry of Health and Welfare on Dec 18. Congratulations!!

Hope to see more good news coming to the lab in the near future!

Nine runners in K-Lab had the first 10K run together at Yeouido park area (6:30 am – 8:00 am, Sep 26, 2020). Didn’t know we had so many runners! It was a great run along the river bank and the park.