126-1, Anamdong 5ga, Seongbukgu
Seoul, 136-705 South Korea

Mission:

"Freedom from heart disease!" Our main mission is to give hope to patients with myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and peripheral arterial disease. We have been focusing on stem cell therapy that has the potential to regenerate the infarcted myocardium of the patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Director:

Do-Sun Lim, MD, PhD

Background of Director:

Dr. Lim studied medicine as an undergraduate student at Korea University in Seoul. Afterwards, he began graduate school focused on cardiology. After receiving his Ph.D. in cardiology from Korea University in 1998, he took a postdoctoral position at Baylor college of Medicine in Houston where he focused on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Do Sun Lim, is presently a faculty of department of cardiology, Korea University College of Medicine since 1997.

Major Accomplishments:

Dr. Lim has been named a 2001 recipient of Health & Medical Technology R & D Program Award, Ministry of Health & Welfare for his project titled “A novel therapy of myocardial infarction by mesenchymal stem cells”, and a 2005 recipient of the 21st Century Frontier R&D Program Award, Korean Ministry of Science & Technology for his project titled “Characterization and evaluation of optimal stem cells and their clinical effectiveness and safety for cardiovascular disease”.

Current Projects:

Current research projects include: 1) adult stem cell isolation and characterization from bone marrow and heart of experimental animals, and peripheral blood of the patients with cardiovascular diseases 2) the molecular mechanisms underlying differentiation into endothelial or cardiac lineages, 3) signal pathways regulating the proliferation of cardiac stem cells and bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells, 4) cell based gene therapy to promote the potential of stem cells, and 5) evaluation of functional improvement by cell transplantation into animal model.

Website:

http://www.kumc.or.kr/ENG/CTR/?cate=2-1&seq=119&partname=Cardiology&shcode=01