Greeting

Greetings, I am Jong Il Kim, president of the Genomic Medicine Institute (GMI).

GMI can be traced back to the Molecular Medicine Institute, which was founded in 1997, and to 2007, when it was merged with thae Human Genomic Medicine Institute. In commemoration of the late Prof. Ilchun K. N. Lee, who was an eminent figure in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology in South Korea, the institute is internationally recognized as the Ilchun Genomic Medicine Institute.

The main goal of GMI is to elucidate and foster knowledge on the underlying mechanism of diseases based on human genome research and related biomedical studies, thereby contributing to the diagnosis, prediction, prevention, and treatment of various human diseases.

From 2003 to 2007, with the support of a national R&D project, we conducted the Northeast Asian Genome Project that analyzed samples and genome information of 5,000 isolated populations in Mongolia. In 2009, the Korean genome sequencing was published in Nature, the first of its kind in history, and was selected as one of the 37 major research achievements published in Nature since the Human Genome Project according to the journal’s editorial board. Moreover, two studies on epigenome analysis of induced pluripotent stem cells and Korean AK1 genome sequencing were also published in Nature. In 2019, as a part of an international joint research, the Genome Asia 100K Project for 100,000 Asians was published in Nature, as a result of GMI’s continuous efforts in pioneering genomic research.

GMI is the first research institute in South Korea to develop transgenic and knockout mouse strains and pave the way for specialized genome sequencing, as well as functional research, covering various human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and immune diseases.

GMI has been showing its dedication not only towards academic achievements but also for the commercialization and practical application of research outcomes. As representative examples, Macrogen Inc. is the first public biotechnology company in South Korea that was founded based on the research by this institute. Other spin-off biotech ventures have arisen from GMI research, such as Geninus Inc., Genome&Co., and Psoma Therapeutics Inc.

The story of GMI is still being written with our continued commitment for its development into a world-class research institute in the field of human genome and biomedical research.
Thank you.