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PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Sungwhan F. Oh, PhD

Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia
Faculty of Immunology Program, Division of Medical Sciences
Harvard Medical School

Sungwhan joined CETRI and opened his research group in 2018. He is interested in the use of high-sensitivity mass spectrometric platforms for identification of molecular factors of gut symbiotic origin, as well as on the investigation of their bioactivity to the host system.
Sungwhan received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, summa cum laude, at Seoul National University in South Korea. He came to Boston for his graduate studies in the Division of Medical Science at Harvard Medical School, on the biosynthesis and pro-resolving activity of endogenous lipid mediators. He continued his postdoctoral training on the gut microbiota and its immunomodulatory lipid mediators in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, with support from Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation Research Fellowship Award (2013–2016) and NIDDK Research Scientist Development Award (2015–2020).

TEAM MEMBERS
Jisun Yoo, PhD

Instructor in Anaesthesia

Jisun received her B.S. in Biology, cum laude, in 2009 at Seoul National University, where she subsequently started her PhD work in the laboratory of Dr. Jung-Hye Roe. Her thesis focused on the stress response of Actinobacteria to reactive oxygen species and antibiotics. Ji-Sun earned her PhD in 2017 and joined the laboratory of Dr. Oh in September 2018. Her current research interest is focused on the roles of lipids produced by microbiota components in host health and disease.

Da-Jung Jung, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Da-Jung received her BS in biochemistry from Chungnam National University in South Korea (2011) and her PhD in immunology from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in South Korea (2017). During her PhD training, which was mentored by Dr. You-Me Kim, she studied the cellular and molecular regulation of B cell responses and regulatory mechanisms of T cell receptor signaling. After postdoctoral training in Dr. Kim’s group (2018–2019), Da-Jung moved to Boston and joined the Oh lab. Her research interest is elucidation of the regulation of host immune systems by commensal microbiota–derived molecules.

Byoungsook Goh, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Byoungsook received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry (2014) and PhD degree in analytical chemistry (2020) at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in South Korea. During her PhD training at GIST, she conducted her research related to development of an analytical platform for quantitative measurement of biomolecular dynamics under the supervision of Dr. Tae-Young Kim. Her current research is elucidation of lipid biosynthetic pathways associated with host immunomodulation in gut symbionts. 

Kyoo Heo, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Kyoo received his B.S. degree in Biology (2014) at Seoul National University in South Korea, where he also received his PhD degree in biology (2020). During PhD training in the laboratory of Dr. Yeong-Jae Seok, he studied how pathogenic bacteria sense host diet and thus control their virulence during their infection. Kyoo joined the laboratory of Dr. Oh in October 2021. His current work is focused on the biosynthesis and modification of microbiota-derived immunomodulatory lipids.

Sang-mok Lee, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Sang-Mok’s received his B.S. degree (2015) and Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Biotechnology from Seoul National University (2019). During his PhD, he studied the effect of dietary omega-3 fatty acid on laying hen physiology (e.g. lipid mediator profile, inflammatory & stress state).
He worked as a researcher at Insilico Co., Ltd. (2018-2021) in lieu of his military service, focusing on the development of probiotics as antibiotics alternatives as well as the polysaccharide nanoparticles-based bacteriocin production technology and the gut microbiota-restoring agents.
He did his postdoctoral training in Chemical Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (2021-2023), working on analyzing sequencing data generated from microbial and bacteriophage samples using techniques, such as WGS, ChIP-exo, RNA-seq, by utilizing bioinformatics & machine learning skills to uncover the biological significance of the data.
He has joined the Oh lab since June 2023. He is now interested in the use of multi-omics data (e.g. transcriptomics, metabolomics) to explore the dynamics of symbiont-derived molecule profiles under various environmental change and their impact on host immunoregulation and metabolism.
STAFF
Heather Kearney

Administrative Assistant, CETRI

ALUMNI
Ledia Gebremedhin, gnotobiotic animal technician (2019-2021)
Eungyo Choi, research technician (2020-2022)
Jeong In Seo, visiting graduate student (2022-2023)
Yusun Shin, visiting graduate student (2023-2024)
Kathlyn Jung, summer high school intern (2024)
Charlotte Choi, summer high school intern (2024)
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