Degrees
Ph.D.2014–2023
Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Thesis: Exploration of the Role of Regulatory T cells in Various Pathogenic Contexts
Advisor: Chung-Gyu Park, M.D., Ph.D.
M.S.2012–2014
Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Thesis: Enhanced LPS-Induced Monocyte Activation by Recombinant Human Soluble CD14
Advisor: Chung-Gyu Park, M.D., Ph.D.
B.S.2008–2012
Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea
Department of Genetic Engineering
Research & Professional Experience
Researcher
(postdoctoral)2025–present
Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine · Dept. of Physiology / Organelle Medicine Research Center, Wonju, Republic of Korea
Deep-learning multimodal-integration models fusing imaging, transcriptomic, and clinical data into single predictive models.
Associate Director2023–2025
PB Immune Therapeutics Inc. · Dept. of Basic Research, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Led a humanized anti-CD40 antibody program: candidate ranking by surface plasmon resonance (Biacore) and ELISA, receptor-blocking confirmation, human and non-human-primate cross-reactivity, in vivo efficacy in primates, and the regulatory documentation. Placed and oversaw CRO and core-facility work, from study design and assay conditions through data delivery and go/no-go calls. Built the in-house single-cell and spatial analysis pipeline. Ran cynomolgus and marmoset EAE studies for multiple sclerosis programs.
Manager2021–2023
PB Immune Therapeutics Inc. · Dept. of Basic Research, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Wrote the two KDDF proposals that funded the anti-CD40 program and ran the lead-selection work under them.
Research Student2020–2023
SCAID, Single Cell Atlas of Immune Diseases, Genomic Medicine Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Contributed the founding proposal; executed within the funded program (700+ donors × 8 organs): milestone tracking, multi-site QC, multi-PI coordination.
Researcher2019–2021
Xenotransplantation Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Rhesus macaque tissue processing and longitudinal immune monitoring across transplantation studies.
Teaching Assistant2014–2016
Seoul National University College of Medicine · Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Binding kinetics
and affinity
Surface plasmon resonance (Biacore) run hands-on through an antibody lead campaign: association and dissociation rates measured per candidate, affinity ranking across the candidate panel, receptor-blocking confirmed on the same surface, and human against non-human-primate cross-reactivity checked before the primate studies were placed. ELISA-based affinity and epitope analysis, and competition binding to separate candidates that bound the same epitope. Those numbers are what selected the lead.
Therapeutic lead
development
A humanized anti-CD40 antibody carried from a candidate panel to a lead, into non-human-primate efficacy studies, and to a registered patent in 2024 on which I am a co-inventor. CRO and core-facility work placed and overseen, assay conditions specified to the vendor, regulatory documentation written, and advancement decided against fixed dates. Functional validation of a peptide inhibitor of calcineurin in primary human T cells (CABIN1 core peptide, Exp Mol Med 2022). What a candidate did in cells read out by flow cytometry, single-cell profiling and targeted proteomics.
Program & external
execution
CRO and core-facility work from study design and placement through data delivery and go/no-go calls; assay conditions specified to the vendor; regulatory documentation for a therapeutic antibody program; funder milestones and reporting; multi-site sample QC across a 700-donor collection.
Cell, tissue &
immunological assays
Primary human T-cell isolation, expansion and functional assays; monocyte and dendritic-cell differentiation; mesenchymal stem cell culture. Enzymatic tissue digestion, Percoll enrichment, cell and nucleus isolation. High-dimensional flow cytometry (panels up to 24 markers); multiplex panel design; 10-color 6-way FACS. Olink targeted plasma proteomics (immune & neurology panels).
Single-cell /
spatial / multi-omic
scRNA-seq, scTCR-seq, snRNA/snATAC; 10x 5′/3′ library generation and 10x Chromium Connect automated preparation. Seurat, Scanpy, Squidpy, Monocle3, CellChat/NicheNet; scVI/scANVI, batch integration, consensus NMF; Milo KNN-graph differential abundance, GLIPH, InferCNV. Custom UMI-aware, BAM-level isoform analysis code (Python). Spatial: GeoMx DSP run end to end, Visium, MACSima cyclic multiplexed immunofluorescence.
Computational
Python: scikit-learn, XGBoost/LightGBM/CatBoost, PyTorch; AUC-validated classifiers held out on independent cohorts; multimodal deep-learning integration (imaging + transcriptomic + clinical). Linux servers · R/RStudio · Git-based reproducible analysis.
Microscopy &
animal models
Spinning-disk confocal (Nikon CSU-W1 SORA), point-scanning confocal (Leica SP8), two-photon; IHC/IF (frozen & FFPE) with quantitative image analysis. Non-human primates across three species (rhesus, cynomolgus, marmoset), including EAE and islet-transplantation studies; mouse immune profiling.
Vision-language
and retrieval models
Finetuning. LoRA adaptation of an open vision-language model (Gemma 4 12B, mlx-vlm) so that an amyloid pathology tile returns a structured JSON reading, with the schema enforced during decoding and the split held out at the case level. Against the same model zero-shot on 800 held-out tiles, cored-plaque F1 went from 0.12 to 0.44 and cerebral amyloid angiopathy from 0.00 to 0.69. Retrieval. A retrieval-augmented question-answering service written end to end: corpus chunking, BM25 and dense-vector retrieval fused by reciprocal rank, query expansion, and streamed answers that carry their sources. FastAPI, containerized, on Google Cloud Run; it answers questions about this CV at kangseongjun.com.
Selected Grant Writing & Program Funding
Industry · PB Immune Therapeutics (Manager → Associate Director)
| Funding Agency / Sponsor | Project | Period | Budget (USD) | Role / Contribution |
|---|
| Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF) | Anti-CD40 antibody lead selection and optimization (multiple sclerosis) | 2021–2023 | ~$571,000 | Lead proposal writer (>90% of proposal & execution) |
| Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF) | Anti-CD40 lead compound (PB101): efficacy and pharmacodynamic biomarkers (pemphigus vulgaris) | 2022–2024 | ~$321,000 | Lead proposal writer (>90% of proposal & execution) |
| Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) | Scale-up Funding for Tech Commercialization | 2022–2023 | ~$222,000 | Lead proposal writer; managed >90% of execution |
| Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) | Early-stage startup R&D: anti-CD40 biologic (PB-40N) to prevent anti-drug antibodies | 2021–2022 | ~$74,000 | Lead proposal writer & core researcher |
| NAVER Corporation | Engineered regulatory T cells for immune-mediated diseases (PB20X_Treg) | 2023–2026 | ~$128,000 | Proposal & study design (~50%) |
Doctoral training · Seoul National University
| Funding Agency / Sponsor | Project | Period | Budget (USD) | Role / Contribution |
|---|
| Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) | Multi-layered immune-disease single-cell map for molecular target discovery (SCAID, A9-22-1-05) | 2022–2028 (3+3) | ~$1.6M | Participated in proposal writing (>30%) |
| Ministry of Education (MOE) & Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) | Laboratory-Specialized Tech-Transfer & R&BD Grant | 2020–2021 | ~$40,000 | Grant writing, experimental design & technical validation |
All grants were held by the institutional Principal Investigator (Ph.D. advisor at SNU; company CEO/CSO at PB Immune Therapeutics); the listed roles reflect the applicant's contribution to proposal writing and project execution, not as PI. Budgets converted at ≈ ₩1,400 / USD.
Awards, Patents & Scholarships
Patents
2024
Antagonistic Anti-CD40 Humanized Antibody. Republic of Korea, Appl. No. 10-2024-0085972; registered 2024-07-01. Co-inventor.
2019
Immunosuppression Composition Comprising JAK Inhibitor. Republic of Korea, Appl. No. 10-2014-3490000; registered 2019-08-20.
Awards
2024
Grand Prize, 2024 GPTers AI Hackathon (Project GAIA Team)
2023
Grand Prize, SBA Smart Workathon (Work Process Innovation)
2017
Best Poster Award, American Transplant Congress, Chicago · Best Presentation Award, Korean Association of Immunologists
Scholarships
2014–2020
NRF Research Scholarship for Ph.D. Candidates · Dean's Lecture & Research Support Scholarship, SNU College of Medicine · BK21 Plus Research Scholarship