17th Yonsei Nobel Forum

- “Founding the System of Intracellular Trafficking”

On May 28, the Seventeenth Yonsei Nobel Forum was held in Severance Hospital’s Eunmyung Hall. The theme was “Founding the System of Intracellular Trafficking,” and it was supported by the College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, and College of Life Science and Biotechnology. More than 500 professors, researchers, students, and other guests were in attendance.

The forum’s featured speaker was University of California, Berkeley Professor Randy W. Schekman who shared the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Dr. James Rothman and Dr. Thomas C. Südhof. The three were awarded the Nobel Prize for their ground-breaking work on cell membrane vesicle trafficking.

In the first session, Professor Schekman, who also holds a post at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, spoke on his research concerning the machinery regulating vesicle traffic in cells. The second session included talks by KAIST physics Professor Yoon Tae-young, who spoke on SNARE proteins in states of tension. Yonsei Professor Lee Min-ku from the Department of Pharmacology then lectured on intracellular proteins in atypical glands. To conclude the session, Dr. Schekman gave a second presentation, this one on the formation of vesicles through secretion, or exocytosis. 

After the lectures, there was a question and answer session with Dr. Schekman in the Avison Biomedical Research Center. In it, Dr. Schekman provided the audience with his reflections and advice on life as a scientist. Of his visit to Yonsei and the Nobel Forum, Dr. Schekman said: “I am glad to have met these Korean students in person, and I hope that we are able establish even more vigorous research exchanges between Yonsei University and Berkeley.”