Three UW Researchers, University Spin-Out Featured at Symposium in South Korea

Three University of Wyoming faculty members and a UW spin-out biotech startup were among the featured participants at an international symposium on infection and immunity hosted by Hallym University in South Korea last month.

The 2026 Medical-Bio Convergence Symposium, which took place May 28-29, was hosted by Hallym University's College of Medicine and its Research Institute of Medical-Bio Convergence. The symposium brought together scholars from institutions including UW, Harvard University and Seoul National University, along with the CEO of Innocorelix LLC, a biotech company that spun out of UW.

The event was organized to strengthen global research networks and expand collaboration among universities, industry and local communities.

Dan Levy, Jason Gigley and Eunsook Park -- all faculty members in the UW Department of Molecular Biology in UW's College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources -- each delivered presentations across the symposium's three sessions. The sessions were built on the "One Health" framework -- the idea that human, animal and plant health are interconnected.

In the immunity and disease session, Levy, a professor of molecular biology, presented his research on the relationship between cell nucleus size and disease. During the session on interactions between infectious pathogens and their hosts, Gigley, a professor of molecular biology, discussed the immune response to Toxoplasma gondii infection. Park, an assistant professor of molecular biology, explained how plants mount immune defenses against fungal infection.

The symposium also featured Harvard University's Kang-San No, who made a presentation on the role of lymphatic vessels in multisystemic smooth muscle dysfunction, and Seoul National University's Young-Ran Park, who discussed the genome packaging and immune-regulatory mechanisms of viral RNA-binding proteins.

In the final session, focused on infectious disease and therapeutic development, Jongchan Woo, Innocorelix CEO and founder, presented recent advances in developing antifungal and antiparasitic agents for use in both humans and crops. Woo outlined the industrial potential of the work and a path for collaboration among industry, academia and research.

"This symposium has provided fresh academic inspiration from the Hallym University community, and we will continue to strengthen the foundation for medical-bio convergence research and expand industry-academia-research collaboration," Park says.

The symposium was co-chaired by Hallym University professors Won-Keun Kim, from the Department of Microbiology, and Kyung-Won Kim, of the Department of Life Science. The event was part of Hallym's "Glocal University 30" initiative, a South Korean program connecting universities with regional and global research ecosystems.