About the Lab
Welcome to the Kim’s Lab!
We study how gene expression is controlled — across transcription, translation, and protein modification — and how that control breaks down in aging, chronic inflammation, and cancer. Much of our work centers on RNA-binding proteins and the transcription factor FoxO1, which together determine which messages a cell translates, when, and how quickly they decay.
These questions run through several tissues. In the salivary gland we ask what happens in the earliest stages of Sjögren’s syndrome, before the tissue is visibly damaged. In the brain we follow neural stem cells as they differentiate and as they decline with age. In glioblastoma and oral cancers we look for the molecular dependencies that a tumor cannot do without, and that a therapy might therefore exploit.
Our approach combines cell and animal models with transcriptomic and multi-omics analysis, and we work closely with clinical colleagues in the Kyungpook National University Dental Hospital.
Kim Lab, 2026