Convergence Research 3
Metabolic-Cancer Disorders

The CR3 research group investigates how age-associated metabolic and genomic instability drive cancer and metabolic diseases, with the goal of enabling precision therapeutic intervention. Using single-cell and spatial multi-omics, the group maps aging trajectories of metabolic–genomic instability and builds integrated databases to identify stage-specific metabolic vulnerabilities and key regulatory factors. Leveraging large-scale patient cohorts, CR3 elucidates links between aging, metabolic dysregulation, and cancer subtypes, and discovers actionable biomarkers and drug targets. By developing novel therapeutic modalities and nano-enabled delivery platforms, the group advances patient-specific metabolic reprogramming strategies toward translational and clinical application.
Interdisciplinary research with other groups
CR3 aims to uncover how aging-associated metabolic–genomic instability drives cancer and metabolic diseases and to translate these insights into next-generation precision therapies. By integrating large-scale patient-derived multi-omics data with quantum biology (CT2) and AI-based structural prediction (CT1), CR3 models complex metabolic and tumor networks, predicts key regulatory interactions, and accelerates the design of metabolism-targeted anticancer drugs. In collaboration with CR1 and nanobiotechnology groups (CE1/CE2), CR3 further advances single-cell aging trajectory analyses and develops tumor microenvironment–specific nanocarriers to enhance drug delivery and in vivo efficacy, including for hard-to-reach metastatic sites.
Investigators
Investigators

Hyeokwan Ko
Research group leader
Age-Related Metabolic Diseases
Development of Diagnostics and Therapeutics for Refractory Cancers
Age-Related Cancer Diseases
