Korea University Professor leads 8.3 billion KRW anti-aging research project

Professor Ok-hee Jeon of the Korea University College of Medicine has been selected as the lead researcher for a national bio-industry technology development project funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The project, valued at 8.3 billion KRW, aims to develop anti-aging therapeutics based on gut microbiota and microbial-derived substances.

The research will utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to integrate and analyze genomic, metabolomic, and proteomic data to identify microbes and substances capable of regulating aging-inducing factors in the blood. The project is scheduled to run from July 2026 to December 2030.

The multi-institutional collaborative study involves several partners, including Severance Hospital, Seoul National University, Soonchunhyang University, BTC Synergy, and C&R Research. The research will be conducted in two stages: the first focusing on discovering candidate materials and verifying efficacy, and the second focusing on mass production processes for difficult-to-culture microbes and prototype development.