Eun-kyeong Jo MD

Eun-Kyeong Jo has been leading the medical science research center “Infection Signaling Network Research Center” at Chungnam National University since 2007. Her chair evolved out of a mutual appointment from both the Chungnam National University School of Medicine and the Infection Signaling Network Research Center supported by the National Research Foundation in Korea. Eun-Kyeong Jo gained an M.D. degree in 1991 (Chungnam National University School of Medicine), and completed her doctoral thesis in an immunological area of tuberculosis research at Chungnam National University. For her postdoctoral training, she changed to the Molecular Immunology Lab at Imperial College London, U.K., where she began investigating immune signaling. Upon her return to Korea, she founded her working group at Chungnam National University in South Korea and was promoted to professor in the Department of Microbiology in 2008. She was also appointed Director of the Infection Signaling Network Research Center (ISNRC), in 2007.

She has had a long-lasting interest in studying host-pathogen interaction of mycobacterial infection and the intracellular signaling pathways in infection and inflammation (Jo et al., Cell Microbiol., 2007; Yang et al., Cell Microbiol, 2007; Lee et al., Cell Microbiol, 2009). She has investigated a novel function of nuclear receptors, peroxiredoxin II, and reactive oxygen species in regulating inflammatory signaling (Yuk et al, Nat Immunol, 2011; Yang et al., J Immunol, 2009; Yuk et al., Antioxid Redox Signal, 2009; Yang et al., J Exp Med., 2007). Recently, she is focusing on the research of roles and underlying mechanisms of antibacterial autophagy pathways against mycobacteria (Kim et al., Cell Host Microbe, 2012; Shin et al., PloS Pathogens, 2010; Yuk et al., Autophagy, 2010; Yuk et al., Cell Host Microbe, 2009). She has won many prestigious awards in the medical and science fields and has been invited to many symposia and meetings as a principal speaker.