Serious efforts initiated to uncover mysteries of human brain
Suh Yoo-hun
Professor Emeritus, Gachon University of Medicine and Science
Suh Yoo-hun is one of the trailblazers in Korea’s brain research. He discovered in 2010 that the S100A9 gene, also known as MRP14 or calgranulin B, dramatically increases in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. He also found that injection of adipose-derived stem cells helps mice with early stage Alzheimer’s disease recover normal cognitive functions.
At a physiological level, humans and animals are remarkably similar. Just like humans, mice and chimpanzees, for example, have organ systems that are nearly identical as those of humans; the same organs that perform the same functions. Of all the physical components of the human body, the brain, especially the cerebral cortex — the brain’s outer layer of neural tissue — is pretty much the only one that separates humans from the rest of the living creatures. “Yet much of the human brain remains unknown to scientists,” Suh Yoo-hun, president of the Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) of Gachon University, said in an interview. “But for the next few decades, I think humans will find answers for some of the mysteries of the most complicated biological structure. Many developed nations, including Korea, are now making serious efforts to do so.” The first, and perhaps most vital, step of brain research is to visualize the organ’s anatomy, including the integrity of its structures and their interconnections. The NRI was Korea’s first institution to adopt a 7-Tesla MRI system 10 years ago. “Now we are building an 11.74-Tesla MRI. When completed, it will be the first in Asia,” Suh said. Dissection used to be the only way to look inside the brain, and a chronic shortage of brains was always an issue for researchers. Thanks to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in recent years, today they can look at detailed three-dimensional images of the brain without opening it. Suh’s aim is to find the mechanisms of brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, in the course of developing drugs to beat them eventually.
Better MRIs would help researchers observe small, functional groups of nerve cells (neurons), how they function and malfunction and hopefully much more, he said. “I’m hoping that they soon unlock the mysteries of neurofibrillary tangles and Lewy bodies (clumps of protein that develop inside nerve cells), which are microscopic markers of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, respectively.” In cooperation with General Electric, the NRI is also planning to develop a “detector of brain disorders,” which would be something like IBM’s Watson supercomputer capable of detecting some types of cancer through big data analysis. “We verbally agreed on the development of such machine, and now we are discussing how exactly to do so. It won’t take long,” Suh said. In 2013,
U.S. President Barack Obama announced the launch of the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative to improve the understanding of the human brain, with the goal of supporting the development of innovative technologies. Other nations, including Japan and China, have also launched their version of such project. In Korea, Suh has been among the scientists at the forefront. When the field of brain research was barely known in Korea, he led fellow neuroscientists to convince politicians to found a legal basis for steady investment into the field. Thanks to his efforts, the Brain Research Promotion Act was passed at the National Assembly in 1998. “However, because Korea was faltering through the Asian financial crisis at that time, we had to wait many years to see the government’s serious investment into the field,” he said. After the government established the Korea Brain Research Institute in 2013, Suh served the first president of the organization for three years, solidifying the groundwork for the nation’s brain research. “One of the things I focused on was a brain-mapping project,” he said. In May, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said it will invest 190 billion won ($170 million) for the project alone, with the goal of creating a “specialized atlas” of the brain focusing on the structure and function of the parietal lobe by 2023. Yet, compared with other countries, Korea invests relatively less into brain research. “This is why Korea needs to be smarter in allocating its resources,” he said. “I think the government should focus more on studying the areas directly related to brain disorders.”
Stopping Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases
Twenty years ago, many doctors and scientists were confident that conquering Alzheimer’s disease, which is typically accompanied by cognitive dysfunction and memory loss, would be just a matter of time. Today, however, the disease remains incurable. “Some of the developed treatments bring temporary relief, but none succeeded in curbing its progression. None,” Suh said. Now he reckons the biggest hope lies in stem cell therapy. In 2012, he found that injection of adipose-derived stem cells helps mice with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease recover normal cognitive functions. He also found that the disease can be prevented by that injection. “The animal testing was very successful. If this year’s clinical trials on humans also prove to be successful, the method will be the first meaningful treatment for the disease,” Suh said. His first major discovery about the disease came in 2010 when he found that the S100A9 gene, also known as MRP14 or calgranulin B, dramatically increases in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The study, which established the link for the first time in the world, was published in the online edition of the peer-review journal, PLoS ONE. In 2015, Suh also demonstrated that adipose-derived stem cells can ease the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement, in the science journal, Neurobiology of Aging.
‘I was fascinated by the wonders of the brain’
As a child, Suh enjoyed gazing at the stars. “While doing so, I wondered about the size of the universe, how it was created and things like that. And one day, I realized that it was the small brain in my head that recognizes the entire universe,” he said. “I was fascinated by the fact.” “During my years at Seoul National University College of Medicine, I also felt that there are many people who can, and want to, be clinical doctors. So I decided to study the brain.” After receiving his doctorate in neuropharmacology at the school in 1981, he went to Cornell University, where he studied molecular biology research in neuroscience, and spent years in Germany and Japan as a visiting scholar. “The brain still interests me. Yeah. It still interests my brain,” he said.