V. Narry Kim
Seoul National University
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Primary Section: 21, Biochemistry Secondary Section: 22, Cellular and Developmental Biology Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2014)
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Biosketch
V. Narry Kim is University Distinguished Professor at Seoul National University (SNU) and also serves as founding director of RNA Research Center at Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea. Kim is recognized for her contributions to the understanding of microRNA biogenesis and RNA modification. Kim was born in 1969 in Korea, and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Microbiology at Seoul National University. She graduated with a D.Phil in 1998 from Oxford University, where she studied retroviruses and their applications in gene transfer. Her postdoctoral research was on mRNA surveillance and was carried out at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined faculty of SNU in 2001, and is affiliated with IBS since 2011. Kim is a recipient of L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science (2008), the Ho-Am Prize in medicine (2009) and National Honor Scientist (2010). She was elected as Member of Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and Foreign Associates of National Academy of Science (NAS) and European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).
Research Interests
V. Narry Kim’s laboratory has been interested in RNA-mediated gene regulation. In particular, the Kim lab studies the biogenesis pathway of microRNA. They identified several key factors, including Drosha and terminal nucleotidyl transferases, and uncovered their action mechanisms. microRNA biogenesis begins with RNA polymerase II-mediated transcription which leads to production of long primary transcript or pri-miRNA. Pri-miRNA is processed by two RNase III type enzymes, Drosha and Dicer, consecutively. dsRNA binding proteins and terminal nucleotidyl transferases modulate microRNA processing and decay. The Kim lab has also been investigating microRNA-mediated gene control in stem cells, by discovering stem cell specific microRNAs, uncovering the role of LIN28 in microRNA control, and analyzing RNA-binding proteome in embryonic stem cells. The lab’s interest also lies in RNA modification, particularly tailing of microRNA and mRNA. They developed a technique that allows genome-wide analyses of mRNA tail, and found that mRNA uridylation is important for mRNA turnover.
