Director

Gou Young Koh, M.D., Ph.D.

Director, Center for Vascular Research, IBS

Distinguished Professor, KAIST

Scientific Member, Max Plank Institute

Gou Young Koh is a distinguished professor at KAIST Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, and the director of the Center for Vascular Research, Institute for Basic Science. He is also an external member of Max-Plank Institute. For the last 25 years, he has focused on the discovery and understanding of the growth factors regulating micro-vasculatures including tumor vasculature. During this time, his research team has made numerous major advances and breakthroughs in the field of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. Notably, he and his research team discovered and generated several novel and potent modulators of angiogenesis – three angiopoietin-like proteins, COMP-Ang1, DAAP and ABTAA – based on their keen observations and creative ideas. Moreover, he and his team have made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of the unique features and regulations of tumor vessels as well as on the characterization of key factors involved in organotypic angiogenesis and vascular maintenance. Lately, they have performed landmark studies in uncovering critical regulators for maintaining the integrity of specialized lymphatic vessels such as meningeal lymphatic vessels. By recognition of his outstanding and excellent achievements and contributions to biomedical communities, he became laureates of the Kyung-Am Prize (2011), Asan Award in Medicine (2012), and Ho-Am Prize in Medicine (2018).