Dong-Myung Kim, Ph.D.

Dr. Kim is a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at Chungnam National University, Korea, and a leading expert in cell-free synthetic biology. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Seoul National University, completing his doctorate in 1996. Dr. Kim pursued postdoctoral training at Genentech and Stanford University before joining Roche Diagnostics, where he served as a principal scientist and later as a research director, contributing to the development & commercialization of the RTS (Rapid Translation System) platform.  Since returning to Korea in 2003, Dr. Kim has led a research program focused on advancing cell-free protein synthesis technologies for applications in biomanufacturing and biosensing. He has made major contributions to improving the productivity and cost-efficiency of cell-free systems, enabling their broader use in synthetic biology, high-throughput screening, and in vitro metabolic engineering. His group has developed cell-free platforms from a variety of microbial hosts and demonstrated their application in the efficient production of proteins and small molecules.  Dr. Kim has authored over 170 peer-reviewed publications and holds numerous patents in the field of cell-free synthetic biology. He currently serves as President of the Korean Society for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (KSBB) and continues to play a central role in advancing biotechnological innovation both nationally and globally.