Rate My Professor Byung-Kwan Cho

Byung-Kwan Cho is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University in 2003. From 2008 to 2010, he served as a project scientist in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. He joined KAIST in 2010 as an assistant professor and has since progressed to associate and full professor positions in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Cho holds several leadership roles at KAIST, including Head of the Graduate School of Engineering Biology, Director of the KAIST Institutes for the BioCentury, and Vice President of the Office of Research Affairs. He is also a KAIST Endowed Chair Professor of Biological Sciences. His research interests include synthetic biology, systems biology, microbial genome design, C1 gas fermentation, secondary metabolites, enzymatic DNA synthesis, microbial therapeutics, and biofoundry development. Key achievements encompass the development of microbial gas fermentation systems for converting C1 feedstocks into multi-carbon products, design of minimal genomes for synthetic biology applications, microbiome engineering for gut disease treatments, and microbial genome engineering for secondary metabolite production. He serves on committees such as the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institutes, the Steering Committee of the Korean Society of Synthetic Biology, and as Co-Chair of the Asian Synthetic Biology Association. He maintains a visiting professorship at the Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark.