Changjoon Justin Lee is an American neuroscientist specializing in the field of glioscience. He served as the Director of Center for Neuroscience at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and later founded the WCI Center for Functional Connectomics as part of the World Class Institute Program. In 2015, he established the Center for Glia-Neuron Interaction before becoming co-director of the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality and head of the Cognitive Glioscience Group in 2018. He has been on the editorial boards of the journals '' Molecular Brain'' and ''

Molecular Pain ''Molecular Pain'' is a peer-reviewed open access medical journal covering all aspects of research on pain. It was established in 2005 and is published by BioMed Central. The editors-in-chief are Jianguo Gu (University of Alabama at Birmingham) and ...

'' and is a chief editor of ''Experimental Neurobiology''.

Early life and education

Born in a rural area of

Gimpo City Gimpo () is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It borders Incheon, with which it shares the South Korean side of the Han River estuary, as well as Seoul and the lesser cities of Paju and Goyang. North Korea is across the Han River. The cu ...

, Lee interacted with the natural world and raised livestock at home which inspired an interest in biology. After completion of middle school, he left South Korea and moved to the US at age 15 and started high school at

Rich Central High School Rich Township High School STEM Campus, formerly Rich Central High School, is a public four-year high school in the south suburbs of Chicago, located in Olympia Fields, Illinois. The Campus serves portions of Chicago Heights, Country Club Hills, M ...

Olympia Fields, Illinois Olympia Fields is a village and a south suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,718 as of the 2020 census. The municipality grew up around the prestigious Olympia Fields Country Club, originally established ...

. While under an Illinois State Scholarship and working as a junior research assistant in the lab of Professor Louis Seiden, Lee majored in chemistry and obtained his B.A. from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1990. He then moved to New York where he enrolled in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

where he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in neurophysiology under the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics. His doctoral thesis adviser was Professor Amy B. MacDermott, whose lab he worked in as a research technician and later as a graduate research assistant upon recipient of his M.S. Before the first year of his joint M.S. and Ph.D. study, he worked as a research assistant in Emily Foster's lab at

Michael Reese Hospital Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center was an American hospital located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1881, Michael Reese Hospital was a major research and teaching hospital and one of the oldest and largest ...

. Within Columbia University, he was also a research technician in Professor Martin Low's lab.

Career

He then completed a three-year postdoc position in the lab of Professor Traynelis at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

in the Department of Pharmacology. His sponsor was Dr. Stephen Traynelis and his research scope was the modulation of NMDA receptors by

protease-activated receptor Protease-activated receptors (PAR) are a subfamily of related G protein-coupled receptors that are activated by cleavage of part of their extracellular domain. They are highly expressed in platelets, and also on endothelial cells, myocytes an ...

s. During the postdoc position, he visited the

Korea Institute of Science and Technology Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic of ...

(KIST) and was influenced by Shin Hee-sup to join KIST, which he did in 2004 as a senior research scientist. Working at KIST, he became a principle research scientist in 2010 and later a tenured research scientist in 2017. Lee participated in establishing brain science research infrastructure at KIST, first as a founding member of the Center for Neuroscience with director Shin Hee-sup. The Center is now a constituent of KIST's Brain Science Institute. He also helped to establish the Neuroscience Program of the University of Science and Technology (UST). He also participated as a founding faculty of KU-KIST School of Convergence Technology. As a part of World Class Institute program (WCI), he founded the WCI Center for Functional Connectomics in 2009 and served as the organizing deputy director of the center. In November 2018, Lee joined the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality as a co-director with Shin Hee-sup, who he had previously met and worked with at KIST. Shin led the Social Neuroscience Group until his retirement in 2020 while Lee leads the Cognitive Glioscience Group which focuses on four research areas: molecular glioscience, glia-neuron interaction, glial plasticity and cognition, and gliopathy.

GABA synthesis and release from glia

Lee's research group has contributed to the field of gliotransmission by creating several seminal publications on the channel-mediated ''gamma-''Aminobutyric acid (GABA) and

glutamate Glutamic acid (symbol Glu or E; the ionic form is known as glutamate) is an α-amino acid that is used by almost all living beings in the biosynthesis of proteins. It is a non-essential nutrient for humans, meaning that the human body can syn ...

release from

astrocyte Astrocytes (from Ancient Greek , , "star" + , , "cavity", "cell"), also known collectively as astroglia, are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord. They perform many functions, including biochemical control of endo ...

s. They later identified the biosynthetic pathway for astrocyte GABA and found

monoamine oxidase B Monoamine oxidase B, also known as MAOB, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''MAOB'' gene. The protein encoded by this gene belongs to the flavin monoamine oxidase family. It is an enzyme located in the outer mitochondrial membrane. ...

to be the key enzyme for GABA production which raised the possibility that astrocytes can directly participate in cognitive processes via astrocytic GABA. His team also found a connection with GABA from reactive astrocytes and impaired memory in mouse models of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, leading them to propose astrocytic GABA might be a diagnostic tool, biomarker, and therapeutic target for both neurological diseases Alzheimer's and

Parkinson's Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

. The research is notable as it revealed that astrocytes, like neurons, play a significant role in cognitive processes. The findings also resulted in a technology transfer to MegaBioWood which will be prepared for a phase I clinical trial in 2019. In response to his Alzheimer's research related to causes of memory loss, Lee received the Science Day 2017 Presidential Medal of Honor.

Molecular mechanism of glutamate and d-serine release from glia

It is known that glutamate is released from astrocytes but the exact method of their release, i.e., the release mechanism, has been controversial. His team went on to discover two models of glutamate release; a fast mode through

TREK-1 Potassium channel subfamily K member 2, also known as TREK-1, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''KCNK2'' gene. This gene encodes K2P2.1, a lipid-gated ion channel belonging to the two-pore-domain background potassium channel protein ...

in the K2P channel and a slow mode through the Best1 channel in hippocampal astrocytes. They found that Best1-controlled glutamate release is related to receptor mediated synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus when PAR1 is activated. These papers also show that the key modulator for excitation-inhibition balance in the brain is mainly dependent on the levels of glutamate and GABA. In addition to glutamate, Best1 can also release

d-serine Serine (symbol Ser or S) is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated − form under biological conditions), a carboxyl group (which is in the deprotonated − form un ...

, which can act as a co-agonist of NMDA receptors to participate in synaptic plasticity.

Astrocytic volume transient and brain plasticity

Some of his glioscience-related research has been with identifying and characterizing several astrocytic ion channels. His teams learned that the astrocytic two-pore potassium channel K2P has a passive conductance with a subunit composition of a

heterodimer In biochemistry, a protein dimer is a macromolecular complex formed by two protein monomers, or single proteins, which are usually non-covalently bound. Many macromolecules, such as proteins or nucleic acids, form dimers. The word ''dimer'' has ...

of TWIK-1 and TREK-1. They also put forth the proposal that the heterodimer of TWIK-1 and TREK-1 could be a potential therapeutic target for epilepsy, depression, and anxiety disorders caused by concentrations of potassium ion. The team found that the astrocytic

volume-regulated anion channel Volume-regulated anion channels (VRACs) are crucial to the regulation of cell size by transporting chloride ions and various organic osmolytes, such as taurine or glutamate, across the plasma membrane, and that is not the only function these chann ...

(VRAC) is tweety-homolog (Ttyh), which is notable as VRAC was proposed to be

leucine-rich repeat A leucine-rich repeat (LRR) is a protein structural motif that forms an α/β horseshoe fold. It is composed of repeating 20–30 amino acid stretches that are unusually rich in the hydrophobic amino acid leucine. These tandem repeats common ...

-containing protein 8 (LRRC8). Lee's research also showed that the astrocytic volume change through aquaporin-4 water channel is critical for synaptic plasticity. They demonstrated that a change in the volume can directly affect spatial memory in mice, meanwhile it affects memory and language-association learning in humans.

Reactive gliosis and neurodegeneration

Reactive

gliosis Gliosis is a nonspecific reactive change of glial cells in response to damage to the central nervous system (CNS). In most cases, gliosis involves the proliferation or hypertrophy of several different types of glial cells, including astrocytes, ...

has often referred to as the basis for neuroinflammation, which has implicated them in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases but their in vivo functions have not been fully tested due to the lack of an appropriate experimental model. When Lee's team developed an astrocyte-specific toxin receptor model, they found that the astrocytes selectively became reactive, which identifies severe reactive astrocytes as a key factor in Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration.

Software development

Lee has been involved in the development of several research-related software projects, including Mini Analysis and Easy Articles, both distributed by Synaptosoft. His nervous system research software was the reason Lee was scouted by Shin Hee-sup to conduct research in Korea.

Honors and awards

* 2020: Korea's Top 5 Bio-Field Research Results and News, POSTECH Biological Research Information Center * 2017: Science Day 2017, Korea Science & Technology Development Presidential Medal of Honor * 2016:

Kyung-Ahm Prize The Kyung-Ahm Prize is a series of awards presented annually from the Kyung-Ahm Education & Cultural Foundation. Founded in 2005 with a 100 billion KRW endowment by Geum-Jo Song, the award originally had four categories and in addition to the aw ...

, Kyung-Ahm Education & Cultural Foundation * 2014: FILA Basic Science Award, Korean Academy of Science and Technology * 2014: Jang Jin Award, Korean Society for Brain and Neuroscience * 2013: Dec. Star Professor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2013: Aug. Outstanding Mentor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2012: Dec. Best Mentor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2011: Jun. Best Mentor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2011: Jun. Outstanding Mentor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2011: Scientist of the Year Award, KIST * 2011: 100 Leaders in Korea, ''

The Dong-a Ilbo The ''Dong-A Ilbo'' (, literally ''East Asia Daily'') is a newspaper of record in Korea since 1920 with a daily circulation of more than 1.2 million and opinion leaders as its main readers. ''The Dong-A Ilbo'' is the parent company of Dong-A M ...

'' * 2011: Outstanding Research Team Award, KIST * 2010: Outstanding Researcher Award, Prime Minister of Korea * 2010: Dec. Scientist of the Month Award, Korean Ministry of Science & Technology * 2010: Dec. Scientist of the Month Award, KIST * 2009: Outstanding Project Award, KIST * 2009: Jun. Outstanding Teacher Award, University of Science & Technology * 2009: May Outstanding Mentor Award, University of Science & Technology * 2009: Feb. Outstanding Researcher Award, KIST * 2003: Outstanding Researcher Award, Association of Korean Neuroscientists * 2000: Outstanding Researcher Award, Association of Korean Neuroscientists

Scientific society

* 2016: President of Korean Neuroglia Society * 2016: General Secretary of Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences * 2015: Secretariat of Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences * 1996: Member of

Society for Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is a professional society, headquartered in Washington, DC, for basic scientists and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the brain and nervous system. It is especially well kn ...

* 1985: National Honors Society

Journal editing

* 2017–Present: Editor-in-chief, ''Experimental Neurobiology'' * 2008–2017: Editorial Board & Managing Editor, '' Molecular Brain'' * 2004–Present: Editorial board, ''

References

External links

IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality – Cognitive Glioscience Group

C. Justin Lee – Google Scholar
*
Experimental Neurobiology
' {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Changjoon Justin Living people American neuroscientists Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Chicago alumni Institute for Basic Science 1966 births People from Gimpo South Korean scientists