Keewon Sung studied Biophysical Chemistry during his M.S. and Ph.D. at Seoul National University. He worked on single-molecule analysis of protein-nucleic acid interactions using single-molecule spectroscopic techniques. His Ph.D. work revealed dynamic molecular mechanisms underlying 1) the target specificity of the CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease, which enabled rational design of specificity-improved Cas9 variants, and 2) the BRCA2-telomeric G-quadruplex interaction, which allowed molecular understanding of telomere maintenance.

Meanwhile, he also received training for single-cell molecular mechanobiology at Johns Hopkins University, USA, as a visiting scientist. During that time, he became interested in high-throughput methods for systems molecular biology.

In 2021, he joined the Chang lab as a postdoctoral fellow, later serving as a Research Assistant Professor. His work here centered on developing a breakthrough methodology for nanopore direct RNA sequencing. By combining novel biochemical/biophysical and computational approaches, he set out to uncover transcriptome-wide intracellular RNA-protein interactions and RNA modifications at the single-molecule level.

Keewon is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Convergence Pharmaceutical Science at Korea University, where he leads his own research group.

Education

• 2017–2021 Ph.D. in Chemistry, Seoul National University
• 2015–2017 M.S. in Chemistry, Seoul National University
• 2009–2015 B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University