Cheon Jin-woo, a professor at Yonsei University widely regarded as Korea’s pioneer in nanomedicine, has been named the winner of the 2026 Top Scientist and Technologist Award of Korea, the nation’s highest honor for scientists and engineers. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies announced Monday that Cheon, a distinguished professor and founding director of the Institute for Basic Science Center for Nanomedicine at the university, was selected as this year’s award winner. Cheon was recognized for pioneering the field of nanomedicine by integrating nanochemistry with biotechnology to develop novel medical approaches for disease diagnosis, cell therapy and neural circuit modulation. Nanomedicine is increasingly being applied beyond disease diagnosis and drug delivery, with researchers exploring its potential in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and other areas of neuroscience. Cheon developed magnetogenetics technologies to demonstrate that the neuronal activity of living animals can be wirelessly and remotely controlled using magneti
Nanomedicine pioneer Cheon Jin-woo named Korea’s top scientist of 2026
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