Career Background: Bong-Ihn began his research career in Prof. David Scadden’s laboratory as an undergraduate student at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from Princeton University, where he studied the mammary gland stem cell microenvironment in Prof. Yibin Kang’s laboratory.
His military service and passion for vascular biology led him to study the meningeal vascular response following severe head injury in Prof. Injune Kim’s laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. In 2020, he joined Prof. Ralf Adam’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine.
Area of Research: Bong-Ihn is interested in cranial vascular biology. His research focuses on endothelial cell heterogeneity and the stromal microenvironment of the calvarium and dura mater.
Specialist Techniques: Severe head injury animal models, wholemount deep-tissue confocal imaging, intravital imaging of calvarium.
Career Highlight: Bong-Ihn was awarded the Barbara Schultz Card Fellowship in support of his graduate studies at the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. He also received a travel award for his short talk and poster at the 2018 International Vascular Biology Meeting in Helsinki.
Future Directions: At the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Bong-Ihn plans to investigate the unique vascular features of cranial tissues with respect to endothelial cell and stromal cell heterogeneity. By employing single-cell RNA sequencing, in vitro 3D cell culture, intravital imaging and various mouse models, he would like to contribute to our knowledge of organotypic vasculature of the cranium in the context of development, homeostasis and severe head injury.
Social media links @bikohcello
