Biosketch

• Won Do Heo received his Ph.D. from Gyeongsang National University in Korea in 1999 and moved to Duke University and then to Stanford University in Tobias Meyer laboratory for post-doc training. During his postdoctoral training, he investigated the roles of human small GTPases by cloning and tagging each of 150 human small GTPases in mammalian cells. His work was published in Cell, Science, and Molecular Cell as first author. After post-doctoral and Sr. research scientist periods in Tobias Meyer lab at Stanford he moved to KAIST in 2008 as a professor he continued to study the roles of diverse signaling proteins in mammalian cells by using various bio-imaging and optogenetics technologies. His group has also developed novel molecular optogenetics and bio-imaging technologies using the resources of ~20,000 human proteins. Won Do Heo was also affiliated with the Center for Cognition and Sociality at IBS in 2013 as a group leader and established Bio-Imaging Group and a core Bio-Imaging facility possessing various optical microscopies. His awards include the Prize of academic excellence in 2022 (KAIST), the author of the Month (Nature Methods, October 2019), the year KAIST KI Research (2015, 2016, 2017 KAIST Institute), Scientist of the Month (2017 Korea Ministry of Education, Science and Technology). His group has focused on developing various bio-imaging and optogenetics tools that are useful for research in neuroscience and cell biology, including LARIAT, IM-LARIAT, mRNA-LARIAT, optoSTIM1/monSTIM1, optobody, optoFGFR, optoTrk receptors. His group is currently applying novel optical technologies to the study of spatiotemporal roles of receptors, signaling proteins, second messengers, and mRNA translation in various cell models including cell cycle, cell migration, and synaptic plasticity as well as in mouse models.