On July 3rd, the Yonkang Foundation (President: Y.H. Park), the academic and cultural foundation established by the Doosan Group, held an award ceremony at the Seoul Press Center to honor the winner of the 2008 Yonkang Academic Wards in the category of medical research.

This year's winner was Cheong-Rae Cho, professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Yonsei University School of Medicine, who walked away with a cash prize of 20 million won.

His winning research, presented in a paper titled "Functional Benefits of Inducing Neurogenesis within Corpus Striatum Observed in Huntington's Disease Animal Models," provides conclusive evidence that it is possible to induce neurogenesis from endogenous stem cells in the brains. The paper appeared last year, in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

President Y.H. Park of the Yonkang Foundation, in his award address, said that medicine plays a crucial role in improving the quality of life for people all over the world, stressing also the foundation's commitment to supporting Korean medical research."

Medical research was added to the award categories of the Yonkang Academic Awards in 2006, to spur progress in this field and encourage young researchers to undertake innovative investigative work.

<Yongkang Academic Award Winner's Bio>

Sung-Rae Cho

- Earned his MD from Yonsei University School of Medicine

- Research fellow at the School of Rehabilitation Medicine at Yonsei University School of Medicine

- Visiting fellow at Cornell University School of Medicine, Dept of Neurology and Neuroscience

- Currently, Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Yonsei University School of Medicine