Chang-Duk Jun
GIST
Korea
Chang-Duk Jun is an immunologist and full professor at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea. Dr. Jun attended the Kyungpook National University, Daegu where he majored in Immunology. After PhD degree in 1996, Dr. Jun received his postdoctoral training under the guidance of Timothy A. Springer at the Harvard Medical School. He is interesting in mutual communication between T cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the process of immune synapses and kinapses. He has discovered several crucial molecules involved in the immune synapse and lymphocyte development. He is also interesting to understand how immune cells communicate and transfer messages from one cell to another. Recently, he discovered that T-cell microvilli—thin and finger-like membrane protrusions—are important surface organelles that act as vectors of T cell messages or traits to cognate APCs. He called the T-cell microvilli-originated particles as “immunological synaptosomes” as a new class of membrane vesicles.