As elementary, middle, and high schools began to sequentially resume face-to-face school classes starting from May 20, KAIST Global Institute for Talented Education (GIFTED) responded by providing special online relay lectures on the topic of virus and infectious diseases due to increasing concerns about COVID-19. 

The lecture program, called “Learning About the Secrets of Viruses with KAIST”, has been initiated with the goal of increasing the number of students practicing prevention measures by helping them understand the science behind viruses and infectious diseases. From May 22 to June 30, KAIST professors from departments closely related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering (GSMSE), Department of Biological Sciences, Department of Mathematical Sciences (DMS), and Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), will be delivering the lectures. 

Each lecture in the program is aired every Friday for a total of five lectures, all provided for free. While the final lecture will air on June 19, the lecture series will be available for view until June 30. These special lectures consist of contents that examine the characteristics of viruses, the process of their transmission, and scientific approaches for prevention and solutions. 

The first lecture was provided by Professor Eui-Cheol Shin from GSMSE. The lecture dealt with entertaining topics such as “viruses in history” and “viruses in movies”. Through this lecture, Professor Shin introduced several types of viruses, their appearances, the methods by which they enter the body, their methods of transmission, the responses of the immune system, and the basic principles behind vaccines. The second lecture had Professor Jihyeon Yeom from DMSE introduce the topic of “viruses as nanoparticles”. The third lecture had Professor Seong Bae Suh from DBS explain “viruses and neuroscience”. In the fourth lecture, Professor YongJung Kim from DMS examined the topic of “the spread of infectious diseases and their mathematical models”, introducing numerical analysis methods to predict the spread of diseases. This lecture was especially notable for actively engaging students by applying their knowledge of differentiation and matrixes. In the final lecture, Professor Il Doo Kim from DMSE plans to talk about “the development of antiviral masks with nanofibers”. Professor Kim will present several experimental data on the effects of temperature, materials, properties of disinfectants, and pH concentrations on the COVID-19 virus and introduce a nanofiber technology able to counteract continuous virus attacks. 

This program was planned by the Director of KAIST GIFTED, Sijong Kwak, who is also a professor of DMS. He expressed his hopes that students who had their daily lives changed due to the spread of COVID-19 would become interested in learning more about viruses through these lectures.