KAIST has launched the “KAIST New Deal R&D” initiative, which aims to drive new growth engines to prepare for the post-coronavirus era. At the center of this initiative is the antivirus industry, with the creation of new antivirus technologies, infectious disease-related big data management, and non-contact services platforms being the key future projects. More specifically, the new initiatives will revolve around virus therapies and treatments, especially in the field of vaccine and robotics studies. Research on robotics will be enhanced significantly, in response to the growing popularity of caring robots and delivery robots as main caregivers with non-contact services.  

Even before the commencement of the R&D initiative, KAIST had started looking for ways to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin launched the COVID-19 R&D Initiative task force, which came up with research agendas to promote smart mobile medical systems in the years to come. More than 50 professors from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, the Department of Biological Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the Department of Industrial Design joined the task force.

According to President Shin, all of KAIST’s R&D capacities will be devoted to pursuing a smart healthcare society in Korea, powered by smart medical systems. Constructing the smart systems will mainly focus on building an Epidemic Mitigating Mobile Module (EMMM), which will manage epidemics by using three phases — prevention, emergency response, and treatment — and building an AI big data platform. Technologies such as recyclable antivirus masks, plasma virus sterilizers, and smart breathable protective gowns will help during the prevention phase. The development of diagnosis modules to identify epidemics more quickly and accurately and technologies for anti-infection medical services, such as transformable negative pressure ambulance modules and negative pressure rooms, developed specifically for respiratory infections, will also be one of the most important goals.

KAIST researchers have also been working on discovering new technologies to achieve this vision. For instance, Professor Il-Doo Kim’s team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering came up with a washable face mask with nano-fiber filter, which is currently being prepared for commercialization. Professor Dong-Soo Han from the School of Computing developed mobile phone-based Wi-Fi positioning software to track both the indoor and outdoor activities of infected patients; the system is also being prepared for release. Virologist Ui-Cheol Shin from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering is studying a universal T-cell vaccine that can prevent infection from Betacoronaviruses, which are reported to be carried by new epidemics such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Additionally, research groups in the Graduate School of AI are doing various projects on big data-based prediction models for outbreaks and spreads.

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