W E L C O M E !
How does a membrane protein come to life, work with its partners, and eventually break down?
Membrane proteins govern how cells sense, communicate, and transport, and they account for the majority of today's drug targets. Yet the key events of their lifetime — how they fold into shape, how they assemble with one another, and how they are damaged over time — all unfold inside the crowded, oily world of the cell membrane, a process still poorly understood even in an era when AI can predict a protein's final structure. Understanding this hidden life of membrane proteins is a question of both fundamental life sciences and human health.
Our laboratory explores three linked questions: how membrane proteins fold within the membrane, how they interact and assemble into functional complexes, and how they suffer molecular damage that drives disease and aging. To reach them, we watch single molecules one at a time. At the core of our approach is single-molecule force spectroscopy using magnetic tweezers, which we integrate with protein biochemistry and reconstitution, structural and spectroscopic analysis, and molecular dynamics simulations — resolving events as they actually happen in a lipid bilayer, and revealing rules that averaged measurements can never show.
We are always looking for curious minds ready to explore questions no one has answered yet.
News Updates
2026
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09 | Welcome, Bela! We are excited to have you join the lab as a PhD student!
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06 | Seoyoon received the Outstanding Poster Award for her recent work at the 2026 Korean Joint Conference on Biomolecular Sciences. Congratulations!
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05 | Our invited review article has been published in Chemical Reviews (Link), entitled "Membrane Protein Folding and Biogenesis: Insights from Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy". Congratulations to all the authors!
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05 | Congratulations to our new PhDs, Seoyoon and Victor, on successfully defending their doctoral dissertations!
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02 | Welcome, Ae Ji! We are excited to have you join the lab as a PhD student!
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02 | Victor received the Best Poster Award for his work on membrane protein dimerization at the 6th Biological Physics Symposium of the Korean Physical Society. Congratulations!
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01 | Our invited review article has been published in Experimental & Molecular Medicine (Link). In this paper, we provide an in-depth review of photooxidative molecular damage induced by blue light. Congratulations to all the authors!
2025
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11 | Victor received the Outstanding Presentation Award for his work on developing a new single-molecule approach to studying membrane protein dimerization at the Fall Meeting of the Korean Physical Society. Congratulations!
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10 | Congratulations to Duyoung on receiving the CNS CONNECT Award for Outstanding Collaborative Research!
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09 | Congratulations to Seoyoon for receiving the one-year Doctoral Student Research Fellowship from the National Research Foundation of Korea!
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08 | A recent study by Victor, Eojin, Seoyoon, and Bhashini, published in Nature Communications (Link), reveals previously hidden dimerization patterns of membrane proteins within lipid bilayers. Congratulations on this outstanding achievement!
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06 | Eojin's recent work as a co-first author has been published in Nano Today (Link). Using molecular dynamics simulations, he characterized the detailed dynamics of anti-DR5 nanobody complexes that drive apoptotic cancer cell death. Congratulations!
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05 | Our invited review article has been published in Annual Review of Biophysics (Link). Bhashini and Duyoung authored an in-depth review on membrane protein folding. Congratulations!
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03 | Welcome, Minseung and Arim! We are excited to have you join the lab as a PhD student and an undergraduate intern, respectively!
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02 | Seoyoon received the Outstanding Paper Award for her recent work on "a hidden pathway of oxidative protein damage" at the 2025 Graduate Symposium and Excellent Research Awards. Congratulations!
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01 | Our collaborative work on the rational design of photosensitizers for cancer treatment has been published in Advanced Science (Link). Congratulations!
2024
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12 | A recent study by Seoyoon, Eojin, Victor, and Bhashini has been published in Nature Communications (Link). In their research, they uncovered a hidden pathway of protein damage via a novel oxygen-confined photooxidation mechanism. Congratulations on this remarkable achievement!
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05 | Bhashini's recent work as a co-first author has been published in Nature Communications (Link). In this study, she observed the effects of oxidative photocatalysis on membrane protein folding at single-molecule resolution. Congratulations!
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03 | Welcome, Shi Ho! We are excited to have you join us as our lab's new Postdoc.
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02 | Duyoung's invited review article has been published in Biochemical Society Transactions (Link), titled "Folding speeds of helical membrane proteins". Congratulations!
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02 | Seoyoon received the Best Paper Award for her outstanding work on "the speed limit of membrane protein folding" at the 2024 Graduate Symposium and Excellent Research Awards. Congratulations!
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01 | Eojin received the Outstanding Poster Award for his work on "protein oxidative damage" at the 4th Biological Physics Symposium of the Korean Physical Society. Congratulations!
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01 | Our invited book chapters have been published in a volume of Methods in Enzymology (Link Link), titled "Magnetic Tweezers for the Study of Protein Structure and Function". The chapters, authored by Seoyoon, Daehyo, and Duyoung, provide step-by-step protocols for our single-molecule tweezer approach to membrane protein structural dynamics. Congratulations!
2023
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11 | Eojin received the Outstanding Presentation Award for his work on "protein aging" at the Fall Meeting of the Korean Physical Society. Congratulations!
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11 | Our invited preview article has been published in Structure (Link) as part of the 30th anniversary special issue. Eojin and Duyoung wrote this piece, putting recent single-molecule findings on a protein folding chaperone into perspective.
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06 | Our invited review article has been published in Journal of Molecular Biology (Link) as part of a special issue titled "Changing Shape of Molecules and Changing Landscape of Molecular Biology". Bhashini and Duyoung authored an in-depth review on single-molecule force spectroscopy of membrane protein folding. Congratulations!
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05 | Our work on a new single-molecule method and membrane protein folding has been published in eLife (Link). In this study, Seoyoon, Daehyo, and Bhashini developed a robust magnetic tweezer approach and characterized the "speed limit" of membrane protein folding. Congratulations!
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02 | Welcome, Jeonghyun! We are excited to add another new color to the lab.
2019~2022
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2022.09 | Eojin continues his undergraduate research in our group as a PhD student.
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2022.02 | Welcome Poornima, our newest addition to the group as a PhD student!
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2021.04 | Welcome, Bhashini! We are excited to have you join us as a PhD student.
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2021.03 | Daehyo has begun his PhD program to further pursue his undergraduate research.
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2021.02 | Victor has joined our group as a PhD student. Welcome aboard!
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2020.01 | Razzak and Seoyoon have joined as the lab's first Postdoc and PhD student. Welcome!
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2019.10 | Duyoung's work on membrane protein folding has been published in Science (Link). Congratulations!
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2019.10 | Our lab has officially opened at UNIST!