Dr. LEE Jung-hoon (李政勳)

Dr. Jung-Hoon Lee received his B.Sc. (2006) and M.Phil. (2008) in Chemistry from the Catholic University of Korea. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University (2010-2014). In Ph.D. research, he studied new synthetic methods and surface-enhanced Raman scattering for various plasmonic nanostructures to utilize them for nano-bio applications under the supervision of Prof. Jwa-Min Nam. He then moved to the United States for his postdoctoral research and worked with Prof. Yossi Weizmann at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, where he initiated photothermal-based nucleic acid amplification methods for real-time bioassays using plasmonic nanomaterials (2014-2017). He subsequently moved to the Department of Otolaryngology, University of California, San Francisco and studied the protein-protein interactions using plasmonic magnetic nanomaterials under the supervision of Prof. Young-Wook Jun (2017). He joined the City University of Hong Kong as an Assistant Professor in May 2018.

The ability to control the physical properties of plasmonic nanoparticles allows us to produce materials with specific optical, magnetical, and electrical properties. Considerable progress has been made in synthesizing plasmonic nanoparticles possessing fascinating optical properties, however, it is still highly challenging to precisely and reproducibly synthesize and assemble them into well defined structures at nanometer scale, which make them ideal platforms for various biomedical applications. Dr. Lee`s research aim is to develop and design new plasmonic nanomaterials and understand a synthetic mechanism and property of them, but also to find applied research fields for synthesized materials. His current research interests include:

- Development of new synthetic methods of plasmonic nanomaterials with multi-function for biomedical applications

- Plasmonic photothermal-based fast and reliable assay methods to detect biomolecules such as antigens, antibodies, DNA

- Selective and directional assembly of nanoparticles with DNA, salt, polymer encapsulation, selective deposition of metal on nanostructures