In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- Not established in the inspected records
- Birthplace
- Not independently established
- Country
- South Korea
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- MicroRNA processing and RNA regulation
- Training
- Microbiology; biochemistry
- Research setting
- Seoul National University and IBS
- Collaborative paper
- Han and colleagues, 2004
Why this life matters
Her laboratory connected molecular mechanisms with the organisation and training needed to investigate them.
Timeline
Key moments
Completes doctorate
Oxford biochemistry training follows microbiology at SNU.
Establishes a group
Returns to Seoul National University.
Research-centre leadership
IBS appointment record dates her directorship from this year.
Training across different RNA problems
Kim studied microbiology at Seoul National University, completing her bachelor’s degree in 1992 and master’s in 1994. Her Oxford doctorate followed in 1998. This route joined microbiology to biochemical investigation rather than beginning with a single established microRNA programme.
At Oxford she studied lentiviruses and gene delivery. Postdoctoral work in Gideon Dreyfuss’s University of Pennsylvania laboratory concerned mRNA surveillance. She returned to Seoul National University in 2001 to establish a group investigating regulation at the RNA level.
An experimentally defined processing complex
In 2004 Jinju Han, Yoontae Lee and colleagues, with Kim as corresponding author, used interaction, reconstitution and cellular-depletion experiments to establish DGCR8’s importance in primary microRNA processing.
Sources for this section: [4]
Building a laboratory and research centre
SNU’s 2018 account discusses a study of communication and conflict management among eighteen members of her laboratory. It presents laboratory leadership as part of the conditions for creative work, not simply as an award attached to the principal investigator.
Her IBS appointment record dates the RNA research centre directorship from 2012. It also records progression through SNU faculty appointments and a distinguished professorship from 2017. These dated milestones describe the growth of an institutional platform for research.
Beyond the first processing step
The 2024 Cell Symposia biography describes later work on uridylation and mixed RNA tailing, extending the programme to microRNA, messenger RNA and viral RNA regulation. It credits a laboratory programme, rather than assigning every discovery to a lone investigator.
The continuity lies in asking how a molecule’s processing changes its fate. An experimental mechanism can be consequential without a biography treating every prospective therapeutic application as a completed treatment.
Sources for this section: [2]
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about V. Narry Kim
- Was her research confined to one RNA-processing experiment?
- No. The 2024 biography also describes work on uridylation and mixed tailing.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Hee-Sup Shin
Compare another career connecting molecular methods with biological research.
- Frederick Sanger
Compare another career organised around the investigation of biological molecules.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. IBS Center for RNA ResearchV. Narry Kim: education and appointments
- 2. Cell SymposiaNarry Kim: Functional RNAs 2024 speaker biography
This is a participant biography prepared for a 2024 symposium; its offices are not an independently verified current-tenure statement.
- 3. Seoul National UniversityInside the Lab of Professor Kim V. Narry, 19 June 2018
- 4. Han, Lee, Yeom, Kim, Jin and Kim / Genes & DevelopmentThe Drosha-DGCR8 complex in primary microRNA processing
Selected Results text and its residual-cofactor caveat were read. No clinical outcome or ownership of all subsequent research is inferred.
- 5. Wikimedia Commons; item-specific grant and named creatorNarry Kim.jpg: identity and licence record
