Researchers have developed a plug-and-play technology that enables customised biomaterials to be created using blue light, vitamin B2 and common biological building blocks.

- KAIST research team led by Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho identifies the ‘molecular lock’ that keeps cells trapped in an altered state

- Team develops technology to release the lock and restore cells to their original condition, opening new possibilities for cancer and aging research

CHANGWON, South Korea — Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by President Chul-jin Choi, announced that a research team led by Principal Researcher Sung Mook Choi of the Energy & Environment Materials Research Division, in collaboration with research teams led by Professor Min Ho Seo of Pukyong National University and Professor Won Bae Kim of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), has developed a highly durable platinum–nickel (PtNi) hydrogen evolution catalyst that suppresses nickel (Ni) leaching through atomic ordering. Nickel leaching is a major cause of performance degradation in catalysts used for anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE). The research addresses a longstanding problem in water electrolysis catalysts, which typically lose performance during prolonged operation, by stabilizing the catalyst structure at the atomic level.

Hydrogels have become essential to modern biomedicine, enabling advances in drug delivery, tissue engineering and wearable healthcare. Researchers have proposed an architecture-based framework for designing high-performance hydrogels beyond conventional, randomly crosslinked networks. Their review defines hydrogels with high-order structures, outlines four construction routes, including phase separation, molecular self-assembly, nanocomposite integration and polymer crystallization, and links multiscale organization to mechanical robustness, transport control and integrated biomedical functions.

This review assesses the state-of-the-art of functional liquid crystals with nanomaterials, including self-organized alignment enabled by nanotechnology, diverse properties of nanoparticle-doped systems, soft actuators and tunable structural color in nanohybrid elastomers, and provides critical perspectives on comparative advantages and remaining challenges.

A research team led by Professor Yang Lu from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has achieved a breakthrough by uncovering the microscopic physical nature of ultralarge elasticity in covalent semiconductors such as silicon and diamond. This discovery provides crucial quantitative guidance for "Deep Elastic Strain Engineering" (DESE), paving the way for the development of next-generation electronic, optoelectronic, and quantum devices.

The Multimedia Laboratory (MMLab) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has spearheaded the development of "RoboDojo," a unified benchmarking platform designed to evaluate robotic manipulation across both simulated and physical environments. Co-initiated by Professor Ping LUO, Associate Director (AI Research and Tech Transfer) of the HKU School of Computing and Data Science (CDS), and his Ph.D. student Mr Tianxing CHEN, this project was developed in collaboration with researchers from nearly 20 leading global universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and Tsinghua University.

Young-Seok Lee, a Ph.D. student in the research group of Professor Jungsuek Oh in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University College of Engineering, has received the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Wireless Power Technology Conference and Expo 2026 (IEEE WPTCE 2026), the world’s largest international conference on wireless power transfer (WPT). This marks the first time that a researcher affiliated with a Korean institution has won first place in the Best Student Paper Award since WPTC and WoW were merged into WPTCE in 2023.

Researchers from the University of Osaka and Diponegoro University developed an AI-powered navigation system for cyborg cockroaches. Using onboard sensors and a multilayer perceptron, the system recognizes flat ground, climbs, descents, and holes in real time, then adapts electrical stimulation accordingly. By supporting natural climbing while reducing unnecessary steering, the approach shortened obstacle-crossing and total navigation times, reduced travel distance and stimulation, and significantly improved efficient movement across complex terrain.