Pukyong National University

PKNU selected as 'regional leading research center' by the MSIT

Professor Oh Jung-Hwan

The development of a smart healthcare platform for healthy and active middle-aged people, that is, ‘active seniors’, will begin in earnest.

Pukyong National University (President Jang Young-Soo) announced that the 'smart gym-based active senior healthcare intermediation research center' (prof. Oh Jung-Hwan · head of the center, biolmedical engneering) was finally selected for the 'regional leading research center (RLRC)', a basic research project of the Ministry of science and ICT in 2022.

Under the supervision of Pukyong National University, the smart gym and local advanced hospital-linked infrastructure and platform will be built to promote health and happiness of active seniors with a total of 14.15 billion won from this month.

The regional leading research center is a project to build and support a research center specialized in the field of regional innovative growth to lead the region's sustainable and autonomous innovative growth based on basic research. Including Pukyong National University selected this year in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam regions, four universities were finally selected by region from all over the country.

As Pukyong National University was selected for this project, it will actively utilize Busan's 'specialization' as a basis to develop materials for skin regeneration and bone regeneration necessary for a quality life from marine-derived materials. In addition, Pukyong National University will develop smart clothing that can measure the onset of geriatric diseases and respiratory diseases in real time, and promote the establishment of a health care information service platform using Smart Gym, a sports facility newly established in Pukyong National University.

Pukyong National University's smart gym-based active senior healthcare intermediation research center plans to play a pivotal role in responding to urban problems such as aging by spreading these research results to the local community. The goal is to not only prevent social and economic losses in the region through disease prevention and health improvement of active seniors, but also to lay the foundation for building a high value-added platform such as the national disease and disease management system.

Pukyong National University operates the center by dividing it into three groups: the first group, 'development of functional source materials for healthcare' (Prof. Lee Song-Yi, Kwak Min-Seok, Kim Yong-Hyeon), the second group, 'development of smart diagnostic sensors and medical devices' (prof. Kim Gwang-Seok, Yim Hae-Gyun, Shin Joong-Ho), and the third group, 'a study on the establishment of a healthcare information service system' (prof. Oh Jung-Hwan, Lee Chang-Hyeong).

Professor Oh Jung-Hwan, head of the center said, "As the number of 'active seniors' increases and changes in the demographic structure, it seems urgent to build an infrastructure to solve health care problems at the individual as well as social level. Through this research, we will do our best to present a new paradigm, such as smart gym-based health care and securing infrastructure linked to local tertiary hospitals."

Pukyong National University plans to nurture excellent human resources for the successful operation of this project, and at the same time, actively support financial and infrastructure to strengthen research capabilities.