Pukyong National University

Pukyong National University Student Wins Best Paper Award at the SPIE International Conference

- Shin Hwa-Rang, Ph.D. Candidate at the Center for Marine Bionics Convergence Technology, Receives the BSC Best Paper Award

Pukyong National University (President Bae Sang-Hoon) announced that Shin Hwa-Rang, a Ph.D. candidate and researcher at the university’s Center for Marine Bionics Convergence Technology (Director Jung Won-Gyo), and a member of the Department of Fourth Industrial Convergence Bionics Engineering (Advisor: Professor Kang Hyun-Wook), received the BSC Best Paper Award and a USD 1,000 prize presented by Boston Scientific Corporation at the SPIE Photonics West 2026 International Conference.

At the conference, recently held in San Francisco, USA and organized by the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), Shin Hwa-Rang presented a study titled “A Photothermally Activated Hydrogel System for Skeletal Muscle Regeneration in the Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence,” which earned high acclaim from the academic community.

The study developed a multifunctional nanocomposite hydrogel responsive to a 1064 nm near-infrared laser and demonstrated its regenerative effects on skeletal muscle damage of the external urethral sphincter, a primary cause of stress urinary incontinence.

She further demonstrated that the 1064 nm laser-based photothermal stimulation hydrogel system can effectively induce skeletal muscle regeneration and functional recovery, and proposed its potential for clinical application as a non-invasive muscle regeneration therapy, including future treatment of the external urethral sphincter using animal models of stress urinary incontinence.

For this study, Shin Hwa-Rang, the Ph.D. candidate, received support from the National Research Foundation of Korea’s University-Based Research Institute Support Program in Science and Engineering (Principal Investigator: Jung Won-Gyo) and the BK21 Phase 4 New Senior Customized Healthcare Program (Project Director: Lee Byung-Il). The research was conducted in collaboration with Karthikeyan Laxmanan, a key researcher at the same institute, and Kang Myung-Ji, a Ph.D. candidate, resulting in outstanding research outcomes.

Meanwhile, SPIE is one of the world’s most authoritative societies in the field of optoelectronics and photonics, with a cumulative membership of approximately 250,000 across 183 countries. At the SPIE Photonics West 2026 International Conference, about 24,000 photonics professionals from 75 countries registered, and approximately 5,000 papers were presented. <Pukyong Today>