History of Drosophila neurogenetic research in South Korea

Abstract

Neurogenetic research using the Drosophila model has immensely expanded around the world. Likewise, scientists in South Korea have leveraged the advantages of Drosophila genetic tools to understand various neurobiological processes. In this special issue, we will overview the history of Drosophila neurogenetic research in South Korea that led to significant discoveries and notably implications. We will describe how Drosophila system was first introduced to elevate neural developmental studies in 1990s. Establishing Drosophila-related resources has been a key venture, which led to the generation of over 100,000 mutant lines and the launch of the K-Gut initiative with Korea Drosophila Research Center (KDRC). These resources have supported the pioneer studies in modeling human disease and understanding genes and neural circuits that regulate animal behavior and physiology.

Keywords:

• Drosophila
• neurogenetic research
• South Korea
• history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by grants from the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation (project SSTF-BA-1802-11); National Research Foundation of Korea grant NRF-2020R1A2C2009865 and NRF-2022M3A9F3082982 to G.S.B.S.