Joo-Youn Lee

Dr. Joo-Youn Lee received her Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry and computational chemistry from Seoul National University in 2019, where her doctoral research focused on in-silico molecular modeling approaches to facilitate drug discovery. She is currently a Principal Researcher in the Therapeutics & Biotechnology Division at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), and also an Associate Professor at the University of Science and Technology (UST). In this role, she has led a wide range of interdisciplinary projects that integrate computational chemistry, computer-aided drug design (CADD), quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) modeling, and machine learning to accelerate pharmaceutical research and development. Her work contributes to both fundamental scientific discovery and the practical development of new therapeutic strategies. From 2022 to 2023, Dr. Lee expanded her international collaborations and expertise as a visiting scholar at the Materials and Process Simulation Center (MSC) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). During this time, she worked with Prof. William A. Goddard III, a renowned expert in theoretical chemistry, to investigate advanced computational modeling techniques for complex biological systems. Prior to joining KRICT, Dr. Lee worked as Research Scientist at LG Life Sciences, where she led drug design projects utilizing both structure-based and ligand-based computational approaches. With over 20 years of experience, she has developed deep expertise in molecular modeling, cheminformatics, and machine learning-driven drug discovery, and has been actively involved in industrial innovation and national research initiatives.