Professor V Narry Kim (School of Biological Sciences)

Professor V Narry Kim, Director of the Institute of Basic Science Center for RNA Research, was selected as a foreign national member of the Royal Society of England. This is the first appointment of its kind for a Korean national.

The Royal Society is the world’s most prestigious academic association, founded in 1660 in London by a group of British intellectuals and scholars interested in experimental studies. Officially called the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, it came to be known as the Royal Society after being recognized by Charles II in 1662. The purpose of the society is to collect and improve useful knowledge about nature and technology and to construct a rational philosophical system. As the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences, it not only promotes national scientific research and policymaking but also serves as a center for international natural science research.

The Royal Society selects no more than 62 members each year, based on a rigorous screening process that requires candidates to have made “significant contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge.” Candidates recommended by existing members are finally selected as members after deliberation by ten field-based committees and the Royal Society Council through a secret ballot. Among the 62 members, who come from all fields of natural science, only around 10 are foreign nationals. Famous scientists who have changed the course of history, including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein, were members of the Royal Society, and it has so far produced more than 280 Nobel Prize winners. Due to this prestigious history and authority, membership to the Royal Society is considered by scientists across the board as the very highest academic honor.

Professor Kim was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the School of Biological Sciences in 2004 and as an SNU Distinguished Professor in 2017. Her primary research areas include RNA and gene regulation. A world-class scholar in the RNA field, she has produced unprecedented results by discovering the ‘mixed tail’ that prevents the decomposition of messenger RNA (Science, 2018) and by analyzing RNA transcripts of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, for the first time in the world (Cell, 2020). Her academic authority has been well recognised at home and abroad, being selected as a National Scientist by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in 2010, a foreign national member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2013 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2014, and an official member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in 2014.

With this appointment, Professor Kim is the only Korean to hold membership in two of the world’s most prestigious academic institutes – the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.

Source: https://www.snu.ac.kr/snunow/press?md=v&bbsidx=131929

Written by Minju Kim, SNU English Editor, minjukimm@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Professor Travis Smith, Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, tlsmith@snu.ac.kr