Kyung Hee University · Medicine
Professor Jeongmin Lee's research lab focuses on identifying and validating bioactive compounds from natural sources for their therapeutic potential in metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and immune modulation. The lab investigates functional foods and plant extracts—such as lactic acid bacteria from kimchi, *Echinacea purpurea*, Indian gooseberry, barley sprout, and isothiocyanates—for their anti-obesity, antioxidative, immunomodulatory, and neuroprotective effects using in vivo and in vitro disease models. Key research directions include the molecular mechanisms underlying lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, and apoptosis regulation, particularly in the context of HIV-associated cardiac dysfunction and prion diseases. The lab emphasizes translational applications of natural products in preventing and managing chronic diseases.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
The antioxidative capacity of two lactic acid bacteria isolated from Kimchi, a Korean fermented food, was evaluated by measuring the resistance to reactive oxygen species (ROS) and compared with that of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG as a positive control. Both intact cells and cell-free extracts of Lactobacillus plantarum KCTC 3099 exhibited higher antioxidative activity in inhibiting lipid peroxidation among the strains evaluated with an inhibitory level of 38.6% and 48.5%, respectively. To evalua
These results suggest that supplementation of FTE has potent anti-obesity effects by controlling body weight, fat mass, serum lipids, and hepatic lipids. Moreover, FTE could be considered a potential resource for the treatment of obesity through its promotion of lipolysis via the protein kinase A pathway.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a representative human transmissible spongiform encephalopathy associated with central nervous system degeneration. Prions, the causative agents of CJD, are composed of misfolded prion proteins and are able to self-replicate. While CJD is a rare disease affecting only 1-1.5 people per million worldwide annually, it has attracted both scientific and public attention as a threatening disease since an epidemic of variant CJD (vCJD) cases appeared in the mid-1990s.
There are a number of factors that cause immune system disruption, including infection caused by foreign antigens and decreased immunity due to excessive exercise, and public interest in improving immunity is growing. In this study, we investigate the immunomodulatory effects of <i>Echinacea purpurea</i> (E) extract in C57BL/6N mice that were exposed to a forced swimming exercise. There were six experimental groups as follows: wild-type, forced swimming exercise control, positive control (red gi
This study aimed at evaluating whether Indian gooseberry (IG), barley sprout (BP), and their mixture (IGBP) could prevent obesity in vivo and be used as an anti-obesity functional food. We confirmed the detection of ellagic acid and saponarin, which are anti-obesity active components, through HPLC analysis of IGBP. C57BL/6J mice were fed a 60% high-fat diet supplemented with IGBP for 15 weeks, and then various analyzes (micro-CT imaging, blood analysis, H&E staining, and western blot) were perfo
Cardiac involvement has been reported in as many as 45-55% of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and significant cardiac morbidity is reported in 6-7% of HIV patients. We investigated the inhibitory effects of isothiocyanates (ITCs) on heart dysfunction and mortality by regulating apoptosis in the left ventricle of the heart in a murine AIDS model. Mice were divided into six groups: an uninfected group, an untreated LP-BM5 r
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