Geun-Woo D. Kim

I'm a Ph.D. candidate in Sung Wook Chi's lab at Korea University. I started out in the lab filming whatever I could point an action cam at, because I can't trust my own eyes, and sometimes found a pattern I hadn't been looking for.

Since then I've worked on RNA modifications, from mammalian cells to bacteria, and I keep learning the same lesson: the part of biology we can't measure is absurdly larger than the part we can. Which is also why I'm not worried about AI taking my job.

My guess is that the bottleneck for AI in biology is data rather than architecture, and that the data still has to be made at a bench.

Publications

First-author

Dysregulated m6A deposition via compensatory arginine methylation primes premalignancy in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease

Kim GW. D.*, Choi D.*, Kim S.-Y.*, Jeong H., Kang G., Eom S. J., Eom S., Lee H.-S., Yang I., Sung J. K., Nam K. T., Park Y. N., Chi S. W.#, and Koo S.-H.#

Science Advances (2026) in press
Abasic CRISPR RNAs inherently harness fidelity of SpCas9 for genome editing

Gu D.*, Kim GW. D.*, Park M., Park A. D., Lee H.-S., Eom S., Weon H., Park J., Lee J., Ahn S. H., Oh H., Kim J., Kim S. H., Seong N., Hur J. K., Jang E.-S., and Chi S. W.

Nature Chemical Biology (2026) doi
abCRISPR: deep learning-based design of abasic gRNA sequences for specific CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing

Kim GW. D., Gu D., Park M. and Chi S. W.

Bioinformatics (2026) doi

Co-authored

Excessive epithelial mechanosensation drives nociceptive innervation and chronic bladder pain via the PIEZO1-SLC7A11-glutamate axis

Kim M. J., Noh J. H., Lee H. Y., Lee B., Park A. D., Oh H., Kim GW. D., Lee H., Oh Y., Hwang H., Kim C., Lee H., Li X., Oh M. M., Lim D., Abraham S. N., Cho Y., Chi S. W., and Choi H. W.

Cell (2026) doi
Widespread 8-oxoguanine modifications of miRNA seeds differentially regulate redox-dependent cancer development

Eom S.*, Peak J.*, Park J.*, Ahn S. H.*, Cho Y. K., Jeong Y., Lee H.-S., Lee J., Ignatova E., Lee S. E., Hong Y., Gu D., Kim GW. D., Lee D. C., Hahm J. Y., Jeong J., Choi D., Jang E.-S. and Chi S. W.

Nature Cell Biology 25, 1369–1383 (2023) doi
Position-specific oxidation of miR-1 encodes cardiac hypertrophy

Seok H., Lee H., Lee S., Ahn S. H., Lee H.-S., Kim GW. D., Peak J., Park J., Cho Y. K., Jeong Y., Gu D., Jeong Y., Eom S., Jang E.-S., and Chi S. W.

Nature 584, 279–285 (2020) doi

* co-first authors · # co-corresponding authors

Resources

abCRISPR

Deep learning-based design resource for abasic gRNAs, providing genome-wide off-target predictions across the human genome. web server github zenodo paper
crRNA-seq

crRNA-seq analysis pipeline. github zenodo paper

Honors and Awards

Gold Prize, The 32nd Samsung HumanTech Paper Awards1st place, Bio Engineering & Life Science · Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology 2026
Basic Science Research Program (Fellowship for Ph.D. Program)National Research Foundation of Korea 2022–24
JW Lee Jong-Ho Foundation Scholarship for Basic ScientistsJW Foundation 2023–25
Best Paper AwardKU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology 2025
Graduate Students FellowshipKU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology 2021–23
Outstanding Graduate Students FellowshipKorea University 2021–22
Brain Korea 21 ScholarshipMinistry of Education and National Research Foundation of Korea 2020–21
Special Scholarship (merit-based)Korea University 2018–19
Academic Excellence AwardKorea University 2018–19
Dream-challenger ScholarshipKorea Student Aid Foundation 2014

Presentations (9)

Deep learning-based design of bio-inspired abasic gRNAs for specific CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing

Geun-Woo D. Kim*, Dowoon Gu*, Alexander Doh Park, Mingyo Park, Hye-Sook Lee, Haban Weon, Jongyeun Park, and Sung Wook Chi

Keystone Symposia 2026 — Precision Genome Engineering (2026) poster
Deep-learning based design of abasic gRNAs for specific CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing

Geun-Woo D. Kim

BIOINFO 2025 — Annual Conference of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics (2025) oral
Hypoxic preconditioning-induced cardiac miRNA protects against asphyxia

Haban Weon*, Geun-Woo D. Kim*, Hye-Sook Lee, and Sung Wook Chi

KSMCB 2025 — Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology (2025) poster Best Poster Presentation
Abasic CRISPR RNAs inherently harness fidelity of SpCas9 for genome editing

Geun-Woo D. Kim*, Dowoon Gu*, Alexander Doh Park, Hye-Sook Lee, Haban Weon, Jongyeun Park, Jung Lee, Junho K. Hur, and Sung Wook Chi

BIOINFO 2024 — Korean Society for Bioinformatics (2024) poster Excellent Poster Presentation
Widespread expression of tRNA-derived small RNAs regulate gene silencing in cancer

Dong Chan Lee, Hye-Sook Lee, Geun-Woo D. Kim, Seung Hyun Ahn and Sung Wook Chi

The 31st International KOGO Annual Conference (2022) poster
Redox-mediated redirection of miRNA target recognition in cardiac hypertrophy

Heeyoung Seok, Haejeong Lee, Sohyun Lee, Seung Hyun Ahn, Hye-Sook Lee, Geun-Woo D. Kim, Jongjin Peak, Jongyeun Park, You Kyung Cho, Yeojin Jeong, Dowoon Gu, Yeahji Jeong, Sangkyeong Eom, Eun-Sook Jang, Sung Wook Chi

KSMCB Winter Conference (2020) poster
Function of miRNA-induced cardiac remodeling for asphyxial death

Kim GW. D., Park S, Chi SW

Undergraduate poster session, Division of Life Sciences, Korea University (fall) (2019) poster
Function of miRNA-induced cardiac remodeling for asphyxial death

Kim GW. D., Park S, Chi SW

Undergraduate poster session, Division of Life Sciences, Korea University (spring) (2019) poster
Ectopic induction of noncanonical target repression of miR-1 in mouse heart develops cardiac hypertrophy

Lee S, Seok HY, Ahn SH, Lee H, Jeong Y, Kim GW, Chi SW

RNA Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Asia Conference (2018) poster

Education

Ph.D. Candidate, Nano-Bio-Information Technology Convergence KU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology, Korea University Advisor: Sung Wook Chiexpected February 2027 2021–
M.S., Life Sciences Department of Life Sciences, Korea University Advisor: Sung Wook Chicompleted in three semesters 2021
B.S., Life Sciences Division of Life Sciences, College of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University Undergraduate researcher: Sung Wook Chi lab (2018–2020), Bong-June Yoon lab (2015–2016) 2020