Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Moonsoo Jin graduated from Seoul National University with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. It wasn’t until he started his graduate studies at MIT, where he investigated the lubricating and shock absorbing properties of cartilage, that he moved into the field of bioengineering.

As a postdoc at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Blood Research, he developed an interest in engineering proteins. “I produce proteins that can be used for drug development and other applications,” he says. “I’m interested in developing molecules that can potentially be used as therapeutic agents for the common cold.”

At Harvard, Jin worked with Timothy A. Springer, who identified ICAM-1 as the receptor used by rhinovirus, infamous for causing colds. Found on the surface of human cells, this protein is the cold virus’s gateway. Using its own special protein key, rhinovirus can unlock ICAM-1 and inject its genetic material, hijacking the cell to produce more viruses which in turn infect more cells, making you feel downright icky.
A truncated version of ICAM-1 was shown to reduce cold symptoms by acting as a decoy for rhinovirus. But producing this ICAM-1 is very expensive. Jin has been working on creating much shorter version of the ICAM-1 that could have a similar effect at much less cost—but that is proving difficult.

“We know what it is, but it can’t be produced by itself because it’s not stable on its own, so I’m looking at that,” says Jin. “I’m also interested in getting a high resolution X-ray image of human rhinovirus bound to ICAM-1. Such a picture can help us design synthetic molecules that can block rhinovirus infection.”

Until the new Life Sciences Technology Building is completed, Jin’s lab is located at the College of Veterinary Medicine's Baker Institute for Animal Health, on Hungerford Hill Road. Although he’s on the outskirts of campus, Jin has found his location to be fortuitous.

Jin has struck up a collaboration with fellow Baker Institute resident Colin Parrish to better understand how parvovirus infects dogs and cats. It uses a similar lock and key mechanism to gain access to cells. The transferrin receptor it uses to gain access to cells is concentrated in the barrier that regulates the passage of substances between the blood and the brain.

And that could relate to another collaboration Jin has started with physician Michael Kaplitt at Cornell’s Weill Medical College. He thinks adeno-associated virus, a harmless pathogen found in most people that is also in the parvovirus family, could be used to deliver a gene to the brain to treat neurological disease. Jin hopes to modify the proteins on the outer shell of the virus to allow it to more easily cross the blood-brain barrier.

Prof. Jin's Web page