Dear visitor,

My research began in 1982, when I was an instructor at Seoul National University (SNU) medical school to establish cell lines originated from Korean patients. As it was an essential subject in life science research, many of established SNU cell lines have been reported in academic journals along with their characterizations.

In 1987, based on SNU cell lines, Korean Cell Line Bank (KCLB) was established.

In 1991, for stable management of KCLB, nonprofit organization called Korean Cell line Research Foundation (KCLRF) was established and registered at The Ministry of Science-Technology (Ministry of Science, ICT and future planning). In 1993, KCLRF was appointed as International patent microorganism depositary institution on Budapest Treaty by UN affiliated organization called World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and performs patent cell line depositary service of the cell lines for the national and international patent application. In 1994, a book on cell lines called the ‘Atlas of Human Tumor Cell Lines’ (Academic Press) was published by Doctor Robert J. Hay at ATCC, Jae-Gahb Park and Professor Adi F. Gazar at U.S. National Cancer institute.

So far we have established cell lines of biliary tract cancer, hematologic malignancies, brain tumor, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer, esophageal cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, hepatocellular carcinoma, laryngopharyngeal cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, mullerian duct cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, renal cell carcinoma, skin cancer, small bowel cancer, stomach cancer, thyroid cancer, tongue cancer, urethra cancer and other cell lines such as anticancer drug resistant cell lines, EBV immortalized B cell lines, heredopathic B cell lines that are originated from Korean patients.

SNU cell lines have been utilized not only in Korea but also worldwide in many different fields. For example, in joint study between Broad Institute and Novartis, CCLE (Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, Nature. 2012), which compiles cell lines that can be used in chemotherapy response assay, out of 1,046 cell lines, 77 cell lines (7.4%) are SNU cell lines established by KCLB.

Korean Cell Line Bank will continuously secure various cell lines and through scientific quality control, continue to provide researchers with high-quality cell lines.

I thank all the researchers for visiting KCLB.

Director, Korean Cell Line Bank, Korean Cell Line Research Foundation
Honorary Professor, Seoul National University

Jae-Gahb Park, M.D, Ph.D