Kang-Yell Choi  Kang-Yell Choi, Ph.D. is an academic. He completed his doctorate in Biochemistry at the Purdue University in 1993. Then, Kang-Yell Choi performed research related to cell signaling at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow. His research at Harvard investigated the function of Saccharomyces Ste5 involving pheromone response via MAP kinase pathway and was published as the 1st paper introducing the concept of "Scaffold protein" in the community. In 1995, he returned to Korea as a professor of Yonsei University. Since then, he has been working on mammalian cell signaling. Choi identified a novel mechanism of Ras stability regulation via the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling. The degradation of Ras, especially K-Ras, is controlled by GSK3-mediated phosphorylation followed by ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal machinery via recruiting beta-TrCP E3 ligase. The stabilization of oncogenic K-Ras by APC loss and subsequent re-activation the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway via positive loop through ERK activated cancer stem cells and induced liver metastasis of colorectal cancer. This indicates the importance of inhibition of both Wnt/beta-catenin and Ras-ERK pathways in the treatment of colorectal cancer. He subsequently identified and characterized small molecules degrading both beta-catanin and Ras via targeting the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling, and those small molecules efficiently inhibit growth of colorectal and other cancers with activated Wnt/beta-catenin and EGFR-Ras pathways. He served as the Chief of the National Research Laboratory of the Molecular Complex Control in Yonsei University for recent 5 years. He is currently positioned as the Director of the Translational Research Center for Protein Function Control (TRCP) supported by Korean National Research Foundation and Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Panning of Korea. Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Yonsei University Translational Research Center for Protein Function Control, College of Life Science and Biotechnology,  Yonsei University. Professional experience:   Professional service:   Publications (cited by pubmed)