Kim V. Narry Becomes First Korean and Asian Recipient of HFSP Nakasone Award for Pioneering mRNA Tail Research
核心洞察
Professor Kim V. Narry of IBS and Seoul National University has been selected as the 2027 HFSP Nakasone Award recipient, the first Korean and first Asian scientist to receive this honor.
The award recognizes her lab's discovery of non-canonical RNA tailing pathways, including mixed tails where guanine intersperses within poly(A) tails, dramatically enhancing mRNA stability.
Her team's technology extends mRNA lifespan up to fourfold by increasing tail length from 60–70 to 180–200 nucleotides, enabling protein production for one to two weeks.
Professor Kim V. Narry, director of the RNA Research Center at the Institute for Basic Science (搜索) (IBS) and distinguished professor at Seoul National University's School of Biological Sciences, has been named the 2027 recipient of the HFSP Nakasone Award, becoming the first scientist from both South Korea and Asia to receive this prestigious honor. The award, conferred by the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), recognizes groundbreaking achievements in the life sciences published within roughly the past decade.
The HFSP Nakasone Award was established in 2010 to honor the vision of former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who conceived and launched the HFSP at the 1987 G7 summit. To date, 21 scientists have received the award, and approximately one in five—four recipients—have subsequently gone on to win a Nobel Prize, leading the academic community to regard it as a "stepping stone to the Nobel Prize." Kim competed against 45 world-class scientists and was selected as a final candidate by the HFSP Scientific Advisory Committee in April 2026, with final approval by the Board of Trustees on July 6.
Decoding the Overlooked mRNA Tail
While Kim is a world-renowned authority on microRNA (搜索)—a field significant enough that its discoverers received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine—the Nakasone Award recognizes her laboratory's work on an entirely different frontier: the terminal end of messenger RNA (搜索) (mRNA).
mRNA copies genetic information from DNA and serves as an intermediate blueprint for protein production. It gained global prominence as the basis for COVID-19 (搜索) vaccines, yet its therapeutic potential has been constrained by an inherently short lifespan, typically lasting no more than a day in the body. "The mRNA terminus hadn't attracted much attention in the field, and technically it was difficult to observe," Kim explained.
The project originated from a casual lunchtime conversation approximately a decade ago. Two doctoral students in Kim's lab—now Professor Jang Hye-sik at Seoul National University's School of Biological Sciences and Professor Lim Jae-cheol at the College of Veterinary Medicine—joined forces and in 2014 developed "TAIL-seq," a technology that deciphers the nucleotide sequence of mRNA tails. Using this tool, they identified the poly(A) tail, a continuous sequence of adenine (A) nucleotides that controls mRNA lifespan. "If the poly(A) tail of mRNA is long, it takes longer to be degraded, and during that time the mRNA can continue to produce protein," Kim said, likening the mechanism to how telomeres at the ends of DNA affect cellular lifespan.
The Discovery of Mixed Tails
The team went further, discovering cases where guanine (G) nucleotides were interspersed throughout the poly(A) tail—a structure they termed a "mixed tail." The presence of guanine interferes with the enzymatic reactions that shorten the mRNA tail, allowing it to remain stable for longer. Kim noted the principle resembles alloy formation, where combining different metals yields stronger materials: "At first, I even thought about giving it an alloy-like name such as 'amalgam tail.'"
Learning from Viral "Model Answers"
Another lunchtime discussion, led by then-PhD student Seo Jenny—now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University—proved pivotal. The idea was to borrow mRNA regulatory mechanisms that viruses have refined through evolution. "Viruses often have very powerful gene regulatory mechanisms," Kim said. "We found that viruses were using, even more efficiently, the principles we had identified in human cells."
When the team identified viral RNA sequences that promote robust mixed tail formation and applied them to therapeutic mRNA, stability and protein production capacity increased dramatically. While mRNA tails in the cytoplasm are typically 60–70 nucleotides long, the techniques developed by Kim's group can extend them to 180–200 nucleotides. Critically, the approach not only makes the tail long from the outset but ensures continuous restoration within the cell, extending the average mRNA lifespan by up to fourfold.
"Using the method we developed, mRNA can be maintained for one to two weeks, allowing a lot of protein to be produced over a long period," Kim explained. "We expect this will dramatically reduce side effects by lowering both the dose of mRNA therapeutics and the number of intravenous injections needed."
The HFSP formally recognized Kim's achievements, citing her "discovery of non-canonical RNA tailing pathways, elucidating a novel regulatory mechanism of gene expression." The recipient will receive a commemorative medal, a certificate, and a research grant of $15,000 USD, and is scheduled to deliver a commemorative lecture at next year's HFSP annual academic conference.
A Call for Structural Reform in Korean Science
Kim also used the occasion to address structural challenges facing South Korea's scientific community. She characterized the large-scale R&D budget cuts under the previous administration as having inflicted "internal injuries," noting that while overall budget figures have been largely restored, individual projects have not necessarily recovered. "Researchers have already left, or their projects have been discontinued," she said. "Students and researchers have become disillusioned with what they see as arbitrary research administration; some leave Korea, others don't return, and some change their careers altogether."
She emphasized that improving compensation for postdoctoral researchers and young assistant professors is the most urgent priority for securing scientific talent. "There is little reason to choose Korea when overseas offers pay twice, or in some cases three times, as much," Kim stated, adding that top talent now compares offers not only from the United States and Europe but also from Hong Kong and Singapore. She cited the recent InnoCore Research Center program, which raised salaries to attract outstanding postdocs, as a positive precedent demonstrating that addressing compensation can successfully recruit top-tier researchers.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon commented, "The first-ever HFSP Nakasone Award won by a South Korean is a proud achievement demonstrating that our life science research capabilities have received global recognition. We will continue to actively support researchers on the front lines of our science and technology sector so they can consistently produce world-class innovative results."