Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
기초과학연구원

South Korea

IBS was established in 2011 aiming at advancing the frontiers of knowledge and fostering leading scientists of tomorrow by pursuing excellence in basic science research. Since then, IBS has been providing infrastructure for long-term, large-scale, and group research as well as supporting autonomous research activities of researchers, focusing on exploration of creative knowledge.

As a basic science research institute representing Korea, IBS is running 30 Centers in physics, chemistry, mathematics, life sciences, and interdisciplinary areas as of late 2018 and planning to increase the number to 50. In 2019, IBS has announced the call for applications for Directors and Chief Investigators. Applications will be accepted until March 3rd, 2019. For more information, please visit www.ibs.re.kr/eng/2019.

The institute’s main philosophy is to select a world renowned scientist as a Center’s director and create an environment where the director can concentrate on his/her own creative research. That is because IBS believes that creativity can be maximized when excellent researchers focus on conducting challenging research in an autonomous research environment.

IBS has been generating research outcomes that attract world-wide attention and was named one of Nature Index Rising Stars 2016. Despite a short history, the institute is standing shoulder to shoulder with international basic science research institutes. With the 2018 completion of its new headquarters designated as an urban science park, IBS will maximize merits of group and interdisciplinary research as well as bring IBS’ research capabilities together. It will more actively recruit young researchers at home and abroad with its expansion, heralding an even brighter future.

Since 2016, IBS has been operating Young Scientists Fellowship (YSF) under the slogan ‘Initiate your own research at IBS. In order to intensify its support to grow the next-generation leaders of scientific investigators, IBS has been launching a new research unit called Pioneer Research Centers (PRC), a subset of the existing IBS HQ Centers since early 2019. PRCs consist of up to five Chief Investigators (CIs) each. A CI leads their own research group to pioneer new fields and focus on challenging research in the basic sciences. CIs are required to have scientific excellence equivalent to that of a principle investigator at a globally renowned research institute or to have great potential to reach the aforementioned level in the near future. IBS will continue its efforts to become a research hub where young scientists can devote themselves to their science with full autonomy and independence.

1 October 2017 - 30 September 2018

Region: Global
Subject/journal group: All

The table to the right includes counts of all research outputs for Institute for Basic Science (IBS) published between 1 October 2017 - 30 September 2018 which are tracked by the Nature Index.

Hover over the donut graph to view the FC output for each subject. Below, the same research outputs are grouped by subject. Click on the subject to drill-down into a list of articles organized by journal, and then by title.

Note: Articles may be assigned to more than one subject area.

AC	FC
293	79.27

Outputs by subject (FC)

Subject	AC	FC
Chemistry	136	36.25
Physical Sciences	172	45.38
Life Sciences	54	12.22
Earth & Environmental Sciences	6	1.75

Highlight of the month

Getting heavy with electron microscopy

© Science Photo Library - STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/Getty

Swapping ‘heavy’ water for regular water should allow scientists to use transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to observe biological materials in water using for longer before damage occurs.

Although a powerful technology for studying molecules in dry or frozen states, the high-energy electron beams used in TEM to probe molecules in water generate an electric charge that breaks chemical bonds and damage specimens.

Now, a team of scientists at the Institute for Basic Sciences has used a form of water called heavy water (D₂O), which contains deuterium instead of hydrogen, when using TEM to observe fragile biological molecules. Furthermore, they encapsulated the samples in a tiny pocket between two graphene sheets to protect them from the electrical charge produced by TEM.

The scientists found that organic molecules dissolved in D₂O lasted 2 to 5 times longer than those dissolved in water.

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