Among the long-running research programmes on Yonsei's Sinchon campus, few have the reach of the Center for NanoMedicine, established in 2015 under Korea's Institute for Basic Science and directed by chemist Jinwoo Cheon. The centre's signature line of work, nano-magnetogenetics, uses magnetic nanoparticles to switch neural activity on and off in living animals without wires or implanted electronics, with landmark results published in Nature Materials in 2021 and Nature Nanotechnology in 2024.
The programme has become steadily more international. In July 2025 a joint Max Planck centre opened in the IBS building on the Yonsei campus, formalising a partnership with the German research society, and in April 2026 the centre convened the Yonsei Nobel Forum and IBS Conference on AI, Robotics and Nanomedicine, drawing leading figures across the three fields to Seoul.
Recognition has followed the science. In 2026 Cheon was named Korea's top scientist and technologist, the country's most senior individual science award, for pioneering nanomedicine. For academics watching where bioelectronics is heading, the centre is a bellwether: it treats magnetic fields as a clinical interface to the brain, and it has the publication record, infrastructure and partnerships to pursue that idea over decades rather than grant cycles.