chemistry

Suksin Lee

Suksin Lee is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Suksin Lee rather than just read about it. In short: Suksin Lee (Korean: 이석신; Hanja: 李錫申; 6 October 1896/7 – 12 December 1944) was a Korean biochemist and physician. He is considered a pioneer of biochemistry in Korea, having been the first Korean to obtain a Ph.D. and to hold a full-time professorship in that field.

Key takeaways

Suksin Lee belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
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Reproduce the core statement of Suksin Lee from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Suksin Lee (Korean: 이석신; Hanja: 李錫申; 6 October 1896/7 – 12 December 1944) was a Korean biochemist and physician. He is considered a pioneer of biochemistry in Korea, having been the first Korean to obtain a Ph.D. and to hold a full-time professorship in that field. His studies of glucose metabolism and the chemical composition of common foods contributed to the scientific analysis of nutrition in the Korean diet.

Biography

Early life and education Suksin Lee was born in P'yŏngannam-do, Korea, the son of I Myŏngse and a woman of the Koksan Kang family. He earned his medical degree from Kyŏngsŏng Medical College (now Seoul National University) in 1921, and obtained his medical license in August of that year. After graduation, he studied pathology for several months at Tokyo Imperial University in Japan. He then traveled to Germany in 1922 to pursue additional studies. After completing preliminary language instruction and various coursework in chemistry and physiological chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, he earned a doctorate of medicine in 1926. Lee's inaugural dissertation, Ueber Glykolyse, was a study of inorganic phosphates during blood glycolysis. His thesis advisors at the time included Otto Lubarsch of the Chemistry Department at the Pathological Institute, University of Berlin. While in his final year of studies, Lee obtained a position as a research assistant at a national hospital in Berlin, where he worked until 1927. During this time he published and co-published several papers on the effects of photosensitive substances on glucose metabolism and cellular respiration.

Scientific career Returning to his native Korea, he began studies of the staple Korean diet and its effects on metabolism as a research assistant at Kyŏngsŏng Medical College in February 1928. He was appointed an instructor of physiology in the department of biochemistry of Severance Union Medical College (now Yonsei University College of Medicine) and an adjunct instructor of dietetics at Ewha Womans University College of Medicine. In 1932, Suksin Lee was the first Korean to earn a Ph.D. in biochemistry for his thesis, A Study on the Eating Habits of Koreans, presented to Kyoto Imperial University on the nutrition and metabolism of prisoners in Korea. Among his advisers at the time was Professor Sato of Keijo Imperial University. He was then appointed full-time professor of biochemistry in 1933 at Severance Union Medical College, the first Korean to hold such a position. He continued to lead the department, later serving as Severance's Dean of Student Affairs, until his death aged approximately 47 of a cerebral hemorrhage on 12 December 1944.

Contributions As the first Ph.D. and full-time professor of biochemistry in Korea, Lee contributed to the establishment of biochemistry as a newly organized field of study in Korea. He began with a study of glycolysis. In the late 1920s, the role of phosphorylated compounds in glycolysis had not yet been fully explained. Lee's work touched on early aspects of intermediary carbohydrate metabolism, which was also the subject of Nobel Prize-winning research by Otto Fritz Meyerhof, Otto Heinrich Warburg, and Hans Adolf Krebs. Lee maintained an interest in factors affecting glucose metabolism upon his return to Korea, where he continued his research with published studies of the Korean diet. Building upon work begun in 1928, he investigated the problem of identifying and quantifying the nutritional elements of the staple Korean diet and its effects on metabolism. He identified nutritional sources in these foods for the healthy development of Korean children and adults during the Japanese occupation of Korea. In addition to teaching and editing, Lee authored and co-authored at least 10 scientific papers and articles in several languages throughout his brief career. He did all of this despite working under conditions of widespread rationing at the end of World War II.

Legacy In 2014 and 2016 the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, hosted academic symposiums to commemorate his life's work. A Special Memorial Exhibition was also held in 2015 at the Dong-Eun Museum of Medical Science in Seoul, Korea. The exhibit included a collection of papers left by the late Suksin Lee.

Bibliography Jeong, GC (1985). Pioneers of Korean Healthcare. Seoul: Dong-Bang Eui-Seo Press. pp. 627–635. Yeh, Byung-Il (2017). "Suksin Lee, the First Ph.D. and Full-Time Professor of Biochemistry in Korea, Editorial Series: Frontiers of Medicine in Korea". Yonsei Medical Journal. 58 (3): 475–478. doi:10.3349/ymj.2017.58.3.475. PMC 5368130. PMID 28332350. Lee, Suksin (1926). Ueber Glykolyse (Dr. med.) (in German). Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität zu Berlin. 李, 錫申 (1932). 朝鮮人ノ習慣食ニ就テノ研究, レポートI, II (Ph.D.) (in Japanese). 京都帝国大学. Lipmann F (1975). "Reminiscences of Embden's formulation of the Embden-Meyerhof cycle". Mol. Cell. Biochem. 6 (3): 171–5. doi:10.1007/bf01732075. PMID 165399. S2CID 23870545.Lipmann, F. (1 July 1976). "The Journal of Severance Union Medical College". 3. 1935–1937. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Notes

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Suksin Lee

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Suksin Lee claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Suksin Lee before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Suksin Lee ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Suksin Lee

In research: Suksin Lee appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Suksin Lee in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Suksin Lee is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1890s births, 1944 deaths, 20th-century Korean medical doctors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Suksin Lee outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Suksin Lee in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Suksin Lee means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Suksin Lee out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Suksin Lee in simple terms?

Why does Suksin Lee matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Suksin Lee?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Suksin Lee.