Sung Ok Yoon

Sung Ok Yoon, 68, Upper Arlington, Ohio, at home, on May 1st, 2024, of complications arising from radiation treatment for ovarian cancer. She is survived by her husband, David Janszen, and her brother, Roe Hoan Yoon, in-laws Eric and Karen Janszen, and numerous cousins.

Born October 27, 1955 in Seoul, South Korea to Hyo Nahm Lee (Mother) and Suk Ku Yoon (Father).

Her early years were happy, with a doting, 15 years older sister, 12 years older brother, kindly father, loving but tough mother, and many happy visits to and from various relatives and neighbors.

This happy family life and its modest prosperity were shattered when she was in seventh grade, when her healthy seeming father died suddenly in his sleep. Shortly afterward, her brother left for graduate school in Canada, her sister married, visitors became rare, and money tight.

Her clever and intrepid mother somehow managed to continue raising Sung Ok alone, and eventually sent her at her insistence to Yonsei University (Seoul), considered the second best in the country. There she studied biology and enjoyed good times with friends, serious times protesting the authoritarian government, and established enduring friendships from Yonsei's English speaking club.

After graduation, she worked as a science reporter at a newspaper in Seoul for two years. Ultimately, she felt that life for a woman in Korea was too restrictive, and decided to come to the US to pursue a graduate degree. She chose Virginia Tech, where her brother was a professor, which eased her initial transition to American life.

After earning her M.S. in environmental science, she accepted an invitation to join the founder of a new marine environmental science program at UMass/Boston, located conveniently on Boston Harbor. While searching for an apartment, she met her future husband, whose apartment she declined to join, but whose entreaty to keep in touch she accepted. The UMass program quickly turned out to be a disappointment, so she left it and spent a few months underemployed while exploring options in science.

She soon landed a technician job in a lab at Tufts Medical School whose PI was senior faculty in molecular biology. He was so impressed with her enthusiasm, curiosity, and independent study that he advocated for her to be accepted into the department as a Ph.D. candidate, which she was. She earned her doctorate in about the usual five years in the lab of Dona Chikaraishi, and off she and her husband went to NYC where she was to do her first post-doc at The Rockefeller University.

Differences with the PI at Rockefeller led her quite shortly to approach Moses Chao at Cornell's Weill Medical College a few blocks away for a post-doc position in his lab. Moses graciously accepted her. She carried multiple projects there, but became known for her foundational work on neurotrophins, clarifying among other unknowns a key molecular mechanism involving NGF and p75, identifying the unexpected role of Pro-NGF in apoptosis after neuronal injury. Her widely cited paper in the journal Neuron resolved a theretofore contentious controversy about NGF and p75. She also published several important J. Neuroscience papers arising from her work in Dr. Chao's lab.

She did her second post-doc more quickly, farther uptown at Columbia's "downtown" campus in Morningside Heights, working in the lab of Stuart Firestein. A couple of interesting papers came out of it, but then it was time to find a professor job, where she could really spread her wings.

Ultimately, she out-competed a large number of applicants for a newly opened assistant professorship at The Ohio State University. There she made efficient use of her startup funding and built a small but productive lab investigating the molecular mechanisms of neuronal degeneration. She also had a knack for writing successful grants, and kept her lab well funded at all times. Her promotion to full professor was minimally contentious, where some on the promotion committee wished she published more papers .

When it came to publishing papers, she was not one to respect the notion of "least publishable unit." Professor Yoon always insisted on developing and telling a complete story that was air tight, refusing to publish fragmentary progress notices to fluff up the quantity of papers. She published just a few dozen papers, but they were indisputable, heavily laden with data and beautiful figures, many with significant impact on her field.

About eighteen years in, she decided to switch emphasis from spinal cord injury to Alzheimer 's disease. This led within about five years to the discovery that there's a positive feedback loop involving a cascade of molecular events that progressively increases the rate of accumulation of amyloid beta plaques.

One of the factors in this cascade is a kinase that she had studied in another context, JNK3. When she knocked out the gene for JNK3 in her mouse model of Alzheimer's, the mice did not develop cognitive decline. This led her to find a collaborator who designs drugs and could create ones that were small enough to cross the blood/brain barrier and suppress the activity of JNK3 in the brain.

One of the candidate drugs indeed prevented her mouse model from developing symptoms. Completion of the paper reporting on this work was what kept her going during her last months, along with arranging for collaborators and colleagues to continue her other projects. She hoped the JNK3 discovery will be something that she is remembered for.

Her awards included:

- School of Biomedical Science Excellence in Research and Teaching, Ohio State University (2008)

- Whitehall Foundation Research Award (1999-2002)

- Career Development Award from American Cancer Society (2000-2003)

- Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (1999-2000)

- Postdoctoral Fellowship, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (1994-1997)

- First Prize, Charlton Fund Student Research Scientist Poster Competition, Tufts Univ. School of Medicine

- Committee on Grants-in-Aid of Research, Sigma Xi

Aside from family, she leaves behind junior faculty whom she mentored and scientists whom she trained in her lab as students and post-docs. Most appeared at her bedside to express their appreciation in her last months, and she was touched by and grateful for their acknowledgement.

In her private life, she was an expert cook in pretty much any style, and enjoyed gardening and cooking together with her husband, as well as just walking around hand in hand, shopping, or watching video snuggled up. One of her favorite activities was exploring NYC, visiting museums and watching theater and concerts there, shopping for ingredients at Zabar's and other fine stores, and of course hunting bargains at the upscale clothing stores.

Sung Ok Yoon came to the United States for freedom. She acquired her US citizenship specifically to vote against G.W. Bush. I believe she would hope that people will take today's challengers to democracy and World peace as seriously as she did.

She did not express her specific preference for which foundation or charity she'd wish people to donate money or time to, but if one had to guess what she'd most want people to do to express appreciation for her and her life, even if you're a scientist improving the world by advancing scientific knowledge, it would be to use your talents, whatever they may be, and some energy, time and money if you can spare it, to help prevent the takeover of our country by plutocrats, fascists, and authoritarians.