Kim Bit-nae-ri, head of the RNA Research Group at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, President Noh Do-young) and professor emeritus at Seoul National University's Department of Life Sciences, has been selected as a foreign member of the Royal Society, the first Korean to do so.

The Royal Society is the world's most prestigious academic society, founded in 1660 in London, England. Its purpose is to improve and collect useful knowledge about nature and technology, and to build a rational philosophical system. As the British Academy of Sciences, it leads the promotion of national scientific research and policy making, and serves as a center for international natural science research.

The Royal Society selects up to 62 members each year through a rigorous screening process based on the criteria of 'significant contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge'. Of these, only about 10 are foreigners in the world, spanning all fields of natural science.

Famous scientists who changed world history, such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein, were members, and to date, they have produced about 280 Nobel Prize winners. Due to this tradition and authority, membership in the Royal Society is considered the highest honor for a scientist.

Director Kim took office as the director of the IBS RNA Research Center in 2012 and is researching RNA and gene regulation. He is a world-renowned expert in the RNA field who has created unparalleled achievements, such as discovering the 'mixed tail' that prevents the degradation of messenger RNA (2018, Science) and analyzing the RNA transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, for the first time in the world (2020, Cell).

His academic authority has been recognized both domestically and internationally, and he was selected as a National Scientist in 2010, a foreign member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2013, a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2014, and a full member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in 2014.

With this, Director Kim has become the only Korean to be selected as a member of both of the world's most prestigious academic societies (the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society).

Kim Bit-nae-ri, the director of IBS, is a distinguished professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Seoul National University. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in microbiology from Seoul National University and his doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

△He has received numerous awards, including the Republic of Korea Top Scientist Award, S-Oil Leading Scientist Fellowship, Chen Award, Asan Medical Award in Basic Medicine, and the Liner Respect for Life Award.