Professor Tae-Jin Choi studied Plant Pathology at Seoul National University and got his Master for the study on a plant pathogenic fungus. After his master, he got the Korean Government Abroad Scholarship and went to University of California at Berkeley. He studied molecular biology of a plant Rhabdovirus for his Ph.D. and work on a plant Tospovirus for his post-doc at University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Despite of his excellent experience on plant virology, he ended up with a professor position for fish virology about 25 years ago. Since then devoted himself for the research on diagnostics and prevention of fish and shrimp viruses, and have published over 80 research papers and trained over 50 master and Ph.D students including several foreign students.
Although Professor Choi was happy with his fish and shrimp viruses, he always has lingering interest on plant virus. So he studied a virus infecting microalgae, a plant in water when he visited University of Nebraska at Lincoln for his sabbatical. From this experience, he decided to develop microalgae as a bioreactor for the production of recombinant proteins that can be used in aquaculture such as fish hormones and fish and shrimp vaccines, which will be his topic on IFACE 2019.
In addition to scientific research in his lab, he was interested in real aquaculture filed and research section of the government. So, worked for one and half years as the Director of the Biotechnology Research Institute, at the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, a government research institute. He is serving concurrently as the Director of research Division of Chloland, a company producing concentrated chlorella for aquaculture. He also, served as a member of several government committees on fisheries and agriculture.
In summary, professor Choi is well trained in agriculture and aquaculture and devoting himself for research in the lab and practical approaches in real field.