Harim Chun

Decoding Cancer Complexity at Spatial & Single-Cell Resolution.

Hello, I’m Harim Chun, a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Sciences at The Catholic University of Korea and a member of PathFinderLab. I use spatial transcriptomics, scRNA-seq, and multi-omics to study tumor–immune interactions and biomarkers of therapeutic response.

Explore research interests Download CV
Current
Ph.D. Student
Focus
Tumor–immune systems
Methods
Spatial Transcriptomics, scRNA-seq, Multi-omics
Computational oncology illustration combining DNA, cellular systems, and multi-omics data

Research Interests

Spatial Transcriptomics

Mapping tumor–immune spatial architecture and treatment response in pleural mesothelioma.

  • Pleural mesothelioma Spatial analysis of tumor–immune interactions after neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy · AACR 2026

Single-Cell Multi-Omics

Integrating scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq to study cellular heterogeneity and gene regulation.

  • Immune-checkpoint response Molecular biomarker and gene-regulatory-network analysis · KOGO 2024 Excellence Poster Award
  • Hematopoietic stem-cell niche Single-cell analysis of HSC compartment regulation · Nature Communications 2022

Cancer Genomics

Identifying molecular biomarkers of cancer progression and clinical outcomes.

  • Metachronous gastric cancer Predictive biomarker study after endoscopic resection · co-first author, Cancer Medicine 2024
  • Liver cancer · PLEKHA8P1 Functional and prognostic study · co-first author, IJMS 2021

Research Experience

PathFinderLab

Sep 2024 — Present

The Catholic University of Korea & Korea University Anam Hospital · Advisor: Sung Hak Lee, M.D., Ph.D.

Graduate Student (2025—) · Research Associate (2024—2025)

Pleural mesothelioma Spatial transcriptomics Tumor–immune microenvironment Neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy AACR 2026

Choi Lab — Human Genetics & Genomics

Jul 2020 — Aug 2024

Korea University · Advisor: Jungmin Choi, Ph.D.

Graduate Student (2021—2024) · Undergraduate Research Intern (2020—2021)

Metachronous gastric cancer Liver cancer · PLEKHA8P1 HSC niche · scRNA-seq Immune-checkpoint GRN scATAC-seq

Post-Genome Informatics Lab

Aug 2019 — Jul 2020

Soongsil University · Advisor: Sangsoo Kim, Ph.D.

Research Intern

Insilicogen, Inc.

Jul — Aug 2019

Yongin, Korea

Bioinformatics Intern

Publications

Conference Presentations

Education

  • 2025 — Present

    Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences

    The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul

  • 2021 — 2024

    M.S. in Biomedical Sciences

    Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul · Thesis: molecular biomarkers of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors

  • 2015 — 2021

    B.S. in Systems Biomedical Science

    Soongsil University, Seoul · Bioengineering & Bioinformatics, Interdisciplinary Major in Big Data Computing

  • 2019

    Exchange Student, Biology

    University of Mississippi, USA

Awards & Honors

  • 2026—2027 Asan Foundation Scholarship for Biomedical Science — Asan Foundation
  • 2024 Excellence Poster Award — The 20th KOGO Winter Symposium
  • 2021 Brain Korea 21 (BK21) Scholarship — Korea Research Foundation
  • 2020 CoRE Tutoring Best Tutor Award — Soongsil University
  • 2016 · 2020 Semester Honor Scholarship — Soongsil University

Teaching

  • 2024 Single-Cell Multi-Omics — KSBI-BIML, Korea Society for Bioinformatics
  • 2023 Spatial Transcriptomics with R — KSBI-BIML & the 19th KOGO Winter Workshop
  • 2022 NGS Data Analysis Pipeline, GATK Best-Practice — Korea University, INNOPOLIS
  • 2019 Hadoop File System and PySpark — CoRE Tutoring, Soongsil University