Eunkyung Ko

Papers

Total Citations

185

H-Index

About

Eunkyung Ko is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of tissue engineering and soft robotics, whose work has fundamentally advanced the creation of living, biohybrid machines. Her primary research areas include biohybrid actuator design, skeletal muscle tissue engineering, and the cryopreservation of living tissues for robotic applications. Ko’s most significant contribution is the development of stronger, larger, and faster walking biohybrid machines, a breakthrough detailed in her highly cited 2018 paper (110 citations). By integrating hydrogel scaffolds with engineered muscle tissue, she demonstrated how scaffold geometry and cellular constructs can be optimized to dramatically increase force production and controllable movement. Ko also addressed a critical bottleneck in the field—the limited shelf life of living tissues—by pioneering methods for the long-term cryopreservation and revival of tissue-engineered skeletal muscle (41 citations). Her work on investigating the proteolytic degradation and life expectancy of these biological machines (34 citations) has provided essential insights into their durability and functional lifespan. Collectively, Ko’s research is laying the groundwork for a new generation of soft robots that are not only more powerful and faster but also practical for real-world applications in medicine, drug testing, and beyond.