Not long ago teachers and researchers of Kim Il Sung University received a WIPO diploma and medal (WIPO Prize) for their invention related to the making and use of bone resorption inhibitor.

Twice WIPO Prize Winners

Kim Song Un, official of the university’s advanced science and technology exchange centre, and Jang Yong Man, researcher at the university’s academy of natural sciences, are both of the same age, and, amazingly, their birthdays fall on the same month.

They, however, are different in birthplace and personality. Jang hails from Hyesan, Ryanggang Province, and he is a mild man of close application. Kim comes from Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province, and he is a sharp man of decision.

But the two are partners in and out of work. They have been engrossed in joint research for over ten years. Both of them finished the courses of the chemical faculty and graduate school of the university, and began to work as researchers of the faculty.

Full of enthusiasm for creation they both took part in developing risedronate, a bone metabolism activator, in their twenties. Though there were difficulties and failures they pooled their efforts to pioneer the advanced technology. They thus succeeded in developing the activator in capsule form. Soon afterwards they developed a better bone resorption inhibitor. The inhibitor turned out effective in the treatment of osteoporosis, aseptic osteonecrosis, osteitis deformans and especially the spread of breast cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer and other cancers to bones.

Their research findings made a great sensation at international seminars, and were introduced in SCI-class magazines and other international scientific journals. They won the first WIPO Prize for developing risedronate in 2016, and another for developing the bone resorption inhibitor in 2018, thus becoming twice winners of the prize for the first time in the country.

And they were allotted flats in the apartment blocks for teachers of the university on one and the same day, that is, flat No. 361 of entrance No. 1 for Kim, and flat No. 361 of entrance No. 2 for Jang.

Though different in position and job now, they are engrossed in a new joint research project.

They say, “We’ll become twin pillars to exalt the honour of both the university and the country.”

“This Is for You”

Jang Kum Ju, a department head of the chemical faculty, is an elderly researcher and teacher who won a doctorate in 2008. He guided the aforesaid men in developing the inhibitor.

He says it is attributable to his wife that he has made achievements in research for decades.

His wife is a graduate of Pyongyang Jang Chol Gu University of Commerce. A well-known cook, she is excellent at making good use of nutritive substances’ structural, microbiological and physicochemical changes in processing food. She always understands his work and encourages him by dint of her wisdom.

The following happened in the course of developing the inhibitor.

When he was trying to find a way to enhance the efficacy of the inhibitor, she said, “In order to check bone destruction caused by necrosis, I think, the medicine should be quickly carried to the focus.”

Her words made him think of something. It was the idea that it would be possible if the function of enzyme as an obstacle to medicine is checked.

Yong Man and Song Un agreed with his idea.

They covered the inhibitor with protective film so that the medicine could be easily carried to the focus. This made it possible to enhance the efficacy of the medicine remarkably.

The elderly researcher also reduced the stages of the medicine’s synthesis reaction by one stage as compared with established methods, and established the technology of refining and analyzing the medicine.

The day he received the WIPO Prize he handed the diploma to his wife, saying, “This is for you.”