Asan Institute for Life Sciences (AILS) was founded in 1990 at Asan Medical Center in Seoul under the mission of laying the foundation for creative research that will contribute to the advancement of medicine and ultimately the betterment of health and welfare of mankind.

AILS has continued to develop the harmony among basic-translational-clinical research on the basis of copious amount of clinical experience and resources as well as the excellent medical staff and researchers. In 2011, AILS opened the state-of-the-art integrated research center and established a biocluster for a global-scale open innovation of industry-academia-research-medicine.

In this era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, cutting edge technologies in various fields have been fused with medicine to actualize the future of medicine including personalized medicine and preemptive prediction and prevention of disease. As the social demand for healthy life increases along with technological innovation, the biomedical industry is being hailed as the next generation of growth engine of the global economy. As such, the Korean government is pushing its Research-Driven Hospitals project, through which medical centers will act as the hub for research and development of healthcare technology.