On November 30, 1945, shortly after Korea’s liberation, a group of 15 physiologists, including Kwang-hyun Lee, Chung-sun Lee, Ki-jin Kim, and Ki-kyu Nam, gathered at Lee Kwang-hyun’s house in Kwonyoung-dong, Seoul, and founded the Korean Society of Physiology (initially named Chosun Physiological Society). The KPS was firstly founded among basic medical societies in Korea. The name was changed to the Korean Physiological Society in 1949, the year after the establishment of the Korea’s Government.

In 1946, Lee Kap-soo and Kim Myung-sun participated in the promoter conference to revitalize the academic societies throughout the country. In 1947, they established the Chosun Medical Association in order to organize the unification society and the first academic conference was held under the association. In 1949, the Chosun Medical Association was renamed to the Korean Medical Association and 3rd conference was held.

Since the 9th Physiological Conference in 1957, the KPS has held its own conferences, and since 1982, it has held two conferences every year in the form of spring seminars and autumn general conferences.

In 1965, the KPS became a full member of the International Union of Physiological Sciences and has since been actively engaged in exchanging ideas with the other societies. KPS joined as an active member of the Federation of Asian and Oceanian Physiological Societies (FAOPS) at July 1989 during 31st IUPS meeting held in Helsinki.

In 2006, the KPS hosted the 6th Congress of FAOPS in Seoul, Korea and in Nov. 2023, the KPS will host the 10th Congress of FAOPS in EXCO, Daegu, Korea.

The number of members has gradually increased from about 20 during the early years of its establishment to more than 400 as of 2004, and it is expected to continue growing in the future. Since 1991, the executive board has been formed and executed under the president, and the position of chairman was established in 1997 to oversee the general affairs of the association. The term of office, initially one year, was extended to two years in 1964, then back to one year again in 1987 with the 30th president. In addition, the term of office for the Chairman and Executive Directors, who have held their positions since 1998, is two years. Starting in 2022, the chairman and the president were combined as a president with the term of two years.

KPS meetings is held two times a year. The spring meeting is usually held in July with the other basic medical societies under the Korea Association of Basic Medical Sciences. The general meeting is usually held in Autumn. The venue of the meeting is different every year and all around area of Korea. The official language is not fixed, partly Korean and partly English. Our meeting offers good opportunity to build friendship and to exchange the scientific findings.

In every general meeting, KPS offers three awards such as a young physiologist award, KJPP citation award, and Yudang award. The Young Physiologist Award is given to a physiologist who is under 40 years old. The KJPP Citation Award is given to authors who have published the most cited paper in KJPP. Yudang award is awarded for outstanding research in the field of physiology. Yudang is another name of Prof. Yung E Earm and is supported by the donations from Prof. Earm and his students.

The research activities of the KPS members are mainly supported by grants from National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea funded by the Korean government. NRF also provides supports for human resource development and international cooperation promotion. Research grant are also provided by the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. KPS’s research activities are importantly carried out through 11 medical sciences division. Its subgroup consists of ion channel, smooth muscle, physiome, metabolism, mitochondria, nerves, cardiovascular, exercise, skin & epithelial cells, stem cells, and environmental physiology.

The Korean Journal of Physiology was published two times a year from 1967. It was merged with the Korean Journal of Pharmacology and renamed the Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology from 1997. The Korean Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology (Korean J Physiol Pharmacol, KJPP) is the official journal of both the KPS and the Korean Society of Pharmacology (KSP). The journal is published high-quality articles bi-monthly in English. KJPP publishes original, peer-reviewed, scientific research-based articles that report successful advances in physiology and pharmacology. KJPP (eISSN: 2093-3827, pISSN: 1226-4512) is indexed in SCIE, Scopus, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), and an open access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Journal website is www.kjpp.net.