Dr. Lee is the Head of Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chief Science and Innovation Officer at the Ellison Institute and an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences, and Quantitative and Computational Biology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Viterbi School of Engineering, and Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. He provides leadership, guidance, vision, and development of research capabilities for executing the Institute’s research projects and will be responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating scientific direction, projects, and funding to sustain high-impact programs in support of a bold vision to transform cancer research in the 21st century.
Prior to joining the Institute, Dr. Lee served for more than a decade as a Health Sciences Director within the National Cancer Institute’s Office of the Director. Through direct support and use of public-public/public-private partnerships, he deployed programs focused on the integration of advanced technologies, trans-disciplinary approaches, infrastructures, and standards, to accelerate the creation of publicly available, broadly accessible, multi-dimensional data, knowledge, and tools to empower the entire cancer research continuum for patient benefit.
In 2016, Dr. Lee was assigned to Office of the Vice President to serve as the Deputy Director for Cancer Research and Technology for the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. A few key efforts he helped coordinate include the Applied Proteogenomics Organizational Learning and Outcomes (APOLLO) Network, international collaborations to share molecular characterization datasets, the Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer pilot, as well as co-chairing an interagency group focused on cancer data and technology policy issues.
Dr. Lee’s research involves elucidating the interplay between biophysical and biochemical drivers of age-related diseases and has co-authored over thirty papers, five book chapters, and one book. He is a member of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Research Advisory Council, the National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy’s Innovation Policy Forum, and the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute’s Board of Trustees. Dr. Lee earned his B.S. degree in biomedical engineering and Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
