Dr. Lee is currently an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and the Associate Director of the Cutaneous Biology Research Center (CBRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. The CBRC was the first Research Center founded by the collaborative effort of academic and industry, Harvard Medical School and Shiseido Inc., and is a largest leading skin biology research center in the nation.
Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in molecular genetics under Dr. Nina Agabian at the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, and at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute under Dr. Ruth Sager, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lee was appointed Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at University of Michigan School of Medicine in 1991. In 1993, he moved back to Boston and was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Cancer Biology Program of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in 2002.
Dr. Lee’s research has centered on cancer biology. His scientific achievements include the discovery and characterization of several novel genes of importance for cancer biology, including H-cadherin, connexin-26, rit42, msp36, and several important p53 target genes involved in cellular senescence and cell death. Dr. Lee has pioneered the discovery and analysis of p53 response genes with pro-survival function. Dr. Lee serves as a permanent member for the National Institutes of Medicine Study Sections and American Cancer Society where he participates in the evaluation of scientific grants for the awarding of research funds. Currently, he also serves as an advisor to the Italian Government’s Federal Research Agency program on cancer. He has also consulted pharmaceutical companies for the last several years.
 Dr. Lee and his wife, Katherine Kim who is a clinician and chief of the Radiation Oncology Department in one of Harvard Medical School’s Affiliated Hospital, have two children, Kevin and Claire. They reside in Newton, Massachusetts.