Featured Speaker

Raphael C Lee, MS(BmE), MD, ScD, DSc(Hon.), FACS

Dr. Lee, a Professor at the University of Chicago, holds appointments in Surgery (Plastic), Medicine (Dermatology), Molecular Medicine, and Organismal Biology & Anatomy (Biomechanics). He directs the Institute for Molecular Regenerative Medicine and the Electrical Trauma Research Program at the University. He is also a founder and Chairman, Board of Directors of Avocet Polymer Technologies, Inc., Renacyte BioMolecular Technologies, Inc., Electrokiinetic Signal Research and of Maroon Biotech, Inc. all of Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Lee is a plastic surgeon and biomedical engineer. His professional esearch interests have focused on the effects of physical forces on tissue injury and healing processes, pharmaceutical control of scar formation, and in reconstructive surgery. He is an alumnus of the University of Chicago’s general surgery residency. During his residency research period he completed his doctoral (ScD) dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plastic Surgery residency was completed at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University in 1983. He then assumed simultaneous tenure track faculty appointments at MIT and Harvard. During this time Dr. Lee’s lab reported two significant discoveries: (1) that cell membranes disruption was a primary mediator of tissue injury in various forms of trauma; and (II) inhibitors of cellular mechanical stress sensing in fibroblasts upregulate tissue degrading enzymes. He and his MIT students also developed an experimental method for applying mechanical stress and real-time non-destructive monitoring of quasistatic mechanical properties of tissue engineered ligaments and other uniaxially oriented tissues. He returned to Chicago in 1989, directed the burn center for 6 years, and established the first multidisciplinary program for treatment of survivors of electrical shock injury, now modeled at several centers in other countries. In the past decade, Dr. Lee’s laboratory discovered the capability of certain biocompatible synthetic copolymer surfactants to restore structural integrity to damaged cell membranes resulting in an internationally developing field of trauma research. Most recently, this work has been extended to develop of synthetic chaperones to refold denatured aggregated proteins. Dr. Lee’s research group is recognized for contributions in to characterizing the molecular biophysics of cell injury associated with trauma such as electrical shock, acoustic blast, ionizing irradiation and thermal burns, as well as for developing therapeutic strategies to restore cell structure and viability.

In his clinical arena, Dr. Lee and residents were first to report obturator neurovascular flaps for congenital and acquired perineal deformities. In addition, Dr. Lee’s research has resulted in new therapeutics which motivated establishment of two biopharm startup companies. He is board certified in plastic and general surgery and has been elected to Fellowship in both engineering and clinical societies. He also directs an international WHO sponsored program to determine
the health economic impact of Chernobyl on Belarus. In 1999, he received the honorary DSc degree from his undergraduate alma mater , the University of South Carolina, in part for this effort.Dr. Lee has received more than 40 professional awards and honors, including being named a Schering Scholar in 1979, MacArthur Prize Fellow in 1981, Searle Scholar in 1985 and a AAAS Fellow in 2008. In 1988, the James Barrett Brown Award from the American Association of Plastic Surgeons for "advancing knowledge in the field of Plastic Surgery"; In 1997 Dr. Lee was awarded the American Electrical Power Association Award for “Advancing Electrical Safety and Health". He is an elected Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Biomedical Engineering Society. His laboratory has attracted more than $15 million in research grants. He has authored and co-authored more than 180 publications, 4 books and many patents. Dr. Lee is also activity involved in service to the University of Chicago, the Quadrangle Club, and The Druids Club of Chicago.