The Lee laboratory studies the role of stress-inducible ribosomal intergenic long noncoding RNA (rIGSRNA) in intracellular phase transition programs and the construction of solid-like condensates. The focus is how these unusual post-translation regulatory pathways confer tumor cell dormancy, a critical and enigmatic phenotype that drives cancer cell resistance to therapy and recurrence long after the removal of the primary tumor. Our laboratory has made seminal discoveries on intergenic long noncoding RNA, phase separation and transition and pioneer work on how cancer cells exploit these processes to enter a spore-like phenotype of extreme resistance to therapy and the harsh conditions of the tumor microenvironment. Members of the Lee lab use state-of-the art technologies to uncover novel pathways involved in the evolution of malignancies.

The Lee laboratory is funded by multiple grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA). We have an history of publishing in high impact scientific journals and are always excited to recruit graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates that want to work at the for-front of cancer research.