People

Dr. Adrian Lee is Director of the Institute for Precision Medicine, a joint effort by UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh to move biomedical research into personalized well-being and clinical care.

Dr. Lee was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh in 2010 where he is a Professor of Pharmacology & Chemical Biology, and Professor of Human Genetics.  Dr. Lee received B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in England, and came to San Antonio, Texas for his postdoctoral studies. He was subsequently recruited to Baylor College of Medicine and now the University of Pittsburgh.

Since his recruitment to the University of Pittsburgh in 2010, Dr. Lee has had a key role in shaping precision medicine research at the University of Pittsburgh and personalized care at UPMC. An example of the early progress in precision medicine at Pitt and UPMC is research and implementation of pharmacogenomics, and development of computational systems and architecture for sharing of clinical and genomic data both at the University of Pittsburgh and in the UPMC healthcare system.

The goal of Dr. Lee’s laboratory is to translate basic cell and molecular research findings into the understanding and treatment of breast cancer. This includes studies on the role of insulin-like growth factors in breast cancer, and identification of biomarkers for this targeted therapy. Dr. Lee has examined the effect of intratumor heterogeneity on prognostic tests in breast cancer, and is currently leading an effort to sequencing metastatic breast cancers to identify vulnerabilities for novel precision therapies.

Dr Lee has published over 120 peer reviewed research articles.  His laboratory is also supported by funding from the Department of Defense, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and other sources. Dr. Lee is on the Scientific Advisory Council for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Dr. Lee serves on numerous national peer-review committees, and is on the Editorial Board’s of several journals.