Seven members of the University of Chicago faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They join the 2022 class of 261 individuals, announced April 28, which includes artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors. They include Profs. Christopher R. Berry, Raphael C. Lee, Peter B. Littlewood, Richard Neer, Sianne Ngai and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, and Prof. Emerita Wadad Kadi.
Raphael Lee is the Paul and Allene Russell Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery and Medicine and a fellow at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
Prof. Lee is a plastic surgeon and biomedical engineer. His research has focused on the effects of molecular biophysics of trauma injury, therapeutic control of scar formation, molecular engineering of synthetic stress proteins, and reconstructive surgery. His laboratory was the first to report the capability of certain cell membrane ion channel blocks to reduce scars, to develop the tissue-engineered ligaments, and to develop clinically applicable copolymers to seal disrupted cell membranes and refold denatured proteins that promises to restore viability to damaged tissue following traumatic injury.
His ongoing research focuses on the use of copolymer therapeutics to inhibit severe viral infection and the application of feedback control theory to facilitate medical therapeutics.
Congratulations to Professor Lee and the other elected faculty members!