Raphael Carl Lee

Raphael Lee (born 1949) is an American plastic and reconstructive surgeon, medical researcher, and biomedical engineer. He is the Paul and Allene Russell Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago

Early life and education
Raphael Carl Lee was born in 1949, in Sumter, South Carolina, to a family of physicians (his father, uncles, and cousins). He graduated from high school in 1967, before enrolling in the University of South Carolina to study electrical engineering. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1971. Lee then attended Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to study biomechanical engineering, earning a Master of Science in 1975. That same year, he graduated with his M.D. from Temple University School of Medicine, serving his general surgery residency at University of Chicago Hospitals-Chicago. He also graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Doctor of Science in biomedical engineering in 1979, while completing a residency in plastic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. During his residencies, he received several awards for his research, including the Schering Scholar Award in 1978 from the American College of Surgeons. Lee was also one of the first recipients of the MacArthur Fellows Program in 1981, from the MacArthur Foundation.

Career
Dr. Lee has combined a clinical practice in surgery with his research efforts. He has served on the faculties of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University, University of Chicago and at the Chicago Electrical Trauma Research Institute. Mostly, that effort has been focused focuses on advancing the care of trauma injuries by mimicking a few basic behaviors of natural proteins that repair cell membrane. Several discoveries have emerged from that effort ,. In addition, Dr. Lee's students and residents developed and published independently validated therapies to tc control scar formation after traumatic injury. Lee is recognized for discovering the application of certain classes of amphiphilic block copolymers to mimic several fundamental protective processes of natural stress proteins in cells that perform cellular self-repair capability following injury.

Dr. Lee practiced plastic surgery in Boston and Chicago and was regularly listed as a leading surgeon. has served as Director of the University of Chicago's Burn Center and the Laboratory for Molecular Regeneration. In 2016 he was named a senior clinical scholar of UChicagoMedicine's Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence. In 2020, he received the University of Chicago's Alumni Association Golden Key Award for outstanding service to the University.. Dr. Lee has served on several National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation advisory committees and councils. Lee's research focuses on developing methods to assess and improve patient fitness for surgery, development of therapies to enhance survival following trauma or radiation, and to integrate control systems science into pharmacology. In 2007, Dr. Lee was elected to Fellow status in American Association for the Advancement of Science, elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Selected Awards

 * Inducted, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, 1975, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
 * Inducted, Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, 1975, Drexel University
 * Inducted Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society] 1980, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * Schering Scholar in Surgery, American College of Surgeons
 * Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence, Senior Faculty Scholar, UChicago Medicine
 * Cited, Chicago Magazine Surgeon Reports
 * 1981 Fellow MacArthur Fellows Program
 * 1985 Scholar Searle Scholars Program
 * Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award, Temple University School of Medicine
 * Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
 * Life Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
 * Fellow, Biomedical Engineering Society
 * Fellow, American College of Surgeons
 * Fellow, International College of Surgeons
 * Fellow, American Association of Plastic Surgeons
 * 1988 James Barrett Brown Award, American Association of Plastic Surgeons
 * 1995 Lindberg Basic Science Award, American Burn Association
 * 1998 Awarded Golden Key to City of Shanghai, Mayors Office
 * 1996 Lindberg Basic Science Award, American Burn Association
 * 2018 Pierre Galletti Award, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
 * Honoree, South Carolina African American History Calendar

Works

 * Raphael C Lee and Anna Chien The Doctor's Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis. (Book Review) Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - Volume 48, Number 4, Autumn 2005, pp. 616–618
 * M. Capelli-Schellpfeffer, M. and R.C.Lee, "Electrical Shock" in Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Webster, J.G., Ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1998
 * R. C. Lee, "Electrical and Lightning Injuries" in Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 15th Edition, Braunwald et al., eds. McGraw-Hill, New York 2001
 * Raphael C Lee, "Convolving Engineering and Medical Pedagogies for Training of Tomorrow's Health Care Professionals" IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (2013) 60:599, [DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2013.2243911]
 * Raphael C Lee and Anna Chien The Doctor's Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis. (Book Review) Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - Volume 48, Number 4, Autumn 2005, pp. 616–618
 * M. Capelli-Schellpfeffer, M. and R.C.Lee, "Electrical Shock" in Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Webster, J.G., Ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1998
 * R. C. Lee, "Electrical and Lightning Injuries" in Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 15th Edition, Braunwald et al., eds. McGraw-Hill, New York 2001
 * Raphael C Lee, "Convolving Engineering and Medical Pedagogies for Training of Tomorrow's Health Care Professionals" IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (2013) 60:599, [DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2013.2243911]

Author or coauthor of more than 275 journal publications and book chapters