ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2024
The Emerging Generation Awards (E-Gen Awards) recognize post-MD, pre-faculty appointment physician-scientists who are meaningfully engaged in immersive research.
About the awardee
Benjamin W. Lee, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist interested in using novel engineering technologies to understand mechanisms underpinning cardiac remodeling and design drug delivery strategies to mitigate adverse remodeling in heart failure. He completed his undergraduate degree and combined MD/PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, then joined the Physician-Scientist Pathway at the University of Pennsylvania where he completed internal medicine training and stayed for cardiology fellowship. He is now in his final year of T32 funded research training.
As an undergraduate in the lab of Dr. Samuel K. Sia, then as a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Dr. Lee developed a foundational engineering skillset that he employed to answer basic and translational questions in cardiology. During his cardiology fellowship, he became interested in how failing hearts respond heterogeneously to mechanical load. Under the mentorship of Dr. Kenneth B. Margulies, MD, he has designed new tools to probe contractile physiology in primary human heart tissue, human engineered heart tissues, and clinically relevant animal models. Over the last 10 years, he has published a number of impactful articles in leading journals (Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, etc.) which have been featured in both scientific editorials (Science Translational Medicine, Nature Reviews Cardiology) and lay press. He envisions a translational laboratory with three major thrusts: (1) use of engineering tools to understand how the heart adapts to its biophysical environment, (2) target maladaptive remodeling in relevant human and animal models of heart failure, and (3) create new innovative platforms to grow, study, and target human heart tissue.