The Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST), the highest institution of its kind in South Korea, announced Charles Lee, Ph.D., FACMG, as a newly inducted fellow of the Academy. This recognition is given to scientists and engineers who have been active in their field for more than 20 years and made significant contributions during that time.
Lee is the scientific director and professor at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, and is the Robert Alvine Family Endowed Chair. He was awarded the KAST honor in recognition of his extensive global contributions to human genomics research. Dr. Lee is one of 33 newly appointed fellows to the academy this year. With a total limit of 500 active fellows at KAST, divided across five research areas, he will be one of just 150 current fellows of the Academy’s Faculty of Natural Science.
“I am profoundly honored to join so many inspirational scientists and colleagues who are members of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, and am deeply grateful for this tremendous opportunity,” says Lee. “At The Jackson Laboratory, we are ideally poised at the interface between human and mouse genetics, to fully realize precision medicine, and we are fully dedicated to improving human health. Understanding structural genomic variation in human biology, evolution and disease has already uncovered many new targets for treatment and still holds so much more potential to significantly impact human health. I couldn’t be more pleased with the advances we’re making.”
The academy highlighted several of Lee’s accomplishments, including his pioneering discovery of structural mutations in everyone’s genomes, linkage of structural mutations to genetic disease as well as his recent success in deciphering the first complete genetic sequences of 43 human Y chromosomes from lineages from around the world.
At JAX, the Lee lab applies state-of-the-art technologies to study structural genomic variation and its contributions to human diseases and vertebrate genome evolution. Dr. Lee is also responsible for the scientific direction and coordination of The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) for Genomic Medicine. He joined JAX in 2013 from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Throughout his career, Dr. Lee has received numerous accolades and awards for his research into the human genome, including an Award from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in 2007 and the 2008 Ho-Am Prize in Medicine. He is also an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Thompson Reuters Citation Laureate and was previously president of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) from 2017-2023.
Lee will be inducted at a KAST inception ceremony on January 17, 2024.