Professor
Seung-Wuk Lee
Seung-Wuk Lee, Ph. D.
Professor, Department of
Bioengineering
B108A Stanley Hall,
University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
Phone: 510-664-5193,
E-mail: leesw@berkeley.edu, http://leelab.berkeley.edu
Professional Experience
Professor,
Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley (2015-Present).
Associate Professor,
Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley (2011-2015).
Assistant Professor,
Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley (2006-2010).
Associate Director,
Center of Integrated Nanomechanical System, UC Berkeley (2009-2015).
Faculty Scientist, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (2006-present).
Adjunct Professor,
Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Shenzhen, China (2015-2021).
Visiting Professor,
Institute of Material Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan
(2022).
Visiting Professor,
Material Science, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland (2012).
Postdoctoral Fellow,
Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2004-2005).
Research Assistant,
Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Austin, TX (2000-2002).
Teaching Assistant for
Inorganic Chemistry Lab, UT Austin, TX (Spring, 2002).
Engineer, Samsung
(Display Device Group), Korea (1997-1998).
Education
The University of Texas
at Austin, Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry (2000 - 2003)
Research Adviser:
Professor Angela M. Belcher; Thesis Title: Self-Assembly of Nanomaterials
Into Films and
Fibers Using Genetically Engineered Viruses.
Korea University, M.S.
in Polymer Chemistry (1995- 1997)
Research Adviser: Professor
Jung-Il Jin; Thesis Title: Synthesis and Luminescence Properties of
Poly(p-phenylenevinylene)
Derivatives Carrying Directly Attached Carbazole Pendants.
Korea University B.S. in
Chemistry (1990-1995)
Awards and Honors
National Science Foundation
- Engineering Frontier Research and Innovation Award (2022)
Bayer Pharma Biomedical
Research Award (2019)
CJ Grant Award, CJ
Company, Seoul, Korea (2017)
American Institute for Medical
and Biological Engineering’s Fellows (2016)
R&D 100 Awards (2015
and 2013).
Samsung GRO Award (2013
and 2015).
One of 12 Highlights for
2014 President Obama’s NSF Report to the US Congress.
One of top five
Nanomanufacturing process chosen by Scientific American (2013).
One of the 17 Scientific
Breakthrough Discoveries (iO9 Committee; 2012).
Berkeley Faculty
Research Fund Award, University of California, Berkeley (2010).
Presidential Chair
Fellows, University of California, Berkeley (2009).
National Science
Foundation CAREER Award (2008-2013).
Hellman Family Faculty
Award (2008).
First Place in MRS 2007
Spring Meeting Top 5 Hot Talk/Cool Papers (April,
2007).
Best Paper in IEEE-NEMS
2007 Meeting (April, 2007).
Annual Nanotech Briefs'
Nano50 Award; Top 15 Innovator in Nanotechnology (2005).
Gold Award in MRS 2002
Fall Meeting Graduate Student Competition (Dec.,
2002).
Best Poster Award at
2002 Spring Materials Research Society Meeting (April,
2002).
Best Employee Honor from
Samsung Electronics (Display Device Division) (1998).
Samsung Scholarships
(1996-1997).
First Class Honors from
Korea University (1993-1994).
About Professor Lee
Dr. Seung-Wuk Lee is a pioneering
bioengineer in the field of virus engineering. His major contribution in the
research is to utilize synthetic viruses as a tool to solve challenging
scientific and engineering problems in medicine, energy, and sensors. He
developed a new virus engineering system to create programmable structures and
functions through unique virus properties - self-assembly, self-replication,
and self-evolution. One of the representative works that he contributed is to
develop a novel pathway to synthesize diverse hierarchically organized
nanostructures existing in nature, termed ‘self-templating assembly’, which can
be used to synthesize our eye, skin, and biological tissue nanostructures. His
approaches enable scientists to synthesize desired tissue in the laboratory
with desired structures and functions in a programmed manner. He also expanded
the virus engineering approach to design a colorimetric biosensor to detect
desired chemicals, bioelectricity generating matrices to harvest energy, and
novel drug delivery vehicles to cure cancers and other diseases. During the
covid pandemic, he exploited his expertise to develop a virus sensor and
therapeutic methods. Recently, he expanded his virus engineering approach to
develop a novel environmentally friendly mining process to purify desired
metallic materials, such as rare earth elements and develop a process to
remediate microbe induced biocorrosion in the infrastructures.
His research
contribution in virus engineering has already broadly impacted on research communities,
education, industry, and society. His research was recognized by many awards
and honors. Among them, Professor Lee is two-time R&D 100 Awardee (2013
& 2015) and an NSF CAREER awardee, American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering Fellow. Dr. Lee’s on-going research was chosen by
President Obama’s US Congress Report entitled “Manufacturing Goes Viral”. He is
also a dedicated educator and contributor in the society. He has trained 17 new
professors, 4 medical doctors, 2 dentists, and many visiting scholars from all
around the world. He published a book, entitled ‘Bio-inspired Nanomaterials’
and organized multiple conferences in his research fields. He also co-founded a
venture company, Bioinspira Inc (now Calyx Inc) to develop environmental
sensors.