Biomedical engineering professor is named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

UCI biomedical engineer Abraham Lee has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. It’s the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in originating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have had a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Lee is the William J. Link Chair in Biomedical Engineering and professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering. His research focuses on developing microfluidic platforms for point-of-care and molecular diagnostics, sample preparation and liquid biopsies, single-cell processing and analysis, and vascularized organ-on-a-chip devices. He is the co-founder of Kino Biosciences, which builds three-dimensional vascularized micro-organs and micro-tumors to improve the accuracy of drug discovery and validation. Over Lee’s career, technologies created by him and his team have resulted in numerous licensed patents and have contributed to several startups, including Micrus Endovascular Corp. (which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2010) and SFC Fluidics. Thirty-eight of his inventions have been awarded U.S. patents. Lee is the eighth NAI fellow from UCI. He will be inducted at Space Center Houston in April at the eighth annual meeting of the academy.