Jeehiun Lee

Jeehiun Katherine Lee (born 1968) is an organic chemist and a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Rutgers University. She currently runs her own research department on the New Brunswick campus. [ [http://rutchem.rutgers.edu/content_dynamic/faculty/jeehiun_katherine_lee.shtml Jeehiun Lee’s website at Rutgers University] ]

Although she is an organic chemist by training, she has expanded her research field to biological chemistry, using mass spectrometry and computer modeling as her main methods to characterize properties of damaged DNA-bases. [ [http://sciencewomen.rutgers.edu/profiles/index.php?q=myProfile&id=126 Jeehiun Lee’s profile from the Office for promotion of women in science at Rutgers University] ]

Research

Her main research focus is on damaged DNA bases, and the difference between the stability of DNA-duplex chains with and without a damaged base. Lee’s research is focused on DNA in the gas phase. Investigating DNA in the gas phase can elucidate the effect of solvent molecules such as water, in physiological conditions. Also, the effect of pi-pi-stacking is different in the gas phase, as is hydrogen bonding, since there is no competition between hydrogen bond from the solvent with hydrogen bonds between the DNA-bases.

Secondly, Lee’s research focuses on two enzymes which are involved in DNA synthesis and repair. The first is orotidine monophosphate decarboxylase, an enzyme which catalyses the decarboxylation of orotidine, one of the last reactions step in the synthesis of uracil. [ [http://www.chemgallery.com/sci.html The structure of OMP] ] This enzyme is an antitumor target.

Lee’s research focuses on elucidating the reaction mechanism of this enzyme, using ab initio calculations and quantum mechanics. The theory is that an anion is formed with a located negative charged, usually an unfavorable intermediate. More isotope effect calculations are necessary to confirm this reaction mechanism under physiological conditions.

Another class of enzymes of interest is the glycosylase family. These enzymes cleave damaged bases from DNA. Lee’s research focuses on the properties of normal versus damaged bases, and a proposed mechanism of cleavage without protonation has been suggested. In her lab, this hypothesis will be tested in enzymology experiments.

A third research line in Lee’s laboratory is in organic chemistry, studying pericyclic rearrangements, especially Cope rearrangements. These reactions yield important intermediates for synthetic products, but take high pressures and temperatures to occur. Lee investigates the solvent effects, and she has discovered that a nonpolar solvent speeds up certain reactions.

Education

Jeehiun Lee received her BA summa cum laude at Cornell University in 1990. After that, she did a PhD in organic chemistry at Harvard University, where she got her degree in 1994.

From 1995 to 1997, Lee was a NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCLA in the group of professor Kendall N. Houk [ [http://www.chem.ucla.edu/houk/ Prof. Kendall Houk’s website] ] before becoming an associate professor at Rutgers University.

Jeehiun Lee also teaches classes in organic chemistry for undergraduate students and advanced organic chemistry for graduate students.

Awards

• American Chemical Society PROGRESS/Dreyfus Lectureship Award (Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences)
• NSF CAREER Award on Mechanistic Studies of Nucleotide Reactivity [ [http://www.sciencestorm.com/award/0092215.html Jeehiun Lee’s proposal for the NSF Career award] ]
• Alfred P. Sloan Fellow
• Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education [ [http://eohsisvcs.rutgers.edu/cvs/JLeeCV.pdf Jeehiun Lee’s resume] ]
• Sigma Chi Scientific Honor Society

References