Rate My Professor Steven Lee

Professor Steven Lee is Professor of Biophysical Chemistry in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, leading TheLeeLab. His research develops new biophysical methods, primarily single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and multidimensional super-resolution imaging, to answer fundamental biological questions. These techniques visualize processes in living cells at the eukaryotic plasma membrane and nucleus with high spatial precision. Specific interests include the molecular origins of human immunity by studying the spatial distribution and interaction of individual membrane protein complexes on the plasma membrane of live T-cells, and the molecular composition, stoichiometry, and three-dimensional spatial arrangement of histones during DNA replication and repair in the fission yeast nucleus. The lab applies these methods to other biological problems requiring nanoscale precision, drawing on physical and chemical insights into fluorophore kinetics, theoretical fitting of impulse response functions, and image reconstruction algorithms.

Steven Lee completed his DPhil in Physical Chemistry with Dr. Mark Osborne, followed by postdoctoral work with Professor Sir David Klenerman (FRS, FMedSci) at the University of Cambridge and Professor W.E. Moerner (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014) at Stanford University. He held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship before promotion to Professor in June 2022. Awards include the 2017 Marlow Prize in Physical Chemistry from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the 2025 RMS Scientific Achievement Award for contributions to microscopy. Key publications feature '3D structures of individual mammalian genomes studied by single-cell Hi-C' (2017), 'Initiation of T cell signaling by CD45 segregation at "close contacts"' (2016), 'Single-molecule visualization of DNA G-quadruplex formation in live cells' (2020), and 'Large-scale visualization of α-synuclein oligomers in Parkinson’s disease brain tissue' (Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2025). He co-founded Zomp to advance 3D imaging technologies and co-hosts the podcast TheScienceShed.