Erinna Lee is a Singaporean molecular biologist specializing in

apoptosis Apoptosis (from grc, ἀπόπτωσις, apóptōsis, 'falling off') is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death. These changes incl ...

and

autophagy Autophagy (or autophagocytosis; from the Ancient Greek , , meaning "self-devouring" and , , meaning "hollow") is the natural, conserved degradation of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components through a lysosome-dependent re ...

Early life and education

Erinna Lee was born in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

after high school. She was educated at

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, studying a BSc(hons) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from 2000-2004. She studied her PhD at the

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research WEHI (), previously known as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, is Australia's oldest medical research institute. Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960 for ...

, which was awarded in 2007 by the University of Melbourne. It was during this PhD where she began research on

programmed cell death Programmed cell death (PCD; sometimes referred to as cellular suicide) is the death of a cell as a result of events inside of a cell, such as apoptosis or autophagy. PCD is carried out in a biological process, which usually confers advantage durin ...

, which would form a large part of her subsequent research career.

Career and impact

After completing her PhD, Lee worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the WEHI until 2015. She then moving to work at

La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science The La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS) is an Australian institute based at La Trobe University in Melbourne. It contains research groups in life sciences (biochemistry and genetics), physical sciences (chemistry and physics), and ...

, becoming a laboratory head there in 2016 as well as being made a visiting scientist at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute.

Research

Lee's research focuses on

cell death Cell death is the event of a biological cell ceasing to carry out its functions. This may be the result of the natural process of old cells dying and being replaced by new ones, as in programmed cell death, or may result from factors such as dis ...

and

survival Survival, or the act of surviving, is the propensity of something to continue existing, particularly when this is done despite conditions that might kill or destroy it. The concept can be applied to humans and other living things (or, hypotheti ...

, and in particular the role of the

BCL-2 Bcl-2 (B-cell lymphoma 2), encoded in humans by the ''BCL2'' gene, is the founding member of the Bcl-2 family of regulator proteins that regulate cell death (apoptosis), by either inhibiting (anti-apoptotic) or inducing (pro-apoptotic) apoptosis. ...

protein and its associated homolog family. This is typically via characterising protein-protein interactions in the BCL-2 signalling pathway via structural characterisation of the constituent proteins (both

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

and

NMR Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with ...

methods) as well as

biochemical Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology an ...

and

biophysical Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Bi ...

characterisation of their interactions. She then applies this information to animal models to understand the contributions of these proteins to normal physiology and disease. Lee’s research has subsequently extended into autophagy more broadly and its contributions to human biology.

Awards and honours

Erinna Lee was awarded a Tall poppy award in 2010, and the 2021 Shimadzu Research Medal by the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Erinna Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Singaporean women scientists 21st-century Singaporean biologists Singaporean emigrants to Australia La Trobe University faculty