H. Thomas Lee, M.D., Ph.D.

SA is proud to announce the winner of the 2004 ASA Presidential Scholar Award, H. Thomas Lee, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Lee is currently Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in New York City. He graduated from New York Medical College (M.D., Ph.D., physiology with honors) in 1994, having already received an engineering degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

After two years as a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Physiology at New York Medical College, Dr. Lee trained as a resident in the Department of Surgery at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, California. From 1996-99 he trained as a resident in the Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in that department and joined the faculty in December 2000. During his fellowship Dr. Lee entered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32 training program where he focused on ischemic preconditioning in the kidney.

Dr. Lee’s research has elucidated the protective roles of preconditioning and adenosine receptor modulation against renal ischemic reperfusion injury. He also has investigated modulation of renal protection by local and inhalational anesthetics. Using multiple molecular and biochemical approaches as well as in vivo techniques to better understand both injurious and protective signaling pathways, Dr. Lee’s current research focuses on signals that send some cells to necrotic, and others to apoptotic, cell death.

To date, Dr. Lee has published 26 papers in basic science and clinical journals. He has received numerous awards for his work, including first prize at the Postgraduate Assembly Meeting of the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists for his Resident Research Contest entry, and he was a finalist for the Vivian Thomas Young Investigator Award at the American Heart Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta in 1999. Dr. Lee wrote his first NIH R01 grant during the second year of his anesthesiology research fellowship and received NIH funding the day he joined the faculty at Columbia as an assistant professor.

Dr. Lee’s clinical practice is primarily devoted to anesthesia for vascular surgery, where he is recognized as an outstanding clinician. He has provided a collaborative link between the Department of Anesthesiology and other clinical and basic science departments at Columbia University.

The ASA Presidential Scholar Award was initiated in 2003 “to stimulate scientific advancement by recognizing colleagues who dedicate their formative careers to research” (January 2003 ASA NEWSLETTER). Like Peter J. Provonost, M.D., Ph.D., before him (Anesthesiology 100:216-217), Dr. Lee is an exemplary Presidential Scholar. The award will be presented prior to the Emery A. Rovenstine Memorial Lecture during the ASA Annual Meeting on October 25, 2004, at the Las Vegas Hilton. Dr. Lee will present his research, along with presentations by the winner of the Award for Excellence in Research and the winner of the Residents’ Research Essay Award, at the Celebration of Research Symposium, moderated by Michael M. Todd, M.D., Editor-In-Chief of Anesthesiology, following the Rovenstine Lecture. The Celebration of Research will take place from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, October 25, at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Recipients of the Presidential Scholar Award receive a plaque to acknowledge their achievement and a cash award to present their papers at the awards ceremony and oral scientific poster presentation at 9 a.m. on Sunday, October 24, during the House of Delegates meeting in the Las Vegas Hilton.

James E. Cottrell, M.D., is Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, Downstate Medical Center and Distinguished Service Professor, State University of New York, Brooklyn, New York. He is ASA Immediate Past President.