November 18, 2022 Print
Congratulations to Dr Adrian Lee who is the winner of the inaugural John and Anne Leece Family Prize.
The prize is presented annually to a high achieving PhD candidate or early career researcher at WIMR whose work represents an innovative and original contribution to resolving an important problem related to a specific disease or health condition.
Dr Lee is a researcher clinician who is training to become a specialist immunologist. He is completing a PhD with the University of Sydney within the Amyloidosis and Autoimmunity Lab in WIMR’s Centre for Immunology and Allergy Research.
From a very close field of candidates, the selection panel unanimously agreed that Dr Lee stood out with an impressive academic track record and a research plan that has great potential to stimulate future high value research.
Winning the prestigious John and Anne Leece Family Prize will allow Dr Lee to focus on new investigations into Sjögren’s syndrome, a common but under-researched autoimmune disease. He will use new genomic techniques to determine whether identifying the genes that are used to produce autoantibodies serve as better predictors of disease symptoms than tests currently used. Dr Lee has already established a Sjögren’s syndrome biobank at Westmead Hospital and intends to now expand this further.
The John and Anne Leece Family Prize has been made possible by generous philanthropists John Leece AM and Anne Leece, who are long-term supporters of WIMR and The University of Sydney.
Congratulations again Dr Adrian Lee!