Areas of interest

Bowel cancer Childhood cancer Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) Sarcoma

Research group

Cancer Genetics and Functional Genomics

Biography

Dr Hanbyeol Lee is Postdoctoral Scientist with the Next Generation Precision Medicine team, using functional genomic approaches to identify new therapeutic targets in childhood brain cancers.

Dr Lee undertook a Bachelor of Science with a major in Biomedical Technology and completed her PhD at Kangwon National University in South Korea, where she investigated the therapeutic applications of stem cells in human pulmonary disease.

She has experience working in both academia and bioindustry, with a focus on the broad application of living organoids derived from stem cells to study infectious diseases and genetic disorders related to human cardiovascular disease.

After completing her work in Korea, Dr Lee joined the Next Generation Precision Medicine team in 2023, led by Professor Ron Firestein, where she is pursuing her strong interest in functional genomic screening to identify novel therapeutic targets for paediatric brain cancers.

She is currently involved in conducting high-throughput functional genomics screens using CRISPR/Cas systems to map functional dependencies across diverse cell lines derived from human paediatric brain tumours. Additionally, she performs combinatorial drug–CRISPR screens to identify synergistic, druggable targets in paediatric cancer models.