Amy Lee

Amy Lee is the world's leading expert on GRP78 (BiP), the master regulator of the unfolded protein response, and its roles in cancer biology and therapeutic resistance. Her laboratory discovered that GRP78 is overexpressed in most cancers and acts as a multi-functional survival factor enabling tumor cells to tolerate proteotoxic stress. She showed that GRP78 surface translocation in cancer cells makes it an attractive therapeutic target, and developed antibody-based approaches targeting surface GRP78. Her foundational work established GRP78 as both a cancer biomarker and a druggable node in the UPR.