Regent Lee awarded UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

Dr Regent Lee, a Junior Research Fellow at St Catherine’s, has been awarded a Future Leadership Fellowship from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The fellowships, awarded by the UK’s primary research funding body, provide financial support for up-and-coming researchers across a wide range of subject areas.

Regent is a Clinician Scientist and Associate Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University’s Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences. His research focuses on improving treatment and care of patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (known as AAA – swellings in the aorta, the main blood vessel in the abdomen), a condition which kills around 200,000 people globally each year.

The fellowship will support Regent in developing new blood and imaging tests to improve the management of patients with this condition. He plans to use the findings to create technologies that can be used to help other conditions too.

He commented: ‘I am incredibly privileged to be awarded this flagship Fellowship from UKRI. This is a boost for me to realise my vision in improving the health of vascular surgery patients on a global scale, and more!’

A total of £113 million in funding is available from UKRI, which is shared between almost 100 new fellows. Regent is joined by eight other Oxford academics in this round, and is the first surgeon at Oxford to feature.

UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser commented: ‘I am delighted that UKRI is able to support the next generation of research and innovation leaders through our Future Leaders Fellowship programme.

‘The new fellows announced today will have the support and freedom they need to pursue their research and innovation ideas, delivering new knowledge and understanding and tackling some of the greatest challenges of our time.’

Read more about the other UKRI Future Leader Fellows.