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Vivian Lee Named to Crain’s New York Business “40 Under Forty” 2006 List

NEW YORK – Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., of NYU Medical Center, was featured in this year’s “40 under Forty,” a special edition of Crain’s New York Business. She and the 39 other Crain’s honorees were chosen from a pool of 500 candidates, who had been nominated for their contributions to the fields of business, entertainment, sports, and the arts. Dr. Lee, a Professor of Radiology and of Physiology and Neuroscience, is the third NYU Medical Center physician to have received this prestigious recognition. Dr. Shaffiq Essaje was profiled in “40 under Forty” in 2003, and Dr. Christine Ren in 2005.

Since her arrival at NYU School of Medicine in 1997, Dr. Lee has quickly become a pioneer in the imaging technology known as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Today she is involved in numerous research and clinical projects, all of them aimed at perfecting how to examine organs without even piercing the skin.

“Just like the iPod and other cutting edge technologies that just keep getting smaller and better, imaging technology is also seeing dramatic advances,” says Dr. Lee. “We’re trying to take advantage of the rapid progress in MRI technology to gain more insights into all sorts of diseases so that we can diagnose and monitor treatment better than ever before.” Her own work lies primarily in two areas: understanding the main causes of kidney dysfunction among people who have had kidney transplants and searching for the connection between high blood pressure and renal artery stenosis (the narrowing or blockage of the artery that supplies blood to the kidney).

Dr. Lee, who earned her Ph.D. at Oxford University and M.D. at Harvard Medical School, is poised for an exciting period of discovery. Last fall, NYU’s Biomedical Imaging Center, the fruit of a partnership between NYU Medical Center and Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc, opened its doors. The Center contains some of the most advanced imaging equipment in the world, including an extremely powerful 7-tesla MRI system. As the Vice Chair of Research for NYU School of Medicine’s Department of Radiology, Dr. Lee is the administrator responsible for all aspects of the center. Together with department Chairman Robert I. Grossman, M.D., she is striving to make NYU internationally renowned for its imaging research.

Throughout her career, Dr. Lee has sought to translate her research in MRI to the broader arena of improved patient care. While completing her fellowship at NYU in the late 1990s, Dr. Lee collaborated with her colleagues to develop several new imaging techniques that are now used around the world. For example, their improved methods for looking at the liver, known as volumetric 3D contrast enhanced imaging, can examine much smaller tumors than ever before. Other areas of her research have included the development of new MRI techniques for looking at heart disease, such as myocardial infarcts, and improved methods for studying blood vessels in patients with atherosclerosis.

A leader in the international radiology community, Dr. Lee devotes a lot of her time toward the service of the leading professional societies in her field, such as the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and the Radiological Society of North America. Last year, in addition to serving on the Society’s Board of Trustees, Dr. Lee was the program chairperson for the ISMRM annual meeting in Miami, which drew a record attendance and emphasized a greater interaction between basic science researchers and practicing physicians. She has been invited to speak at national and international meetings throughout the world. Her new textbook, “Cardiovascular MRI: Physics to Practical Protocols,” was recently published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

To support future generations of medical students, Dr. Lee is a member of the NYU medical school admissions committee. Herself a Rhodes Scholar, she also serves on the Rhodes selection committee and advises nominees.

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