Dr. SangJoon Lee began his career in research as a PhD student at University of Tsukuba (Japan) studying innate immunity against influenza infection. He went on to do postdoctoral fellowships at  the University of Tsukuba and St. Jude Children Research Hospital (USA) studying innate immunity against various viral infection and a form of cell death called the PANoptosis.

Dr. Lee joined UNIST as an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Science in 2022, where he has focused on studying inflammasomes and inflammatory cell death in innate immunity, infections, inflammatory diseases, and cancer.