Pei-Chung Lee

Pei-Chung Lee

Assistant Professor

pei-chung.lee@wayne.edu

 4137 Biological Sciences 

Social media

twitter.com/PCLeeWSU

Department

Biological Sciences

Pei-Chung Lee

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

  • Host-pathogen interactions

  • Innate immunity

  • Microbiology/bateriology

  • Post-translational modifications

Research

Our laboratory is interested in infection strategies used by bacterial pathogens to cause diseases. We focus on studying the function of the effector kinases encoded by the emerging pathogen, Legionella pneumophila, and how these bacterial kinases hijack host pathways in immune cells to promote infection in its hosts.

Our team welcomes motivated students from all backgrounds (graduate and undergraduate students) to join the lab and to explore exciting areas of host-pathogen interactions. 

Currently accepting graduate student(s) for: Fall 2023

When contacting, please let us know why our lab research interests you and your learning goals in our lab.

Education

  • 2019: Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institutes of Health (Mentor: Dr. Matthias Machner)
  • 2014: Postdoctoral Scholar, Case Western Reserve University (Mentor: Dr. Arne Rietsch)
  • 2011: PhD, Case Western Reserve University (Mentor: Dr. Arne Rietsch)

Awards and grants

University Research Grant 2020-21, Wayne State University (Role: PI)

Selected publications

  • Brendyn M. St. Louis, Sydney M. Quagliato, Pei-Chung Lee. (2023) Bacterial effector kinases and strategies to identify their target host substrates. Frontiers in Microbiology-Infectious Agents and Disease
     
  • Pei-Chung Lee, Ksenia Beyrakhova, Caishuang Xu, Michal T. Boniecki, Mitchell H. Lee, Chisom J. Onu, Andrey M. Grishin, Matthias P. Machner, Miroslaw Cygler. (2020) Structural insight into a bacterial kinase-host activator complex that exploits the mammalian Hippo pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA
     
  • Pei-Chung Lee and Matthias P. Machner. (2018) The Legionella effector kinase LegK7 hijacks the host Hippo pathway to promote infection. Cell Host & Microbe.
     
  • Pei-Chung Lee and Arne Rietsch. (2015) Fueling type III secretion. Trends in Microbiology.
     
  • Pei-Chung Lee, Stephanie Zmina, Charles M. Stopford, Jonida Toska, Arne Rietsch. (2014) Control of type III secretion activity and substrate specificity by the cytoplasmic regulatory protein PcrG. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Google scholar publication list

Courses taught by Pei-Chung Lee

Fall Term 2023 (current)

Winter Term 2023

Fall Term 2022

Winter Term 2022

Fall Term 2021