<a href="mailto:plee2@kumc.edu" title="email Phil Lee">plee2@kumc.edu</a> Director, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Unit Director, Magnetic Resonance Technology Program Associate Director, Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center Professor, Department of Radiology Dr. Lee was trained in Biophysics and Medical Sciences with substantial expertise in developing advanced magnetic resonance technology. His early research aimed to understand the physiological bases and signal source of functional MRI (fMRI), and to develop non-invasive MR techniques for the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease by visualizing ß-amyloid plaques and quantifying iron accumulation in the brain.  Dr. Lee's research focuses on the developing novel MR techniques to assess brain structure, physiology and metabolism, and their applications to clinical studies to investigate the effects of lifestyle choices in aging and neurodegeneration  At present his team works on overcoming the multiple constraints of currently available MR techniques regarding spatial resolution, quantification accuracy and scan time by employing a totally new framework, namely spectral localization by imaging (SLIM)-based MR methods.  Dr. Lee’s work is currently funded by NIH grants and leads multi-center clinical research projects. Since joining HBIC in 2005, his leadership role as Director of Magnetic Resonance Technology includes working with about 100 investigators regionally and nationally for clinical and preclinical research. Significant portions of Dr. Lee’s efforts are directed toward making HBIC a highly competitive imaging center by equipping the core with a range of the most current MRI techniques and by developing new imaging capabilities. Dr. Lee is also the key expert at HBIC in all technical aspects of MR systems for their peak performance for all human and animal studies.