Oukseub Lee, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Surgery
Research Program
- Associate Members
Cancer-Focused Research
Dr. Oukseub Lee is a Research Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. She is a pharmacologist specializing in hormonal effects and pharmacological breast cancer prevention, adept at bridging preclinical discoveries with clinical evaluations of breast cancer risk biomarkers. Her current research focuses on three main areas. (1) local transdermal therapy (LTT) targeting breasts: she has sustained expertise in developing and translating breast-directed LTT of estrogen and progesterone receptor modulators, spanning formulation design, in-vitro/ex-vivo human skin systems, in-vivo pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and biomarker-based clinical studies. Over the past decade, her work—conducted in close collaboration with Dr. Seema Khan (PI) has advanced LTT as a patient-centered strategy to deliver preventive therapy to breast tissue while minimizing systemic exposure, generating new insight into breast skin as a viable route for targeted chemoprevention. Building on this foundation, she develops and evaluates nanocarriers for LTT of Z-endoxifen, the most potent tamoxifen metabolite for breast cancer treatment and prevention. She proposes Z-endoxifen–encapsulated transethosomes (Z-ENX-TE), an ultra-deformable nano lipid vesicle engineered to enhance safe skin penetration, stabilize the active Z-isomer during transit, and increase intramammary bioavailability. (2) Progesterone receptor antagonists to prevent BRCA1-associated breast cancer: she has investigated the blockade of progesterone signaling in BRCA1-associated mammary tumorigenesis using low doses of progesterone receptor antagonists in combination with non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).The current application builds logically on my prior work and expand scientific knowledge to identify pharmacological biomarkers induced by combined oral contraceptive in premenopausal women with BRCA1 mutation. (3) Investigating role of oral hormonal contraceptives in mammary tumorigenesis and testing whether oral tamoxifen would preserve the same cancer preventive efficacy and safety when it is co-treated with combined oral contraceptives.